#lecture1

Cacao was presented as the earliest food and sacred tree to the Mayans. Producing cacao was not very easy, it had to be cultivated, harvested and post harvested under large trees maintaining a certain temperature.The process of making chocolate included fermentation, drying, roasting,and separating the shells from the nibs. Cacao is pronounced as ka-ka-w by the Maya, ka meant fish and wa meant corn. Fish is used as a graphic symbol for cacao because it possesses the power of survival.Chocolate on the other hand, had different theories on how its got its name,but so far we know that the mayans drank their chocolate hot which comes from a Mayan word “Chocol haa” or from the K’iche’ Maya, “Chokola’j,”  which means drinking chocolate together. Aztecs had similar pronunciation but written differently as well. It is very difficult to find the origin of cacao but we can all agree that the word comes from MesoAmerica.There were major uses of Cacao but cacao took part in a social, political and economic strategy for the Mayan Society.

When it came to religious beliefs,there was a goddess known as the guardian of cacao. This figure is shown to have cacao pods growing directly from her body and a chocolate jug on top of her head. Therefore, cacao beans were very important in the Mayan religious value. Mayans had many gods and these gods were found in codices that survived from being destroyed by the Conquistadors and Catholic priests. These codices showed evidence on how cacao was used, consumed or how important cacao was to the Mayans.One example that was in one of the many codices found, was gods’ offerings to make cacao pods grow, it was a sacred offering that included piercing their ears and making their blood fall into the cacao pods.Knowing that Cacao is a religious value, this takes place to a social value for negotiations when making chocolate. 

Cacao was used during the negotiations among the Maya. Consuming Chocolate during social events establishes bonds between guests.Cacao became gifts to newlyweds throughout MesoAmerica, in this case the Mayans used cacao to bond marriage relationships when arranging a bride. The Foam was the important part when making a chocolate drink for the Mayans. The foam that is on top of the drink before drinking the chocolate is represented to be for the soul, the chocolate drink itself  is for the body. Those who were most likely to consume chocolate were elites( kings and nobles), though researchers and archaeologists are not quite sure if lower class were able to consume chocolate most of the time or if they were able to drink when they wanted. 

In addition to cacao and its consumption as an important role for social strategy, there were ways cacao was used for political and economic strategy. Mayan were very clever when it came to political issues and disputes. They would use cacao pods or ball games as a way to settle political issues or disputes, apart from entertainment uses. Cacao beans as currency was something that Spanish adapted when they came later on. But for the Mayan cacao be and was a great use for currency. Cacao beans were grown from trees and are easy to obtain rather than other crops.Whether it was buying food or clothes, you need to have cacao beans in order to obtain and buy them.Cacao beans were obtained from those who owed them, like in return for using the land by a superior person, cacao beans was used a s currency to pay it off. 

Cacao took part in a social, political and economic strategy for the Mayan Society. Cacao became currency, a bond between relationship, negotiations and political issues. Cacao had so many uses but cacao took part in these three strategies developing the Mayan society into a better relationship and innovative society.

                                           Bibliography 

De Orellana, Margarita, Richard Moszka, Timothy Adès, Valentine Tibère, J.M. Hoppan, Philippe Nondedeo, Nezahualcóyotl, Nikita Harwich, Nisao Ogata, Quentin Pope, Fray Toribio De Benavente, Motolinía, Guadalupe M. Santamaría, and Daniel Schechter. "Chocolate: Cultivation and Culture in Pre-Hispanic Mexico." Artes De México, no. 103 (2011): 65-80.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/24318969.

https://acmestudio.com/the-family/shop/Charles-Ray-Eames-504/

  Charles & Ray Eames, a couple of legendary designers. Today, they have considered as some of the most influential designers of the twentieth century thanks to a revolutionary vision both in the shapes they imagined and in the materials used. They leave behind an imprint that still influences today's young contemporary designers from around the world. 

As per MIT’s description of their design across scale course “Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames’ canonical Powers of Ten, the course explores the relationship between science and engineering through the lens of design. It examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. It offers interdisciplinary tools and methods to represent, model, design and fabricates objects, machines, and systems. Structured as core lectures and lab sessions, the course is organized thematically with topics such as information design, user interaction, digital fabrication, and design ethics.”            

As a student of DIDI, I felt the same link and inspiration between design across scales course and the Powers of Tens by Charles and Ray Eames. The course creates a creative paradigm for learning design thinking theories, which cuts across various disciplines and scales to demonstrate that design is not a discipline, but a way of looking at the world. 

In my opinion, this course plays as a moderator between all other subjects we study, such as Studio, Workshop, and History of Design; to link and emphasis all courses material in a dynamic way.

We covered 12 different topics related to different systems (Ecological-Animate-Social -Mechanistic)  that simultaneously vary from micro to macro scale through lectures,  group activities, open discussions in class, and individual presentations.

1: Introduction to design thinking - design sensibilities 2: Systems & Systems Thinking 3: Reductionism & Holism, Mental Models 4: Mutate 5: Growth 6: Adaptation 7: Movement 8: Circulate 9: Communicate 10: Reproduce 11: Maintain 12: Sustainability

I enjoyed all the listed above topics and discussions we had this semester, but certain topics were more engaging than others to me as It was an eyeopener to a whole new way of perceiving the world.

Here’s my list of the most meaningful topics to me and some highlights of my previous posts on these topics :

Systems& Systems Thinking

Image: Japanese Poster: Dentsu Design Summer School. Hami Miharu Matsunaga. 2015

Designer’s creative process and mindset are too ambiguous, messy and unpredictable for businesses to follow and embed as part of their organizational process. This is because businesses seek to replicate the creative outcome of the design process. Hence, the desire to synthesize the design process into a step-by-step process. Thus, design thinking as a process is born. Design thinking is created because big corporation lack the ability to be creative and on extreme cases, aren’t able to create new products and services that meet unmet needs of their customers. Because of the 20th-century education system that fostered dominant logic and disregard creativity, people grew up with an overpowered mindset and skill-set of managing value.

Learnings:

Effective design thinking entails more than applying design methods. To produce the best outcomes, organizations need to develop – and trust – peoples’ design sensibilities.  

the key to design thinking is to balance methods with sensibilities. Investing in peoples’ ability to make good judgment calls about the details that affect customer perceptions and experience makes good business sense. Design sensibilities enable managers to determine not only what to do, but how to do it. Combining design methods with strong design sensibilities is the core of success.  

Systems thinking is a mind-set—a way of seeing and talking about the reality that recognizes the interrelatedness of things. System thinking sees collections of interdependent components as a set of relationships and consequences that are at least as important as the individual components themselves.

Reductionism & Holism, Mental Models

                            Image: Originally posted by dualvoidanima

Reductionism is a philosophical tenet which states that by analyzing a system to its ultimate component parts, we will be able to unravel it at deeper and deeper levels. It is the process of reducing any feature of the perceived world to its final elements with the hope of exposing all the secrets about the phenomenon. while Holism is a philosophical view which states that by considering the whole picture one gets a deeper and more complete view of a situation than by analyzing it into its component parts.

Circulate

                                 Image: http://www.cewales.org.uk

Circular Economy & Sustainable Development

The circular economy is a “resource-full” alternative to the traditional linear “resource-depleting” economic model of produce-consume-waste. Unlike the linear model of business that consumes and wastes resources, the idea behind Circular Economy is to mirror the ecosystem that leaves nothing wasted. Everything, from clothing to household items to food and tools, has a purpose and an after-life-purpose, so that “traditional waste” can be something useful to others or in another form.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a balancing act, it is the process of maintaining change in a balanced manner, in which the exploitation of resources, the course of investments, the alignment of technological development and coherent change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.

To achieve true sustainability we need to balance economic, social and environmental sustainability factors in equal harmony. These may be defined as Environmental Sustainability - Economic Sustainability- Social Sustainability.

Taking these three pillars of sustainability further if we only achieve two out of three pillars then we end up with:

Social + Economic Sustainability = Equitable

Social + Environmental Sustainability = Bearable

Economic + Environmental Sustainability = Viable

Only through balancing economic + social + environmental can we achieve true sustainability and a truly circular economy.

                        Image:https://www.mountainviewmarket.coop

The least relevant topics :

I wouldn’t say any of the topics were least relevant, but I didn’t get impressed by  Movement and Growth topics; as it’s innate topics we all experienced and it’s not as inspiring as other topics we discussed.

                               Image: https://sloanreview.mit.edu

Sustainability is a balancing act, it is the process of maintaining change in a balanced manner, in which the exploitation of resources, the course of investments, the alignment of technological development and coherent change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.

                  Image:https://www.mountainviewmarket.coop

To achieve true sustainability we need to balance economic, social and environmental sustainability factors in equal harmony. These may be defined as Environmental Sustainability - Economic Sustainability- Social Sustainability.

Taking these three pillars of sustainability further if we only achieve two out of three pillars then we end up with:

Social + Economic Sustainability = Equitable

Social + Environmental Sustainability = Bearable

Economic + Environmental Sustainability = Viable

Only through balancing economic + social + environmental can we achieve true sustainability and a truly circular economy.

Image: http://www.retail-focus.co.uk/features/3344-green-light-sustainable-design

Green light: Sustainable design

IKEA has begun work on a 32,000 sqm sustainable space in Greenwich, which will have key features to help Londoners live a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Targeting a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ accreditation, IKEA Greenwich will incorporate multiple green technologies including photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting and greywater treatment (reducing water consumption by 50 percent) and renewable materials for construction. Wood will be used as a natural façade and the interior will feature lots of natural light throughout. There will also be a 1,200 sqm roof terrace, which will be open to the public with capacity for 500, as well as a 240 sqm roof pavilion and biodiversity garden.

                                                Image: gfycat.com

The basic definition of Maintain is to cause or enable (a condition, preserve, or situation) to continue, while within systems theory, a control system or regulatory system is a specialized subsystem that is designed to monitor and regulate the behavior and operation of the broader system it is a part of, in order to maintain its functionality.

            Image: https://dzone.com/articles/iot-systems-sensors-and-actuators

Design has evolved beyond making objects – organizations now want to learn how to think like designers, and apply design principles to the workplace itself. In order to survive in today’s complex world, organizations need to generate, embrace, and execute on new ideas. That takes creativity – and a creatively capable workforce.  Everyone thinks, feels, and experiences things differently, and these differences are exactly what’s needed in design thinking. But knowing that certain activities are not natural for everyone means that some preparation, explanation, and trust-building is required.

The design thinking process model encompasses not only the design procedure and decisions but also the design intents behind them. There should be a certain level of consistency.

              Image: By MeemEzz #Dubai Design Week 2018#D3#thisisdidi

Reproduction means producing offspring for the survival of the species in both animate and ecological systems, while Reproduction in the mechanistic system is to produce a copy, or being copied with a specified degree of success to produce something very similar to something else in a different medium or context.

                                              Image: Roche-bobois 

 Design Reproduction 

Design reproduction technology links design and technology, but it is not the study or practice of graphic design. It involves ensuring that a design is produced and then manipulated in ways that are optimal for its application. 

                                                Image:archipanic.com

Global Grad Show 

the Global Grad Show exhibitions harnessing the creative work of some of the most brilliant designers from 100 of the world’s top universities and emerging programmes. The exhibition was created to open the field of design to participants from as many places as possible. This includes the show’s exhibitors as well as its audience. In the exhibition, you’ll find products intended for the young and old, for athletes and those displaced by war, for surgeons and architects. The goal is to make it clear that design is a vital part of life, relevant to everyone and in need of contributions from everywhere.

                                             Image by: lisastolz.com

During our visit to Grad show, and getting amazed with all the innovative designs we saw, I wanted to highlight MOWO-Move with wood!

MOWO is a collection of furniture designed to inspire a more active approach of sitting. The Pieces are constructed of birch plywood, both for its sustainable sources, as well as its elasticity and high tensile strength. The flexibility and the sprung reaction of the plywood support the user’s natural balance and fulfill the body’s need for movement. 

                                                   Image:tumblr.com

It's nearly impossible to go through a day without the use of communication. Communication is sending and receiving information through different mediums between two or more people. The person sending the message is referred to as the sender, while the person receiving the information is called the receiver. The information conveyed can include facts, ideas, concepts, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, instructions and even emotions.

Communication is not only human action, but it’s also universal!

Communication is a fundamental, universal process that serves to connect senders and receivers of messages through space and time. Communication connects many kinds of senders and receivers, including ones that are not human, and even ones that are not alive.

                                    Image: http://www.erdekesvilag.hu

I have always believed that communication is an essential tool for talented people no matter what was their field, but since I started studying design I see that Design is Communication... while researching about it I came across a brilliant article by Adam Toda, where he shared the same thought “I used to believe that good design was something that looked “cool”. But design is more than simply looking interesting or cool. Design is communication. Just like a writer or a speaker chooses their words to communicate a message, good designers choose the right visual elements to also communicate a message. The larger goal and message for the design and effectively communicating that message is what makes good design, “good”.

https://medium.theuxblog.com/design-is-communication-e371ad9042a3