An inspiring book on environmental design

books:


	• Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change Victor Papanek Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1985 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An inspiring book on environmental design

I first heard a lecture by Victor Papanek about 20 years ago, shortly before this revised edition was released. He was a very impressive speaker, drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of ecological design ideas. His work has taken him far and wide and in the process allowed him to revamp many of his views on environmental design. This book is an extensively updated version of his seminal book on the subject. It has become a bit dated in the 20 years since its release, especially in regard to computer software design. But, most of the material he covers is still relavent to the present, as we have only begun to scratch the surface of sound ecological ideas.

Having read the more recent books on ecological design by Sim Van Der Ryn and William McDonough, I was surprised to see that neither mentioned Papanek, who prefigured many of the ideas they present in their current books. Papanek long ago advocated the lease/use principle, which makes much more sense in a rapidly changing technological world than does the buy/own principle that continues to dominate our social thinking. Papanek notes the many cultural and psychological blocks we have created for ourselves when it comes to ecological design, but also illustrates how we can overcome these blocks with methods such as bisociation, first proposed by Arthur Koestler. But, what really makes this book stand out are the great number of illustrations that Papanek uses to demonstrate his ideas. This is one of the most practical books written on environmental design.

While Papanek was an industrial designer, his ideas are equally germaine to the field of architecture and biology. He advocated a multi-disciplinary approach, feeling that our universities had become too compartimentalized and were stifling creativity, which needs cross-pollination in order to thrive. The book is as inpiring as his lectures. Papanek challenges the reader to explore new avenues, not continue to follow the status quo, which only results in creative dead-ends.

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The Book All Designers Should Read

It has been many years since I read this important book. I hope this book will be made a compulsory read for all design students. If only more designers would adopt Mr Papanek's approach to socially-responsible design, the world will be a much better place to live in.

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design ethics

one of the best books on design ethics till date!

Politicizing design

Papanek, like his mentor Fuller, took on a guru like status where rhetoric became more important than the reality. He bends facts and contradicts himself several places in this book.

Here are a few that jumped out at me

Misrepresentation of the facts -

Page 89 - The Hyatt collapse wasn't bad design rather the builder changed the construction and inspectors weren't doing their job.

281 - He talks about farm implement companies' negative reaction to his walking tractor proposal. Troy-Bilt Rototiller has around since 1937, was and is building a 10 HP tiller very similar to the one pictured.

Contradicts himself -

Page 6 he says, "Design must be meaningful. And meaningful replaces such semantically loaded expressions as ... "ugly"... "cute"...

Page 93 - he describes gum as "tawdry

Page 246 - He asserts that humidifiers are bad because they are "costly, ugly, and ... wasteful of water"

Granted there are a lot of dangerous, overpriced, impractical, and generally unnecessary products on the market, but except for ranting about what he considers to be wrong, he doesn't offer much in terms of direction to others who want to be socially responsible.

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The Design Bible, Even for Architects

I first spotted this book while studying in Denmark last year, where my host parents had studied under Victor Papanek. I would have studied under him at the University of Kansas, if not for his untimely and unfortunate passing. This book is one of the best books on the principles and ethics of design. It illustrates both the designer's responsibility and the potential to affect real change in the world through design. This most renowned of works by Papanek focuses on industrial design in two parts: How It Is, and How It Could Be. Papanek encourages radical thinking in design, and most of the topics in the book are easily translated to architecture. To my knowledge, reading this book has never been a required part of the core curriculum at the School of Architecture and Urban Design here at KU, but in my opinion, it should be.

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reviews: page 1, 2

This is a completely revised second edition of Design for the Real World, which has since its first appearance twenty years ago, become a classic. Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this revised edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design in this world, which is deficient in resources and energy.

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