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What challenges and horizons does design in Argentina present?
We celebrate the participation of professors from the Faculty of Communication (FC) and a graduate of the Design career in the First Design Diagnosis Conference in ArgentinaA joint initiative between the National Academy of Fine Arts and the IDA Foundation (Argentine Design Research), with 21 exhibitors from different sectors, to reflect on the present and future of the discipline in our territory.
The dialogue was opened by the authorities of the organizing entities and one of the creators of the meeting, Maria Sanchez, full academic of ANBA and professor in the subject of Strategic Design, with the support of Verónica Devalle, also a professor FC.
In this article, we share the full speeches of the teachers of our house. You can find the full schedule at this video.
The transformations
"I think one of the most profound transformations in our work as designers is that We no longer just shape objects, but We also intervene in how things are done, incorporating new technologies and processes, providing essential speed and flexibility. in the local industry."
The environmental crisis
"Another central theme in design and production processes is the global environmental crisis, which also affects peripheral countries like Argentina. It's not just a matter for core countries. Often, it affects peripheral countries much more." This crisis forces us as designers to rethink production and consumption models with which we have lived for decades and review materials, processes and life cycles.
In our professional practice, many decisions that previously depended on functional, technical, productive, logistical or commercial issues, now also depend on environmental issues, on environmental criteria. Designing with environmental responsibility shouldn't be optional; it's an ethical decision, but also a strategic one that allows our products to reach markets that comply with environmental regulations.regulated by environmental regulations."
The future of design in Argentina
"If I had to say where I see a A real opportunity for the future of design in ArgentinaI would say it's somewhere in between. Not in the high-volume industry developed during the 20th century, nor in isolated microscales. I feel that In Argentina, this space appears time and again in SMEs, workshops, close suppliers, and developments that need to be resolved with what is available and require us in that process.
That's where, at least in my experience, design can be useful in a concrete way. improving processes, streamlining decisions, integrating accessible technologies, and building solutions tailored to each context.
I believe that in peripheral contexts like ours, the future of design is not built on technological abundance, as I think Marcelo said, but from the ability to read each situation well, work with what is available, understand the real conditions of production and transform that into a significant advantage.
I would like the design of the future to become even more distributed, more situated, more technical, and also more responsible.
The designer of the future
"And for me, the designer of the future in our country is going to be..." who can best make new production technologies, culture, territory, and production work well together."
From products to materiality
"I'm going to tell you a little about myself. I'm an industrial designer by training and I work at the intersection of design, culture, material culture, and material systems. My purpose is imagine new ways of living by applying design to materials, processes, and objects.
Some time ago I started researching in biomaterials, in creating new materials, and that interest arose from realizing that As a designer, I could address much more than just the design of a product; I could also design the materiality. Materiality has a lot of characteristics that we call qualities soft or soft qualities, related to what they convey to users, what they generate in us.
That was the starting point for me to wanting to extend myself to designing or anticipating the design of materiality, due to an interest in sustainability. In that search for how to design new materials, biomaterials appeared in my life.
That's where I started doing a lot of research on biomaterials and created a project called Pálticos, based on research using avocado waste, peels and pits, where I create biomaterials, sheets, translucent bio-sheets and bio-agglomerates from waste."
What does it mean to design today?
"But the idea isn't so much to talk about my work, but rather the question that sparked this whole change: What does it mean to design today?
What I see is that design is undergoing a very profound transformation, based on the environmental crisis and overproduction that demands new, more responsible and regenerative models.
Design used to be associated with formal innovation, functionality, and consumption. Today it has more to do with to articulate a chain of relationships, with a more transversal view based on the territory, waste, the production system, the energy consumed, the people, the cultural impact and how what we do is regenerated.
From that point on, I am interested in talking about material culture, because materials speak for themselves about how we produce, consume, and relate to the world.
From my work in biomaterials, I encounter adaptations to biological timescales, degradation of raw materials, the viability of what I generate, the creation of new processes, and constant research to bring these findings to industry and everyday life."
The designer in the present
"I think the designer went from fulfilling a technical or aesthetic role to being a articulator of disciplines, systems and communities. There is a paradigm shift where standardization and mass production are in crisis, and concepts such as regeneration, circularity, repair, reuse and situated design.
In Latin America, we are very well positioned in the development of biomaterials and new practices. There are emerging cases and dissemination groups such as Sistemas Materiales in Argentina, led by Hegy Hulk, of which I am a member, and LABA in Chile, which disseminates these practices throughout Latin America.
We see how design has a lot to do with the territorial, the cultural, and the biological, and they appear situated innovations.
In the global south we have more hybrid and territorially sensitive forms of design, and we understand waste as an opportunity to generate new industries.
On the other hand, there are contradictions such as the difficulty of bringing research to industry, the lack of funding, or the greenwashing.
El The challenge for contemporary designers is to build bridges between research, production, and the market.
I also see that in this moment of digitization and hyperconnectivity There is a need to reconnect with people, objects, processes, and the origin of materiality."
The design of the future
"As a closing statement: The real challenge would not be to keep designing things, but to design better relationships."That the design of the future be capable of building new relationships between technology, nature, community, and material culture."
Rethink the system
"First, I'm going to say where I'm speaking from. María said where I'm working today. I graduated more than 20 years ago. My first internships were related to independent design, and I went through different stages of the profession. I worked a lot in the field, in value chains and territorial development during my time at INTI."
I am currently working on rethink the system based on the circular economy and technology. Sometimes I feel that, although I am a designer, I am not in design because I am called to do other things.
The challenge involves thinking about a technology-oriented circular economy. Design not only solves problems, but also makes reality legible and accessible so we can understand what we're talking about and what we can do.
I go back to old times of research at FADU with Beatriz Galán, where we talked about action research. Design not only looks at reality, but also proposes things, generates knowledge, and advances in doing. It's not something we research and then do.
This is linked to how the idea of a circular economy is developing in a territory like Córdoba in order to position itself regionally."
Circular economy
"We are in a period of development, as already mentioned, with climate change and environmental issues that need to be resolved. I participated in the discussion of the 59000 standard for the circular economy, and we see that many things that are being raised in developed countries we already address here as standard practice, although not always by that name."
Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the possible, and that's what we work with all the time.
Thinking about Industry 4.0 involves asking not only about the technologies themselves, but also about their purpose, who will use them, how they will be implemented, and who will be included or excluded. We talk about product lifecycles, but we must also ask who will sustain them afterward.
In Argentina and the region the The key issue is thinking with the people involved, because otherwise we're just talking about cold, impersonal things.Artificial intelligence can solve many things, but what is the human role? Design makes us human and allows us to think about even the tools for asking questions.
How we think about the future needs to be designed.Because otherwise it will be left in the hands of others. To include everyone at a table, the methodology for that table must be designed.
Sometimes it happens that only some people speak, as occurs in the ISO when language defines who participates and who does not.
There are many design practices that don't always appear when selected, especially in territorial terms. The question is whether that's design or not.
Paradigm shifts
"We went from product to service and from service to system. These are complex systems that need to be analyzed.
Another key point is that everything should be measurable and verifiable, because without indicators, there's no way to sustain it. In the circular economy and territorial development, there are few clear indicators.
The future of design
"The challenge is whether, as designers, we are capable of imagining futures, but also of building tools to see them, put them together, value them, and put them into action."
That also needs to be designed. We know it doesn't happen naturally."
New paradigm in professional self-perception
"Last October I published this new book, my 13th book, under the Experimenta imprint, and it is called Meaningful design o The meaning of design.
This is my most urgent and essential manifesto (…). It is a disciplinary, strategic redefinition; it is aimed at forcefully establishing the participation of design in innovation ecosystems and futures design.
Currently in Latin America, the participation of design in decision-making tables remains scarce or almost nonexistent. However, in our territory there is a growing social need to incorporate innovative and sensitive profiles with strategic capabilities to design those artifacts and means that allow us to realize our collective desires for the future. And here's the thing about the situatedwhich is key.
My challenge for years has been to embrace this opportunity, in review our, my disciplinary identification. I do it every day in my work, working in the industry, in the territory, and firmly entering the labor market and exercising with the excellence that I can, that I achieve, that is possible, these collective desires for the future."
Disciplinary transformations
"My reflection stems from a 25-year professional practice in which I recognized that what I do when I practice design and innovation is designing meaning.
I felt the need to write this book as a look that accounts for a paradigm shift in the way we understand our discipline during the last few decades. Today I'm going to talk about design, meaning, professional practice, new technological paradigms, and... role of the designer as Authors and managers of change projects towards a fairer, more inclusive and more balanced future.
But this requires pushing for a change in positioning both within and outside the discipline of design. incorporate management skills and occupy seats at those tables where the course is defined. But for that, well, it's about a change of self-perception, of position and fundamentally of power management.
Our task is deceptive, as Marta Satonii said, I quote her again, because we often fall into the trap of the image.
The first What we perceive is the tangible material result, accessible through the senses.
The second It's probably the benefit that produces And it is then that we make our own all the definitions that the modern movement bequeathed to us. We're talking about functionality, about solutions.
The third that's probably the strategy And that's where I began to understand what my job was about when I integrated or directed consulting and design projects in companies.
My first publications back in 2004, 2005, 2010 tried to focus on that layer of strategy.
However, since my participation in pioneering groups of visioning And regarding the design of futures, this description began to fall short. I understood that this epiphany that occurs during co-creation is directly linked to meaning in its two senses, that of significance, that to which we assign value, and in the direction, the roadmap linked to the desire for the futureTherefore, what I express in this book is the design as a producer of meaningof new concepts. Yes. Of new paradigms, something we practiced from a niche within innovation groups and that today I believe it needs to scale up to the entire discipline of design because it is the space that we have and can occupy in this new paradigm."
Design of futures
"Designing meaning is about imagining futures, not designing objects." Yes, the goal is create collective images of how we want to live and interact for later design systematically, A meticulous, inverted review of all programs, artifacts, and public policies necessary for that image to materialize. It is urgent.We need to discuss this today because design fails to secure a seat at the table of important decision-making, neither in the public nor the private sector, such as in the creation of a development policy agenda.
I was fortunate enough to participate in spaces run by [the organization], and I am grateful for that opportunity. management at the CMD, at the CFI, with the CFI, at the Empretec Foundation...along with my students at universities here and in Latin America. And believe me, the task is simple because it takes us completely, exposes us, leaves us at times alone with collective demands and responsibilities, without others understanding the complexity of the task, without real power in hand.
I am grateful for all these spaces and all these projects because I learned from all of them, and that's why I believe I'm still speaking today."
Create frameworks of meaning
"In the current context of crisis and saturation of meanings", many opposing, the creation of frameworks of meaning This is an imminent task, and this takes on particular relevance in Argentina, where design is developed in contexts of permanent instability.
I am currently working in diverse territories and with diverse communities, from groups of artisans where the reality of their trades is critical to startups and productive companies. In these projects, creating meaning involves exploring the current situation with its raw problems and, through co-creation, helping them to express their deepest desires for the future. Design projects, move from inaction to action, and re-choose what we do.
These are extremely powerful, necessary, and urgent processes. I believe this space is necessary.
Challenges of the present and future
"My question today is: in the coming decades, faced with these forecasts flooded by dominant technologies and rulers and by sordid and dystopian scenarios, I dare to continue participating as a conscious and responsible designer of meaning at the service of society, institutions and territories, capable of operating from our deepest wills and passions of our culture, our history and our trajectories.
My question is, who will be joining us?
Because I'm going to be blunt, and with this I'll close.
Nobody is going to ask us for anything, nobody is going to give us anything, nobody is going to thank us for anything. We have to propose everything, we have to do everything, and we have to share everything. Today, the key words for our discipline are vision, mission, responsibility, self-management, self-assessment, celebration, and gratitude. so that we can dedicate ourselves to doing that task that completely consumes us and that we cannot stop doing, "to design and to design meaning."
Human-centered design
"It's an honor to be part of this panel. I think my face gives me away. I'm from a new design school. As we've already discussed and talked about throughout the exhibitions, The cradle of design is the product, the object, and it is positioned at the center of the ecosystem, and the entire discipline moves from the particular to the general.
And I am native to human-centered designI was taught from scratch that the user is at the center and that It goes from the general to the specific. I believe that is already part of this paradigm shift that we are experiencing today.
I am also from the generation of design without a surnameThis, which they were naming, to put aside a little the discipline named with a surname and move on to this new transition.
So, when I was thinking about this exhibition, I started reflecting on human-centered design and how it's something that, in my work experience today, is very present, very latent, and highly valued. But also "There are other elements that come into play that cause it to start dialoguing with the real scenario instead of the ideal scenario."
Systems thinking for ecosystems
"And one of those factors is the development, which weighs a lot of decisions that interfere with decision-making when designing.
As Maria mentioned in my introduction, I'm currently working at ITI. It's a technology consulting firm. holding It's called Grupo Vázquez, which is a group of companies from Paraguay. There are a lot of service companies: there's a bank, a company that delivered, an marketplacea lot of companies.
So I'm in contact with a lot of design realities linked to the tech industry. And something that stands out to me, that I really value, is that instead of having a super isolated vision, where each company has its own track separate, There is a very present vision of the ecosystem. Where, although one product may have nothing to do with the other and has no direct or perceptible link on the part of the end user, the team thinks about the ecosystem.
Perhaps afterwards the end consumer does not know that they belong to the same group or that they are part of the same holding, But When designing, the focus is on the cross-cutting experience of the ecosystem, putting the user at the center. and understanding how, for example, if I am a person who has to create an account at a bank and then has to create an account in an app of delivered And then another account, and suddenly you have to create seven, eight, nine or ten different accounts… Okay, what if you created just one account and with that account you had access to all the others?
That systemic, integral, ecosystemic thinkingI believe it's one of the current trends and where the future needs to go."
The role of the designer
"Something else I see today, where I work, is that the role of the designer in the technology industry is in constant contact with non-designers who also design, with other product, technology and business roles.
And we are just one more link in the system. We are not the ones who make all the decisions, and we are not outside the decision-making process either.
That's interesting because suddenly, as a designer, you see people designing who studied something else or who have a different way of thinking and a different way of solving problems. So it's also about seeing... how design is constantly nourished by other disciplines that do not execute the design as a handed-on package, like "well, this is what was designed, now let someone else execute it", but rather it is something that is in constant dialogue and movement."
The changes that AI brings
"And that's where artificial intelligence comes in, which has already been mentioned several times. I think one of the most interesting aspects of artificial intelligence and how It is redefining a lot of the design project system. That's precisely it: suddenly the step-by-step process that one tries to follow in the design methodology is completely disrupted by these new technologies.
And if you stick to the "well, as a designer I have to follow the step-by-step process and first think, then design, and then execute" approach, you suddenly find yourself with an AI-powered interface that you've added a promptand it more or less solved what you were expecting.
Then you say, "Well, what about..."And what role does the designer have in a scenario where that can be resolved so quickly and, perhaps, well resolved by other types of tools or other types of people as well?"?" Because it happens that those prompts They're made by developers, PMs, designers... a bit of everything."
To be molded and to mold the environment
"So, the project breaks down and that's where I think The challenge, looking ahead, is to let oneself be shaped by the context. Do not impose the design, the methodology, "because at university I was taught that first this and then that," but rather to engage with that environment, to let the environment shape us and to shape the environment in turn.
But we are thinking about the person and not the product, or the ecosystem, or the service I want to create, but in how I can improve the life of the person who will consume my product or service.
And something that I think is important and caught my attention when Maria mentioned it is that The environment shapes behavior.
The first thing Maria said was: "I arrived here, saw this table and thought about this event." This event was planned because there was an atmosphere which generated what is happening here now, which is the behavior: that we are all sitting at a table talking about design.
So, when designing, we can think about what behaviors do we want to design and then think about the environments to generate those behaviorsand not the other way around. Don't think about the environment first, "oh, how lovely the environment is," and then about the behavior.
It's like in urban planning, for example: if I create a city with bike lanes, people will probably ride bicycles. If it doesn't have bike lanes, they'll probably get around using another means of transport.
Then the The designer's role takes on an articulating, coordinating role and it begins to, as Analía said, Thinking and designing meaning through living ecosystems that improve human existence«.
