design is intelligence made visible. de sign doe s mat ter An Anthology of Essays Introduction by David Feldberg Foreword by Frank Delfino Design Does Matter rd Edition Published by Teknion DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd i 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 Contents Introduction David Feldberg iv Foreword: Leading Creatively through Design Frank Delfino iix Laying the Groundwork for Sustainable Development Scott Deugo 1.01 Innovation is the New Black Michael Bierut 2.09 You are Brilliant, and the World is Hiring Paul Hawken 3.15 Branding by Design Michael Vanderbyl 4.23 Working with What We Have Aaron Betsky 5.29 The Design of Business Roger Martin 6.37 A Legacy from the Past David Suzuki 7.47 Beauty in Economy Jack Diamond 8.57 Matters of Beauty Penny Benda 9.61 Designing the Future of Fashion Norma Kamali 10.69 Design and the Future John Hellwig 11.75 Challenge and Change Kay Sargent 12.83 The Art of Healing Virginia Postrel 13.91 Design Thinking and the Healthy Society Sara Diamond 14.99 Design and the Everyday Art Gensler 15.107 Design as Renewal Paul D. Oberman 16.115 Design after Nature Kate Orff 17.123 Where are the Foxes When We Need Them? Dina Frank 18.129 Repurposing the Interior Designer 19.135 Dean Matsumoto Lou Danziger Design Perspectives: From Creator to Consumer Carolyn Hatch 20.145 The Evolution of the Urban Landscape Janet Rosenberg 21.155 The Planet’s Biggest Realist Cindy Allen 22.161 Design and the Future of Business Peter Lawrence 23.167 Quote on front cover: on front Quote Nature in the City — A Design Challenge Geoffrey Cape 24.177 DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd iiii 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd iiiiii 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 Design Does Matter v introduction David Feldberg of doing business. That’s as it should be. It is rewarding to see how far the furniture industry has come along the path to sustainability, and deeply gratifying to see the spirit with which all at Teknion have rallied around our vision of sustainable leadership. We have come a long way in our efforts to reduce environmental impact as we pursue sustainable development and I’m very proud of Teknion’s accomplishments. Within these pages, you will find several voices that speak to the subject with insight and eloquence. I am immensely pleased that this book has found such a receptive audience in the architec- ture and design community and beyond, engaging business leaders and others who want to know more about design — what it is, what it does and why it matters. It is my hope that Design Does Matter helps to advance awareness and understanding of the role of design and the skills that designers bring to business — from product development to communications Nearly a decade ago, Teknion published the first edition of Design Does Matter and in to organizational structure and work processes. In this way perhaps we can at last achieve 2005, printed an expanded version inspired by the book’s enthusiastic reception among the some kind of harmony among nature, technology and human purpose. architecture and design community. Once again, we are moved to publish a new edition of Design Does Matter, a collection of essays by a diverse group of authors each with his or I am grateful to each writer for the generosity shown by contributing to our book. I hope her own angle of vision, but who hold in common the conviction that design does indeed, you find it an instructive, pleasurable and inspiring read. matter. Given the economic and environmental dilemmas of our time, I feel confident in asserting that good design, effective design, matters now more than ever. David Feldberg is President and Chief Executive Officer of Teknion. Certainly, at Teknion, we have continued to invest in design even as we weather a global financial crisis. We’ve developed new alliances with independent designers and continued to build our product portfolio. Design thinking remains an integral part of our culture. It is as much a part of our business strategy as is the form and function of our furniture prod- ucts. And I believe that as we, our industry and business as a whole continue to investigate and integrate design into our various activities — product development, communications, organizational development — design will prove to be a powerful tool for realizing a world of rich and sustained abundance. At Teknion, sustainability is now understood as a basic tenet of good design and a principle DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd iviv 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd v 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 – Aaron Betsky – Aaron DDDM_III_Book_crossover_quotes.inddDM_III_Book_crossover_quotes.indd 1 111-8-231-8-23 11:3811:38 DDDM_III_Book_crossover_quotes.inddDM_III_Book_crossover_quotes.indd 2 111-8-231-8-23 11:3811:38 Design Does Matter ix foreword: Leading Creatively Through Design Frank Delfino and green design. Truly a model of adaptive reuse of historical buildings, design and construction of the new administrative building will qualify for LEED Platinum certification. The Evergreen Brick Works project suggests new possibilities for the design of urban spaces and protecting historically significant buildings, addressing the issue of a more sustainable pattern of living by creating economic, social and environmental returns under one roof. Projects that re-imagine the uses of design — like the Evergreen Brick Works project — need support not only from the community, but also from the highest level of government, if they are to be successfully implemented and thus have a positive impact on people, culture and the economy. Significant money, talent, time and energy need to be invested if new ideas, technologies and methodologies are to bear fruit in terms Design is everywhere, yet it is misunderstood by a majority of people who fail to grasp the of human needs. Designers and engineers have already developed ways to harvest true depth and breadth of design practice, or its full potential to act as a medium of positive energy from airborne wind turbines that harness the power of the jet stream. Multi- change. With the third volume of Design Does Matter, it is our intent to expand and enliven disciplinary teams are working to make renewable fuel from algae — a solution with the dialogue initiated by the first two volumes and to illustrate how design, in some form, enough real market potential to reap investment by business leaders including Bill Gates. touches almost everything we see or use. Such innovative, cross-disciplinary approaches are what is needed to address critical environmental challenges and achieve a stable co-existence with the natural systems on This new edition presents some of today’s most observant and intelligent design thinking which our human enterprise depends. and celebrates its extraordinary diversity by drawing essays from design writers, thinkers and luminaries working across the spectrum of architecture, urban and landscape design to I believe that we also need to encourage the cross-collaboration between and among the product, graphic and interactive design to emerging disciplines like biomimicry. We also design disciplines in order to integrate their respective intelligence and thus amplify their expand the dialogue geographically, including voices that speak from cultures around the potency. A green office building, hospital or hotel needs innovative thinking beyond the world. I think you will find these essays provocative, interesting and always on the mark. traditional disciplines, as well as thoughtful graphic communications that live up to the building’s identity and smart material choices for signage and wayfinding that reinforce Recently, I’ve been inspired by work being done as part of the Don River Valley restoration its purpose and link the building to its environment of earth, river and sky — or concrete, at Evergreen Brick Works, in Toronto. This multi-faceted project has reclaimed and glass and steel. Of course, some designers with deep skills in architecture and graphics are transformed an abandoned industrial site into a large-scale environmental community also applying design to products and environments beyond furniture or interiors, but I center — farmer’s market, meeting and event center, exhibition space, children’s camps, believe that the more designers collaborate with each other or borrow from other fields like and educational and youth-based programming center — that exemplifies urban sustainability engineering, the better the prospect for creativity and innovation. DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd viiiviii 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 DDDM_III_Book_AA.inddDM_III_Book_AA.indd ixix 111-8-231-8-23 8:298:29 Design Does Matter xi There are tremendous opportunities for innovation that serve the human good — including support the continuing evolution of design toward making a more beautiful, humane and the emerging clean economy with a yet-to-be-realized economic activity. We’ve designed sustainable world. things that are beautiful and a pleasure to use. We’ve designed products that make life safer and more fun. Now, we must also design things that serve multiple purposes, products that Frank Delfino is President of World Markets at Teknion and a member of the Board of can be repurposed or reused and that do not become waste or degrade the natural world. I Directors at the Design Exchange in Toronto. also believe that manufacturers have an obligation to look at products that are approaching the end of their life cycle — and figure out ways to retool, reuse, recycle or repurpose those products. Just because they’ve already been designed, manufactured and entered the market, doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility of creating ways to remove those products from the waste stream. Unfortunately, there is still resistance by some business leaders and policy makers to the idea of sustainability — a belief that prosperity and sustainability are inevitably at cross- purposes.