A Definition of Metadesign

Developed in order to enable societies to become more attuned to the biosphere


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The need for an altruistic mode of design

  • Most people may now agree that we must make the world greener
  • However, governments and corporations have been exceedingly slow to respond in a serious way.
  • For fifty years we have therefore been hoping that design would be able to make a decisive contribution.
  • Certainly, design thinking (external link) works differently from managerial, bureaucratic or legislative methods.
  • Bureaucracy leans heavily on the logic of categories (external link) - this makes it easy to justify within its own terms.
  • By contrast, design is less 'truth-oriented'. It is outcome-centred and pragmatic.
  • Keyword-Design usually changes the world by creating affordances (external link).
  • Thinking at the level of affordances produces an outcome-oriented type of reasoning

Is design (external link) too specialized and commercial to help?

  • It now looks like the problem may be too deep-seated and complex for design (as we know it) to address.
  • For one thing, most designers are trained - and then paid - to work as specialists with a specific focus.
  • The problem with specialism is that it makes it more difficult for individuals to think 'outside their box'.
  • Almost all become directed by corporations whose agenda is more profit-led than socially or ecologically beneficial.
  • Some exceptional individuals (see our metadesign colloquium authors) have sought to re-think, or re-design design.
  • But innovations such as Design for Sustainability (external link) have failed to avert environmental calamity.
  • The need for change is acknowledged by many agencies (e.g. Design Research Society (external link) and the NextD online journal (external link))
  • A successful mode of design would need to be radically different from existing, specialist models. (see The Need for Metadesign)
  • Ecosystem engineering (external link) may be a model for this.

e.g. Lifestyle Keyword-Design
e.g. Strategic Design (external link)
e.g. Cradle-to-Cradle (external link) Keyword-Design
e.g. Attainable Utopias Keyword-Design approach


Strategic Design is not enough - we need some form of metadesign

  • Collaborative synergy, driven by altruistic strategies, may not transform the world - safely - at the level of lifestyle.
  • In 2005 our Design Synergy 21 research looked at the idea of metadesign.
  • Prof. Karen Blincoe (external link) reflected upon the general idea of metadesign.
  • Prof. Naomi Gornick (external link) thought about education for metadesigners.
  • Dr. Elisa Giaccardi (external link) wrote a paper on the Co-Creation within Metadesign.
  • She quoted Roy Ascott (1994) as saying that, where design (loosely) is a planning process, metadesign is more like a 'seeding process’.
  • We envisaged that Metadesign teams would work as systems integrators (external link) (c.f. Galloway and Rabinowitz (external link), 1983) in order to orchestrate events.
  • The process would need to be bottom-up (external link), holarchic (external link), self-creative (external link), and aware of its own emergence (external link), etc etc
  • But an organism would be unable to meet the above criteria unless it can operate at a 'meta' level.
  • An insect is unable to re-design (consciously) its working practices because (presumeably) it has no strategic overview of itself or its species.
  • Similarly, it would be unlikely for a highly specialised designer to invent a problem-solving solution that falls far outside its professional boundaries.
  • Metadesign augments Open Design and Strategic Design by emphasising certain relations in an explicit way.
  • Many teams may believe their collaboration is successful, even though they do not acknowledge, or respond to, the emergent outcomes of their endeavours.
  • E.g. Open Source (external link) movement merely focuses on managerial synergy as a means of improving industrial efficiency.
  • By contrast, the Free Software movement (external link) also works at this level, but is also mindful of synergies at a higher social (e.g. altruistic) level.
  • The Greek word ‘meta’ originally meant ‘beside’ or ‘after’.
  • It now also implies change or transformation.
  • It can therefore mean beyond; transcending; or being more comprehensive.
  • It is therefore an aspirational word that refers, perhaps, to a higher state of development.

How would Metadesign compare with other types of design?

DESIGN METHOD~~~~#0099CC:Emancipatory~~~~#0099CC:Participative~~~~#0099CC
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Self-creative (external link)
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Creative Democracy~~
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Sustainable Design~~
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Interaction Design
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Open Design~~
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Service Design
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Strategic Design~~~~black
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Transformative Design~~
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Metadesign can be described using cybernetics

  • It will be important to explore metadesign using cybernetic principles.
  • Metadesign needs to be holarchic, self-reflexive, bottom-up, co-creative and co-adaptive in order to heal the damage.
  • In commercial design terms this means going (far) beyond what we currently know as 'Branding Design', or 'Corporate Identity Design'
  • In the first instance it means attending to the following:
  • 1) Agent to agent (e.g. the relation of each player to every other player in the team)
  • 2) Agent to agent-relations that pertain to 1) - (e.g. the relation of every team member to all of the other internal relationships among the team).
  • 3) Each agent to the whole
  • 4) Each agent to the presence of emergence
  • 5) etc.

Metadesign is a Fourth Order Cybernetic System

  • Keyword-Design needs to evolve to a new level level, the 4th Order System.
  • In First Order Keyword-Design, smart products regulate themselves or are programmed to manage expected conditions.
  • In Second Order Keyword-Design - e.g. service design, re-design of products, user-feedback, are all based on outsider observation, etc
  • In Third Order Keyword-Design - e.g. strategic design means co-designing from the inside-outside
  • In Fourth Order Keyword-Design - e.g. metadesign would be holarchic in order to be inclusive and self-aware on many levels

Relational issues within metadesign

  • Democracy is infused with the ethical logic of rhetorical and does not yet offer a self-inclusive, holarchic mode of reasoning.
  • Until we develop a common understanding of a common wealth (external link) it will be hard to overcome the Tragedy of the Commons (external link).
  • Ross Ashby's famous Law of Requisite Variety (external link) is pertinent to the internal dynamics of metadesign.
  • The Prisoner's Dilemma (external link) is also pertinent to the internal-external dynamics of metadesign.
  • One limitation of this game theory is that it assumes that disconnectedness is likely or normal (e.g. solipsism, autism).
  • This always presents a conundrum because it leads to conditions that are zero-sum.
  • It is a game in which either the least (or the best) possible outcome can fulfill its own prophesy.
  • In other words, it polarises outcomes as either dystopian or utopian.
  • The outcome will reflect the level of trust and unconditional love that already pertain in society.

return to / go to Metadesign Colloquium (28th & 29th June, 2007)
return to / go to m21 research project
return to / go to New definitions
return to / go to Design Synergy 21