Saviour Mode Activated
This year’s theme for Melbourne Design Week is “Design the world you want” [1] which offers the slightest shift in gears from previous themes such as “How can design shape life?”, “How design can shape the future?”, “How design delivers change?” and “What does design value and how do we value design?” (For value see commodification, late stage capitalism, precarity etc etc). These themes are issued as incentives for participating in the programme and are posed with commercial design practitioners, and studios, in mind. This year’s theme makes a direct appeal to a designer or design studio’s stance as ‘creators’. It is an appeal harpooned directly into the designer godhead. It says you are part of a select cache with the privilege of designing the world you want.
For many, this ‘world shaping’ is simply not available. Sometimes we might get a sense of autonomy in shaping our surrounding environs through a form of extended collaboration, or self curation, occurring between us and designed material that collects around us. But mostly our worlds are shaped by tools that are jealously guarded by a coalition of councillors, consultants and their chosen suppliers.
General opinion is solicited — mostly off the back of white label applications such as The Hive’s suite of participatory tools [2] which have been pitched to and adopted by councils such as the City of Melbourne. These tools…
