Design Culture and Dialogic Design

Ezio Manzini

The question of culture is virtually absent from the debate on

contemporary design and especially from what in this paper I
refer to as emerging design: a problem-based, solution-oriented
design, the defining characteristic of which is not the products,
services, and communicative artifacts it produces, but the tools
and methods it uses.1 The discussion on it dutifully covers envi-
ronmental, economic, and social issues, together with those of
participation and the environmental, economic, and social effects
of its results. Certainly all these aspects are very important, but the
absence of a debate on emerging design’s cultural dimension is
a serious limitation that prevents it from becoming the agent of
(cultural and therefore also social and environmental) change that
it could and indeed should be. Meanwhile, although rarely dis-
cussed, emerging design also has its own culture—a culture that is
rather limited and limiting precisely because of this lack of debate.
In this paper I call this culture solution-ism and participation-ism.
To go beyond this somewhat reductive culture, we need to
return to the discussion on issues that are or should be typical of
design: from the criteria by which to orient and assess the quality
of local solutions, to the broadest visions of the world toward
which we work. This discussion must be undertaken through a dia-
1 A very clear statement on the nature of
logic approach, in which the various interlocutors, design experts
emerging design, and of its present lim-
its, was proposed in 2014 in a manifesto included, interact as they bring their own ideas and define and
titled “DesignX,” collaboratively authored accept their own responsibilities.
by Ken Friedman (Tongji University,
College of Design and Innovation and Design in the (Long) Transition
Swinburne University Centre for Design
Emerging design is a way of interpreting design and designing
Innovation), Yongqi Lou (Tongji), Don
Norman (University of California, San that is not yet mainstream, but that is expanding and, for all
Diego, Design Lab), Pieter Jan Stappers intents and purposes, will be the design of the twenty-first cen-
(Delft University of Technology, Faculty tury.2 It is a theory and practice that started to take shape at the
of Industrial Design Engineering), Ena turn of the century—a period marked both by growing evidence of
Voûte (Delft), and Patrick Whitney (Illinois
the planet’s limits and by a rapid growth in connectivity. It is
Institute of Technology, Institute of
therefore a design that, more or less consciously, is gearing up to
Design). See http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/
designx_a_future_pa.html (accessed operate in the phase of transition in which we are immersed (and
December 2014). will continue to be for some time to come). This transition phase
2 The contents of this paragraph summa- presents itself as a mesh of long and lasting crises and, at the same
rize Chapter 2 of my book: Design When
Everybody Designs: An Introduction to
Design for Social Innovation (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2015).
© 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
52 DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016 doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00364
 time, as a broad, complex social learning process by which every-
thing that belonged to the mainstream way of thinking and doing
in the twentieth century will have to be reinvented: from everyday
life and the very idea of well-being, to the large, socio-technical
eco-systems in which we exist. Design is part of this learning pro-
cess, and it could and should play a major role in it.
Today, at the beginning of this transition, the features of
emerging design already appear, and they are very different from
the ones that were dominant in the twentieth century. Traditional
design theory and practice were constructed in the Europe of the
early twentieth century, with reference to the industrial produc-
tion of the time. It gave rise to the idea of design as an expert activ-
ity, aimed at conceiving and developing products for serial
production using the industrial technology of the period. Much
has changed since then. As mentioned, the main character of this
change is that, in more recent interpretations, the focus of design
has shifted away from “objects” (meaning products, services, and
systems) and toward “ways of thinking and doing” (meaning
methods, tools, approaches, and, as we will see, design cultures).
In undergoing this shift, design becomes a means to tackle widely
differing issues, adopting a human-centered approach: It shifts
from traditional, product-oriented design processes to a process
for designing solutions to complex and often intractable social,
environmental, and even political problems.3
A second main change, linked to the first one, is that all
design processes are, de facto, co-design activities that involve a
variety of actors: professional designers, other kinds of experts,
and final users.4
A third change, following from the first two, is that the
3 The list of authors who contributed to
term “design” can now be found with three different meanings:
start this re-definition of design could
be very long. My main references are:
diffuse design, by which we refer to the natural human ability to
Richard Buchanan, “Wicked Problems adopt a design approach, which results from the combination of
in Design Thinking,” Design Issues 8, critical sense, creativity, and practical sense; expert design, by which
no. 2 (Spring 1992); Nigel Cross, we refer to professional designers who should, by definition, be
Design Thinking: Understanding
endowed with specific design skills and culture; and co-design, by
How Designers Think and Work
which we refer to the overall design process resulting from the
(Oxford, UK: Berg, 2011); and Tim
Brown, “Design Thinking,” Harvard interaction of a variety of disciplines and stakeholders—final users
Business Review (June 2008): 30–35. and design experts included.
4 Pelle Ehn, “Participation in Design When discussing design in general and emerging design
Things,” Proceedings of the Tenth in particular, making it clear which one of these “designs” we are
Anniversary Conference on Participatory
talking about is important. For instance, when the discussion is
Design 2008 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University, 2008), 92–101; Ezio Manzini
on problem-based and solution-oriented design processes and
and Francesca Rizzo, “Small Projects/ their transdisciplinary nature, we are obviously referring to co-
Large Changes: Participatory Design design. In contrast, diffuse design is the one at stake when discuss-
as an Open Participated Process,” ing the importance of spreading design capabilities among
CoDesign 7, no. 3-4 (2011): 199–215;
and Pelle Ehn and Elisabeth M. Nilsson,
eds., Making Futures (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2014).

DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016 53

 different stakeholders (as happens with the whole discussion on
design thinking). Finally, when we discuss specific design skills
and culture, we are by definition talking about expert design.
In this paper I mainly refer to expert design, focusing on
what it is and what skills and culture are specific to design experts.

Design Culture(s)
Recall that what characterizes emerging design are the methods
and tools used. In it the role of design experts is to cultivate these
methods and tools, apply them effectively, and make their useful-
ness visible. However, design is not only the sum of its methodolo-
gies and tools. Neither is the role of design experts reducible
merely to this equation. Before being a technique, design is a
capacity for critical analysis and reflection, with which design
experts produce knowledge, visions, and quality criteria that can
be made concrete in feasible proposals. And this understanding
holds true at all levels: from the single local solution to the evolu-
tion of the entire socio-technical system. Therefore, whoever steps
forward as a design expert must also be—and be acknowledged
as—a carrier of this specific culture: the design culture. Design cul-
ture encompasses the knowledge, values, visions, and quality cri-
teria that emerge from the tangle of conversations occurring
during design activities (the ones that are open to interaction with
a variety of actors and cultures) and the conversations that take
place in various design arenas. Such arenas include the multiplicity
of physical and virtual places—from conferences to informal
encounters, books, universities, specialist journals, blogs, and Face-
book groups—in which design, its meaning, and the quality of its
results are discussed.
This definition is close to the one given by Guy Julier: When
talking about design culture as a context-informed practice, he
5 Guy Julier, “From Visual Culture to
Design Culture,” Design Issues 22, no. 1 describes it as “collectively-held norms of practice shared within
(Winter 2006), 70–71. See also Guy or across contexts…. [D]esign culture thus becomes a forum…
Julier, The Culture of Design (London: by which globally diasporic actors connect, communicate, and
Sage, 2000); Victor Margolin, “The Prod- legitimate their activities.”5 However, while for Julier design
uct Milieu and Social Action,” in Discov-
culture is principally a specific study discipline that produces its
ery Design: Exploration in Design
Studies, Richard Buchanan and Victor specific experts, for me it is mainly the culture of the designers
Margolin, eds. (Chicago: University of themselves and of the communities in which they operate: the
Chicago Press, 1955); Ezio Manzini, “New culture on which design itself is based and thanks to which
Design Knowledge,” Design Studies 30, innovative meanings can also be proposed. Precisely this design
no. 1 (January 2009): 4–9.
culture is the source of the most original contributions design
6 Roberto Verganti, Design-Driven
experts can offer as innovation because, in presenting ideas, pro-
Innovation (Boston: Harvard Business
School Press, 2009); Ezio Manzini and posals, and visions, they can trigger meaningful changes in the
Virginia Tassinari, “Sustainable Qualities: very idea of well-being and in the qualities that characterize it. The
Powerful Drivers of Social Change,” in search for those qualities is what motivates people’s choices at all
Motivating Change: Sustainable Design levels: from single solutions to the reorientation of individual and
and Behaviour in the Built Environment,
collective ways of living.6
Robert Crocker and Steffen Lehmann (ed.)
(London: Earthscan, 2013), 217–32.

54 DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016

 From this point of view, which has its roots in the idea
of “cultura del progetto” [design culture] from the Italian design
tradition,7 design culture can be defined as the “meaningful con-
text” in which a new project is conceived and developed and in
which new meanings are produced—meanings that, in some cases,
can influence the very culture from which they grew. In reference
to this meaningful context, when Julier talks about design culture
as agency, he says that “… it takes context as circumstance but
not as a given: the world can be changed through a new kind of
design culture.”8

An Emerging Design Culture?

Given its origins and nature, design culture is not a single unit; in
fact, we should speak of it as a plural entity that includes as many
different cultures as there are arenas in which the question of
design is investigated and discussed. Nevertheless, in certain
places and moments converging factors create the conditions for
particularly clear and recognizable meaningful contexts to emerge.
This convergence enables us to talk about the European design cul-
ture at the beginning of the past century, or American design cul-
ture in the 1930s, Scandinavian design culture in the 1950s, or
Italian design culture in the 1980s. Conversely, but for the same
reason, talking about the culture of emerging design is difficult.
In the following paragraphs we examine why.
Every design project (just like any human activity or prod-
uct) exists both in a physical-biological world—where human
beings live and artifacts are produced and function—and a socio-
cultural world—where human beings interact through language
and things assume meaning.9 Thus, describing a project by talking
7 “Cultura del progetto” is translated in
about its way of tackling and resolving a problem (i.e., describing it
English as “design culture,” but it must
be considered that, in Italian, the term
as a solution) means observing it in the first world. Conversely,
“progetto” has a deeper and more describing the culture it emerged from, the quality criteria it
complex meaning than the one normally adopts, and the meanings it carries means considering it in the sec-
given to the English term “design.” See ond world. Therefore, every human activity and everything we
also: Andrea Branzi, Weak and Diffuse
produce always lives in both these worlds, even when one of these
Modernity: The World of Projects
lives may not be evident.
at the Beginning of the 21st Century
(Milano: Skira, 2008); and Andrea Up to now, the life of artifacts in the socio-cultural world
Branzi, Introduzione al design italiano appears clear, and can easily become an object of discussion when
[Introduction to Italian Design] (Milano: we refer to material artifacts, whether armchair or washing
Baldini & Castoldi, 1999). machine, house or city: We have a language to talk about these
8 Julier, “From Visual Culture to Design
artifacts’ meanings (because over time they have been socially
Culture,” 71.
9 Humbert R. Maturana, Francisco J.
constructed); we have quality criteria by which to judge them;
Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: and we have cultural references with which to compare them.
The Realization of the Living (Dordrecht, We cannot say the same of emerging design and its
NDL: Reidel Publishing, 1980); Herbert R. results. This is so for two reasons: First, the urgency and extent
Maturana, The Biological Foundations of
of the problems to be tackled drive us to a pragmatism that
Self-Consciousness and the Physical
in the name of efficacy leaves no time for critical and cultural
Domain of Existence (Milano: Raffaello
Cortina, 1993).

DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016 55

 reflection. Second, in emerging design, project results are
complex, hybrid, dynamic entities, and we do not yet have
language for talking about them, history to compare them with, or
until now, arenas in which to discuss them. Consequently, recog-
nizing the design culture from which they are emerging and
which they are expressing is no easy matter. Therefore, the conver-
sation tends to deflate into narrowly solution-oriented discourse—
a mere narration of the techniques used and the effectiveness of its
results, suggesting that this field is the only one on which discus-
sion is possible.
It must be added that, in this same solution-oriented dis-
course, some cultural issues do appear too: The more human-cen-
tered is the problem, the more participative is the process of
resolving it and the more socially innovative is the solution the
more the cultural dimension of the problems tackled and the solu-
tions found must be investigated in depth to understand people’s
needs, their capabilities and motivations, and the social dynamics
in which they are living. However, while this solution-oriented
culture is indispensable in getting a clear focus on the problems
and on stakeholder capabilities and motivations, it does not lead
us to propose new qualities. It does not enable us to say how we
can create a world that is richer in opportunities, more interesting,
and, ultimately, more attractive.

Solution-ism and Participation-ism

If the discussion on emerging design focuses mainly in its func-
tioning, it goes without saying that the technological, economic
and managerial dimensions must play a central role in it, and that
the necessary cultural contributions are also orientated in this
direction. On the other hand, since as we said no human action
can be free of the sense system it exists in, these solution-orien-
tated technical and cultural actions also have a meaning, they
emerge from and propose a design culture. In our case, the culture
of today’s emerging design comes over as a tangle of solution-ism
and participation-ism.

Solution-ism. By this expression, which I have taken from

Eugeny Morozov, though without necessarily sharing all that
this author attributes to it, I mean a culture that starts from
an approach that is in my view totally correct, reducing it to a
reductive ideology that leads us, as Morozov writes, to recast “all
complex social situations either as neatly defined problems with definite,
computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can
be easily optimized.”10
In my view, the correct initial approach is the one stating
that the complexity of the world, and therefore of the problems
it poses, should be tackled by identifying a multiplicity of less
10 Ibid., 5.

56 DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016

 complex, smaller scale sub-issues. This approach, which comes
from theoretical reflection on complex systems and from the prac-
tical experience of social innovation, leads to the recognition that a
big, complex problem should be tackled not by looking for a single,
big, complex, unitary solution but by spreading the complexity
over the various nodes in the system: “Rather than trying to con-
trol complexity through top down command-and-control hierar-
chies,” writes Josephine Green, “social innovation shows us how to
embrace complexity.”11 It does so by developing local initiatives in
which those directly affected—that is, those who know the prob-
lem best and from close up—are directly involved.
Given that, it must be observed that these solutions do not
constitute the only terrain for action. Other kinds of design projects
exist that are capable of integrating a multiplicity of local projects.
For example, “planning by projects” and “acupunctural plan-
ning,”12 link up different local projects and different scales of inter-
vention, and in doing so, have the power to influence and
transform large institutions and entire territorial systems.
In addition, other design activities contribute to producing
a more favorable environment for the birth and development
of a multiplicity of other projects, even though they do not con-
tribute directly and immediately to the solution of a specific prob-
lem. For example, this group includes design initiatives that
produce infrastructure, standards, and regulations; knowledge;
visions; and shared values that together can increase the proba-
bility that new solutions will emerge and can help them develop in
greater synergy.
11 Josephine Green, Beyond20:21st Century Therefore, if the first limit of solution-ism is in not taking
Stories, http://www.growthintransition. account of all these possibilities, its second limit is in proposing to
eu/wp-content/uploads/Green-A-new-
find solutions concentrating only on the way they function, on
narrative.pdf (accessed December 2014).
12 Ezio Manzini and Francesca Rizzo, “Small
their economies, and on their practical results, while leaving in the
Projects/Large Changes: Participatory shadows the critical discussion of their meaning and the qualities
Design as an Open Participated Process,” sought and produced. This lack of a deep cultural discourse can be
CoDesign 7, 3-4 (2011): 199–215; Lou found at all scales: from motivating the participation of the various
Yongqi, Francesca Valsecchi, and Clarisa
stakeholders in local solutions, to feeding the broadest of social
Diaz, Design Harvest: An Acupunctural
conversations about the future.13
Design Approach Towards Sustainability
(Gothenburg, Sweden: Mistra Urban
Futures Publication, 2013), 202; Che Tarn Participation-ism. Participation-ism is a sort of cultural aphonia that
Biggs, Chris Ryan, and John Wisman, induces design experts to refrain from expressing themselves. In
“Distributed Systems: A Design Model this case, too, the departure point is an extremely important idea:
for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastruc-
the recognition that every design process is co-design, and that it
ture,” VEIL Distributed Systems Briefing
Paper N3 (Melbourne: University of Mel-
therefore must provide space for the point of views and active par-
bourne, 2010). ticipation of many different actors. However, this original good
13 In this sense, solution-ism can be seen idea has developed into an ideology that also is limited and limit-
as an updated vision of functionalism— ing. In its adoption in co-design processes, the design expert’s role
functionalism in a world where what is
is reduced to a narrow, administrative activity, where creative
designed consists not only of products
ideas and design culture tend to disappear. Design experts take a
but also of product networks, services,
and communication.

DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016 57

 step backward and consider their role simply as that of “process
facilitators,” asking other actors for their opinions and wishes,
writing them on small pieces of paper, and sticking them on the
wall and then synthesizing them, following a more or less formal-
ized process. We can call the results of this way of thinking and
doing “post-it design.”
The problem is that, in moving from the intention of giving
voice and an active role to different stakeholders, participation-ism
and post-it design end up transforming design experts into admin-
istrative actors with no specific contributions to bring—other than
aiding the process with their post-its (and, maybe at the end, with
some pleasing visualizations). In other words, in the participation-
ism perspective, the design process is reduced to a polite conversa-
t ion around t he tables, as stakeholders undertake some
participatory design exercises. On the contrary, in my view, the
social conversation on which the co-design process is based is
much more complex than a participatory design exercise, and it
requires design experts to be much more than administrative facil-
itators and visualizers.

Design Culture and Dialogic Design

Co-design is a complex, contradictory, sometimes antagonistic pro-
cess,14 in which different stakeholders (design experts included)
bring their specific skills and their culture. It is a social conversa-
tion in which everybody is allowed to bring ideas and take action,
even though these ideas and actions could, at times, generate prob-
lems and tensions. As a result, what makes a dialogic conversation
in a design process is that the involved actors are willing and able
14 See the works cited in note 3, as well to listen to each other, to change their minds, and to converge
as Carl DiSalvo, Adversarial Design
toward a common view; in this way, some practical outcomes can
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012);
and Erling Björgvinsson, Pelle Ehn, and
be collaboratively obtained. In short, these involved actors are will-
Per-Anders Hillgren, “Agonistic Participa- ing and able to establish a dialogic cooperation—a conversation in
tory Design: Working with Marginalised which listening is as important as speaking.15
Social Movements,” CoDesign: Interna- It comes that, in the dialogic design framework, the design
tional Journal of CoCreation in Design experts’ capability to listen is a crucial one (and, of course, it is a
and the Arts 8, no. 2-3 (2012): 127–44.
particularly difficult one for those who are still bound to the past
15 Richard Sennet, Together: The Rituals,
Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation century’s tradition of “big-ego design”16). Nevertheless, it is also
(New Haven: Yale University Press, clear that, at the end of the day, the quality of the results largely
2012). depends on the quality of the ideas that come up in discussion.
16 The big-ego design is left over from Therefore, to adopt a dialogic approach, design experts must learn
the last century’s demiurgic vision, in
to listen, but they must also learn to propose their own ideas and
which design is the act of particularly
gifted individuals capable of imprinting
visions. And to do it in the most appropriate way.
their personal stamp on artifacts The obvious precondition for being able to do so is that
and environments. Even though this these ideas, values, and visions exist. That is, that a design culture
perspective may still mean something capable to generate and cultivate them exists. And here we have
in some very specific design fields, this reached a crucial point: If, as we said, the emerging design culture
way of thinking and doing becomes
is still weak and reductive, how can it be strengthened and
highly dangerous when applied to
complex social problems.

58 DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016

 enriched? Where might we find an initial nucleus of ideas, values,
and visions with which we might start? Although a complete
answer to these questions is beyond the scope of this article, I con-
clude with two very brief observations:
To answer the first question, the culture for emerging
design will result from discussion in various design arenas and
from stimuli encountered in interaction with other cultural worlds.
Therefore, these discussions among peers must be started and
occasions for generative interactions with actors endowed with dif-
ferent cultures and experiences must be created.
The answer to the second question stems from both the
transition and the social learning process in which we find our-
selves. In this framework, society can be seen as a huge future-
17 Anna Meroni, ed., Creative Communities. building laboratory—a laboratory that, amidst numerous
People Inventing Sustainable Ways of contradictions, is already emitting signs of a new culture:17 emerg-
Living (Milan: Polidesign, 2007); Manzini ing ideas and practices that are affecting the mainstream concep-
and Tassinari, “Sustainable Qualities,”
tions of time, place, work, well-being, and, more generally, the
217–32; and Ezio Manzini, “Making
Things Happen: Social Innovation and quality of human relationships: ideas and practices that, in my
Design,” in Design Issues 30, no. 1 view, are starting to weave the fabric of a new civilization and,
(Winter 2014): 57–66. hence, if we are able to recognize it, also of a new design culture.

DesignIssues: Volume 32, Number 1 Winter 2016 59

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