Where is design headed? Just what exactly is good design today, and how can anyone qualify it? In recent years, design has become more integrated and elevated in the public’s collective psyche. During a panel discussion at the Ninth Annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show in New York last week, John Bricker of Gensler and Swantje Roessner from BMW set out to navigate an audience through the complex territory of the role of designers today.
“Design isn’t about the ephemeral, and it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because people think about it. Somewhere between passion and strategy is design,” said IIDA CEO Cheryl Durst in her introduction to the discussion. Indeed, in our transition from the age of manufacturing to the technology age, the intangible qualities that make something resonate with culture almost always begin as a twinkle in a designer’s eye.
Currently leading strategic design for BMW in Munich, Germany, Swantje Roessner described today’s creative designers as people that “combine all the potentials that are out there in terms of society, politics, economy, technology and ecology.” Gathering all these disparate elements into a single thought space, Ms. Roessner has referred to the process as “poesis.” The term, originally coined by Plato in The Republic, means “that which passes from not-being into being.” Ultimately, poesis is the act of creativity: an individual or a group making something. She went on to further illustrate her approach: “If we use the creativity of interior space, we could think about arranging our thoughts and emotions as objects which can be built similar to an interior space.” This space contains rational aspects that interact with emotional expressions. In order for it to be understood outside of the individual, Ms. Roessner adds one more essential ingredient – the designer’s spirit. Applying this formula to a designer’s mind, Ms. Roessner believes it is possible for the designer to return to this well of creativity again and again. “The future is about our thoughts in order. Our thoughts are ethereal, carried out by our individual spirit and culture but are hard to share without this common space.” Ms. Roessner’s organic approach to design may seem unfamiliar to American designers, but in Europe, the designer’s spirit is a highly regarded differentiator between designers.
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