Design and the World Situation

Abstract

This essay addresses the dilemmas posed by the conflict between two opposing paradigms of world development: an ‘expansion model’, which proposes a continual enlargement of markets as the solution for problems of unequal distribution of wealth, and an ‘equilibrium model’, which argues that the abuse of finite resources and other environmental concerns must necessarily impose limits to economic growth. The author suggests that the field of design is ideally positioned to provide new approaches capable of achieving a fruitful integration of these two apparently irreconcilable positions. Design, due to the very nature of its methodological techniques, is endowed with the ability to devise productive courses of action, if only designers can manage to widen their traditional sphere of action to embrace the larger concerns at stake in ensuring the well-being of the world in general and not just particular segments of its population.