Flex Obsession: a New Mantra
Guta Moura Guedes speaks to Cluster and explains how flexibility is the new design precept and how it has been translated into the intense experience of “Flexibility”: the flexible design exhibition in a prison, in Turin
Guta Moura Guedes
Ivy, designer Michael Meredith
What are, if any, the conceptual and philosophical cross-references that inspire the Flexibility metaphor?
I see flexibility as much more connected to biology and to organic structures and neurologic systems. And if it is interesting to analyze it looking for flexible capacities in animals and in nature in general I am, above all, interested in what we call cognitive flexibility. Which is, according to the definition of Spiro & Jehng, the ability to spontaneously restructure one’s knowledge, in many ways, in adaptive responses to radically changing situational demands. Neurologically we are now researching if this flexibility of human behaviour can be understood as an evolutionary extension of previous behaviours or if it is a departure…
If we teach people to develop flexible behaviour, we create a more efficient environment to face a fast evolving society. But it needs to be democratic to work
What is the connection between design and flexibility?
Through design we create our new brave world. We dream our world,then create it. So the flexibility of our artificial landscape is completely dependent on how flexible our tools are, how flexible the result of the design process is. We can achieve more flexibility if our own tools are more flexible, if we design them to be more flexible.
Different views on economic systems and cities stress the necessity of integrating regulations that stimulate tolerance and the acceptance of diversity; as normally occurs in complex systems, when the superabundance of information, fluxes and relations give life to more flexible situations; much the same as in organisms of greater genetic variety.
Design, on the contrary, often accentuates the aesthetics of simplicity and minimalism, that is, projects in which each single element must respond to its own specific function.
What do you think about this?
I agree with you in terms of cities and economic systems but I do not know it applies to design. I believe that most of the times what seems to be a simple product is the result of years of research and years of knowledge. Most of the time simplicity is really the most difficult stage of perfection and it’s so hard to obtain, that in fact very few design products can claim that they have it. I think that most of our production, most of our objects are really a mess, a total misunderstanding. But, if you mean that design, used properly, can help to achieve that simplicity, I agree with you. But most of the times it doesn’t happen like that.
What attitudes should to be developed during the planning phase of design, improve adaptability and consequently flexibility?
One fundamental attitude is to really think about the user, and the other is to develop a full understanding of is this fast-changing context, that moves at increasing speed. This is new. We are used to being obliged to think about the user – at least designers should be used to this – but the rapidity of transformation when it comes to the environment, technology, science and social contexts, nowadays is immense, and moreover unpredictable. So designers must not only think about who is going to use their creation, but also anticipate the scenario in which it is going to be used and a certain number of possible changes… hard work.
Sometimes, the aesthetic quality of an object excels its functions and appeals to the emotional side of the user, stimulating the use of a wider range of functions; this causes the user to form a creative relationship with the object that goes beyond the confines of its original design purpose. Do you consider this to be the result of successful design, and a good example of flexibility?
Definitely, yes. Exploring the emotions and stimulating the creative of behaviour of the user are two of the most subtle and probably most exciting skills of a flexible object. In fact, there is huge difference between objects that are designed to be used in a different context or to have more than one function and objects that are designed to stimulate a creative answer. Both are flexible. But one responds to a need or to a visible change; the other calls for action, for dynamism, for interaction and therefore calls to be changed.
One fundamental attitude is to really think about the user, and the other is to develop a full understanding of is this fast-changing context, that moves at increasing speed
Today, the word “design” has extended its field of application enormously, starting with projects of objects, to fluxes, to strategies and further still. We frequently hear design associated to terms such as sensorial, experimental, and strategic; almost as if objects have lost importance.
To what extent do you think this is due to the digital and technological revolution of the last twenty years?
Well, digital really heralded a need for design, but not only for design, we can say the same for many other disciplines. A new field of action and of experimentation and of needs, as well, was discovered with the digital world. So it was completely predictable that such a flexible and powerful tool as design is was able to find a stimulating terrain to be explored. The digital revolution also brought about something relatively new: the constant presence of immateriality. Designers helped to create this new scenario and users became familiar with this and with the strong weight of immateriality in our life. In a parallel movement new fields of action for designers appear in some very traditional fields, like politics, marketing, cities’ strategies, social planning: designers are now called to integrate multidisciplinary teams and to use their knowledge in many areas far from the most common tangible products.
The fact is that in terms of human evolution technologically we have already reached a level that we haven’t reached in the way we organize our society and our urban social structures, for example. And now, design is dealing with those areas, as well. Which is great and can produce excellent results. Of course, this is a change, a deep change, and for many people it is still relatively new… people are still used to thinking that designers design chairs or posters.
Flexibility is the need to overcome ready made solutions, allowing for action in a fast evolving society. What needs must we respond to, today, in places like the favelas and the new towns – from those in the Emirates, Dubai or Doha to those created ex-novo in China?
Social cohesion is probably the big challenge for our society and for those world areas you mentioned, namely the favelas. Dubai and Doha have different problems to solve.
It’s funny, but under a certain perspective, China with such a rigid political system can, somehow, prove how flexible a country can be nowadays. So flexible, so strong and, so fast, not adapting to a context that is changing but to really anticipating that change.
If we teach people to develop flexible behaviour, if we produce flexible objects for our houses and offices and if we design flexible urban structures we create a more efficient environment to face a fast evolving society. That is for sure. But it needs to be democratic to work. It needs to be for all.
designers are now called to integrate multidisciplinary teams and to use their knowledge in many areas far from the most common tangible products
According to some existing figures, in 2050 over 90% of the world’s population will live in cities, places that are too often characterized by rigid structures and a lack of adaptability. In this scenario, how can flexibility in design help us to rethink living conditions, slow down the excessive population concentrated in big cities, and eventually answer to the demand for centrality, expressed by migrants, with no previous solutions?
Well, we can’t ask that much of flexibility. We will need much more to be able to move forward in this 21st century scenario. The lack of space, the lack of goods, the lack of time, the lack of sustainability in our world will definitely ask us to be more conscious and more committed. We will all need to learn to ask for more seriousness and to explore further what we have further and deeper. Cognitive flexibility, if trained and if well explored, can help us to do this in a sustainable perspective.
Has your eclectic background from music to biology, management to your studies in Design and the cultural milestone of the Biennial Experimenta Design – been useful to develop and apply the concept of flexibility in design?
Undoubtedly yes. Maybe more than useful, it has influenced me a lot. Since very early on and because of all those different interests and experiences, I learned to develop a sort of a mental and emotional structure, a “matrix”, that I use in different contexts, adapting it to the area I am dealing with and to the goals I am pursuing. So you may say that flexibility is in my DNA.
Do you think that architects and designers require new education methods?
What do you teach in your university lectures?
To look around. To feel. To research, seriously and in a extremely committed way, who you are and what are you looking for. To work hard. To be open minded. To use design as an operational tool for everything you plan to do. Really. To constantly keep in mind the need for sustainability, but also the sense of beauty, of ethics and generosity. Simple things.
About education methods, yes, I think we need new ones. It’s impossible to keep the same structure now, when we have Internet and globalization and such a complex world. It needs to be done, and not only in design and architecture. But it will take time.
Do you have a message for Torino 2008 World Design Capital and the Flexibility exhibition?
This exhibition is not a closed statement. On the contrary, it’s an open door for thinking and a platform to question design, designers, citizens, cities and flexibility itself. Reinforced by the fact that it’s inside a prison, so there is strong tension there. I hope people feel challenged by it and react. It’s not neutral, that I am sure.
Is there something you would like to say to Cluster’s readers?
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