Future Trends and the Designer: New Options and Obligations

An Address Presented to the Annual Conference of the Interior Design Educators Council, April, 1979

HADLEY SMITH Office of Future Studies, Mississippi Research and Development Center, Jackson, Mississippi

In 1970, Alvin Toffler’s formidable book, Future Shock, dramatically alerted us to the social and psychological implications of the technological rev- olution. Nearly a decade later even the most insenti- ent among us has witnessed the onslaught of ramp- ant change and our unpreparedness for it.

Toffler called “future shock” the “psychological disease of change” and explored its major catalysts in sections entitled: “The Death of Permanence,” “Transience,” “Novelty,” and “The Limits of Our Adaptability.”’ Even in 1970, these forces were far from the province of mere speculation. Ten years hence they appear to be only the tip of a larger iceberg.

Today, a legion of futurists from every notable discipline continue the research and evaluations of our predicament and the warnings which Toffler. Galbraith, Boulding, Mead, and others chronicled.

As designers and design educators, the most sig- nificant imperative of the future, upon which all other images and actions rest, lies in the understand- ing, management, and teaching of the effects of this chronic change upon our lives.

In his article, “The Coming Transformation,” Willis Harman of Stanford Research Institute out- lines the magnitude and pervasiveness of the changes currently taking place:

This is thoroughgoing systemic change, comparable in im- portance to such transitions as the prehistoric change from a hunting and gathering to an agricultural society o r the indus- trial revolution. Such a systemic change involves a rnetamor- phosis in basic cultural premises, fundamental value premises, the root image of man-in-society, and all aspects of social roles and institutions.

Our research leads me to the conclusion that the industrialized world is simultaneously undergoing a conceptual revolution as thoroughgoing in its effects as the Copernican Revolution, and an institutional revolution as profound as the Industrial Revo- lution.

Furthermore, this overall transformation is proceeding with extreme rapidity, such that the most critical period will be passed through within a decade. Whether the social structure can withstand the strain is very much at issue, and this will greatly depend on how well we can understand the nature and

necessity of the transformation while we are experiencing it.2 (p. 106)

I believe that the design professions have a moral obligation to understand the nature and necessity of this awesome transformation. Indisputably, our de- sign solutions are predicated upon and affected by its tour de force. And if we are to meet these new needs and address this turbulent change responsibly, fundamental changes in our own basic assumptions. both personal and professional, must take place.

From my perspective as a designer and a student of future studies, there is for us now a clear and compelling mandate, one we can no longer ignore or postpone. Put simply, unless we attempt to com- prehend and accommodate the new realities which accelerative change has wrought, we have no busi- ness creating the tangible environmental forms which purport to house them, And unless we can restructure our educational programs to reflect these new realities, and develop a substantial new range of perceptions, values, and methodologies with which to direct them, we have no business teaching. We, no less than our students and our culture, cannot afford the luxury of unenlightenment.

Perhaps by reviewing some of the major value shifts presently underway, and then noting some of the specific trends which tend to play out from these cultural and conceptual shifts, we will be able to dis- cern the shape of our new imperatives as designers and design educators. The trends I have selected here will have a pronounced effect upon our pro- fession; however, they are by no means inclusive.

PARADIGM SHIFT The term, “dominant paradigm,” first used by-

Thomas S. Kuhn in his book, The Structure Of Sci- entific Revolutions, is often used by futurists to con- note a whole mental set assumed by the culture. This paradigm generally signifies the way of perceiving. thinking, and doing that is associated with a par- ticular vision of reality. The values of the dominant paradigm are not transmitted by overt teaching. but

Journal of Inter ior Design Education and Research, 5 ( I ) : 7-13 1979 7

are rather just assumed. They are embodied in our unquestioned, tacit understanding about “the way things are” as evidenced in everyday life.3

The transformation which Willis Harman speaks of is a major systemic shift from “the current in- dustrial state paradigm” to “the emerging post- industrial state paradigm.” Both are outlined on the following pages.

In reviewing the concepts associated with each of the paradigms it is important to keep in mind that one will probably not totally replace the other (much depends upon our choiceful actions and upon unpredictable events) ; that there is a continuing dispute among forecasters as to whether the transi- tion to the emerging paradigm will be one of smooth, gradual: long-term change or one of traumatic total systems breakdown; and that the outline herewith represents only a simplistic and incomplete over- view of this complex transformation. Nevertheless, it is evidence enough to convince us that the future will be radically different from anything we have known before, because the values and resources upon which our present actions and assumptions rest are begin dramatically altered.

It may also do well to keep in mind another. more cogent observation:

“The only justification for our concepts and our system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy.”

-Albert Einstein

The assumptions of the industrial-state paradigm naturally follow from a linear, product-oriented dis- position. Until recently it had not found it necessary to admit our global interdependencies which consti- tute what is called “Ie problematique” or macro- problem, that is, the understanding that LLwe are all in this together.” Until recently, the current para- digm did not recognize our fragile ecosystem, our dwindling finite resources, the staggering social costs which are not computed in the GNP, nor the bank- ruptcy of our humanness. The emerging post-indus- trial paradigm, by admitting these indelible truths, sets a challenging new course, characterized by quite different priorities. While debate continues over the degree of major shifts and the time frames of their respective emergence, the immediate trends which we as designers and educators need to moni- tor are those born out of the head-on crash of these two paradigms, with its attendant intensity. confu- sion, and instability.

If the dominant and emerging paradigms speak of values, trends speak of the response to changes which our mixed values address. Following are sev- eral “red-flag” categories where striking changes are occurring and which will have significant meaning for interior designers.

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS As commonly acknowledged, the economy is

shifting from a predominantly industrial disposition to that of a service economy across the nation. Mi- gration away from the Frostbelt and into the Sun- belt of the South and West continues. Many indus- tries are moving away from large metropolitan cities into smaller towns-towns often too limited in gov- ernment and services to accommodate the rapidly increasing population. Therefore, new or expanded community development and its vital support sys- tems will have to get underway to meet this demand. Conversely, there is also an immigration back to the cities of those seeking employment in the service economies. Extensive revitalization and adaptive re- use programs will have to take place to make these cities liveable in new terms.

The youth culture which has dominated the country in the past several decades will give way to a growing population of older people. By the turn of the century one person in eight will be at least 65 years old-fully 40 percent more people in this age bracket than at present. The number of people between the ages of 75 and 84 will increase by 60 percent, and the number of people at least 85 years old will double. Better home care arrangements and new facilities for the aged will be mandatory and society will be hard pressed to meet their needs adeq~ate ly .~ (pp. 9-15).

LABOR FORCE AND WORK LIFE The most profound change which has ramifica-

tions in every other major category is that of the influx of women in the work force at every level. In a 1977 New York Times article on changes in society, Dr. Eli Ginzberg, a Columbia University economist, who is also chair of the National Com- mission for Manpower Policy (clearly a misnomer) describes what is happening:

The pervasiveness of women in the work lorce constitutes a revolution in the roles of women that will have an even greater impact than the rise of communism and the development of nuclear energy . . . it is the single most outstanding phenom- enon of this century. It is a worldwide phenomenon, an in- tegral part of a changing economy and a changing society, and its secondary and tertiary consequences are really unchart- able.5 (p 1, p. 28)

A recent Harris report indicates that by the year 2000 one-half of the work force will be women. Presently, women comprise 53 percent of the pop- ulation and 41 percent of the work force. In a re- cent national symposium on Working In The 21st Century, which I had the pleasure of attending. Louis Harris announced that his surveys show that women are still pervasively discriminated against in salary, rank, loan eligibility, across the board, but

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CONCEPTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EXIST- CONCEPTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EMERG- ING INDUSTRIAL STATE PARADIGM ING POST-INDUSTRIAL STATE PARADIGM

Competition as “the American way”

Economics and technological determinism

Maximization of profits, economic expediency first

Unlimited growth, more is better, mass consumption

Materialism, acquisition, upward mobility, status goa!s

High technology, high speed, monumentalism

Capital-intensive, energy-intensive, planned obsolescence

Analytical, linear, reductionistic reasoning, Newtonian mechanics

Business and institutions run as machines in which independent parts operate separately (Cartesian logic)

Top-down, heirarchial management in public and private sectors

Authoritarian elite, the expert as final authority

Cooperation, equitable sharing of power and information

Ecological determinism

Social equality and justice and ecological balance first

Alternatives to growth, steady state economy

Frugality, voluntary simplicity, ephemeralization

Appropriate technology. human pace and scale

Resource conservation, preservation, recycling. retrofitting

Expansionistic, analytical and synthetic reasoning. intuition, “the new physics”

Ideas and enterprises developed in relation to the context, needs interdependency. interactive parts to the whole (holistic logic)

Shared power and responsibility in decision making and management

Experts as resources, facilitators; participatory democracy, pluralism

Product and success oriented, tangible rewards, end Process oriented, significance of intangible, non- results quantifiable experiences

Emphasis on quantification, justification. scientific Emphasis on quality of life, expanded consciousness. proof, facts creativity, transcendence

Self-determinism, individual destiny, self-interest Self-actualization in relation to collective destiny

Sovereignty of private property, no government or Community consensus affects property use community intervention

Regionalism, nationalism, territoriality. secrecy. Global perspective, interdependency of nations. unity in the universe. openness. emphasis on the macrocosm

emphasis on microcosms

Sources for the above information are indicated by asterisks in the selected biblography.

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that men continue to maintain that they are not. Harris says women want into the economic, policy- making scene, that they are in this for keeps and that we had better be treating them seriously.6 Ob- viously this pronounced trend of women’s expanding work roles will dramaticaly affect both the work environment and the home environment.

Among both sexes there is a movement toward second and third careers, mid-life career changes, early retirement, unionism, and a decline of the work ethic. Serious concerns for improved quality of work life, meaningful work, flex-time and worker participation in the future growth and management of the work place have strong implications for the responsive redesign and amelioration of the work environment.

FAMILY TRENDS AND HOUSING In addition to the dramatic changes in the roles

of women is the dramatic deterioration of the tra- ditional cohesive nuclear family and the rise of new, diverse forms of family life reflective of current so- cioeconomic conditions. Dr. Suzanne Keller, Profes- sor, Department of Sociology and Architecture at Princeton University, also spoke at the recent con- ference on Working In The 21st Century, and was quite emphatic about the changes in the family, which are not being addressed by planners and de- signers, business, government and education. Dr. Keller asserts that only one-sixth of American fam- ilies conform to the typical nuclear family mode, that one-half of American families have at least two breadwinners gainfully employed, that two million American women are the sole support of their hus- bands and children, and that none of our current as- sumptions about “the way things are” reflect these blatant realities.

New social relationships and family surrogrates need equal acknowledgement. single-parent families, multiple-family collectives, extended or communal families, some exclusively adults, others with a high proportion of children; homosexual partnerships, adults combining work place and home in one dwell- ing, studio-lofts, and a renewed interest in the 16th century concept of the corporate family as a profit- making in~t i tu t ion .~ (1). 323) There are more people who fit into these diverse categories than there are those who fit into the nuclear family mode.

Within the past decade our consciousness has been (somewha t ) raised with respect to providing barrier-free environments for disabled citizens. This is a beginning, long overdue. but it too is just the tip of a larger iceberg.

There are additional housing needs reflecting a culture under seige which are still to be addressed sensitively and responsibly: rape crisis centers, bat-

tered women’s shelters (including space for the chil- dren of these victims), half-way houses, drug reha- bilitation centers, abortion clinics, shelters for run- aways and unwed mothers, nursing homes, and hospices are among the many unacknowledged or marginally met housing needs, given the thousands who use them, and the untold numbers who would use them if they existed.

It is certainly a tragic irony that those within these users groups are often the most frightened. disenfranchised and impoverished of us all-psy- chologically and physically traumatized, socially and politically stigmatized. And yet, I doubt if any among us has more urgent need for the solace and safety, human affirmation and hope which respon- sive designing, along with compassionate manage- ment, can miraculously offer.

You may well argue that these needs, however valid, do not have paying clients, nor has the com- munity expressed a strong, i f any, desire for their attention. I would have to argue that such issues are a matter of informed awareness and of a larger social consciousness than economic determinism.

Because we are trained to see, to feel, to create, and to communicate, we as designers have another moral obligation: i.e., to make these problems register within the community and to those who could and should provide funds for their respective design solu- tions. W e can also volunteer our services; we can assign our students hands-on projects which address real needs of real people; and we can solicit the help of business and civic leaders in the implementation of our plans. W e know how to do these things!

In times of unprecedented change, vision blurs, priorities become myopic, leadership vanishes, but the problems only increase. Those of the disenfran- chised increase geometrically. This is only one of many areas where our initiative and leadership could make a valued difference. If we would but stay alert, do our homework, and risk acquiring new skills, we could become agents of change, positive change, rather than its victims. I suspect the emer- gencies before us will demand the effort.

ENERGY AND TECHNOLOGY The late brilliant economist, E. F. Schumacher.

perhaps more than any other recent sage, has focused us squarely on the necessity of developing an ecolog- ically appropriate use of technology. In his book. Small I s Beautiful, Economics As If People Mattered, Schumacher outlines the tenacious illusion of our abundance:

Modern man does not experience himself as a part of naturc but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won he battle, he would find himself on the losing side . . .

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The illusion of unlimited powers, nourished by astonishing scientific and technological achievements, has produced the concurrent illusion of having solved the problem of production. The latter illusion is based on the failure to distinguish be- tween income and capital where this distinction matters most. Every economist and businessman is familiar with the distinc- tion, and applies it conscientiously and with considerable sub- tlety to all economic affairs-except where it really matters: namely, the irreplaceable capital which man has not made, but simply found, and without which he can do nothing.8 (p. 14)

Our current paradigm based on growth-depend- ent, capital-intensive, energy- and resource-intensive industries is a disposition we can no longer afford. This fact has been exhaustively reported and we are all aware of the necessity of adopting alternative en- ergy sources (wind electric, geothermal, bioconver- sion, photovoltaic power, ocean thermal and solar technology).

Certainly, active and passive solar technology will become increasingly viable. Conservation meas- ures will be mandatory and planning around natural heating and cooling will increase. Natural light and simulated natural light (molecular arc lamp) will also be significant in our designing.

Not only do we have a conscious role to play in incorporating alternative and effective conserving energy systems, but we must also become selective in specifying materials, products and services which are labor-intensive and renewable resource-intensive rather than capital-intensive and high-energy inten- sive. This should apply not only to the final use but to the manufacturing and distribution as well. As de- signers, we must exercise prudent material and prod- uct choices and encourage this sensibility among those consumers who seek our services.

On another front, a whole revolution will be taking place in foods, food processing and packaging, and in food preparation. It has been speculated that by 1985 half of our food budget will be spent in eating out. New restaurants and new home kitchen facilities will require innovative space planning and storage arrangements.

The plastics and electronics industries will also transform our current choices. New materials and technologies may evolve many of o w assembly, dur- ability, and flexibility considerations, only to add problems in other areas. New materials may not be adequately tested before they are offered on the marketplace or they may be too energy consumptive or environmentally harmful in manufacturing if not in use. Nevertheless, the list of new capabilities is impressive: Man-made leathers, plastic papers, hol- low fibers which can contain and/or transmit liquids and gases may be used in wall construction, mat- tresses, carpets, upholstery and even clothes; paper honeycomb as a metal substitute, fabric structures. air-supported structures (interior and exterior). and noise and vibration silencers made of steel and plas-

tic laminate may be easily bonded to any surface. All of these are on their way.

Modular homes, offices, schools, and stores which are factory-built units that can be stacked and clus- tered, altered and rearranged are coming; so are in- terior built-in units for every conceivable function.’ (pp. 275-302)

Audiovisual, communication-computer consoles in the home will extend the supermarket, newspaper. bank, post office, doctor’s clinic, theatre, library, school, and work. It will also be the nerve center for a fully automated household. Increasingly, the home will become “the new headquarters” replacing services which heretofore took place outside the home in the community at large.

These technological cookies for the “modest home and office” are on the drawing boards-and this is but a taste of the options emerging. Still, beyond en- ergy and environmental issues, there are further serious trade-offs to be evaluated. Particularly con- cerning are the hidden psychosocial effects of the machine-person interaction over time, and the im- pact of these potentially closed systems upon the community and one’s sense of place and belonging.

COM M U N CATION AND IN FORMATION Before we can plan and design for the future

we must learn something about it. One thing is certain-the future will not be a linear extrapolation of the present. Unless we can develop a frame of reference and a reliable value system upon which we can hang the edited fragments of an information explosion, we will not be able to make sense of lives or determine our imperatives. This is as true for our students and our clients as it is for ourselves.

The post-industrial era is an information era- with some complex paradoxes in the wings: On the one hand, we know that “if the growth rate of hu- man knowledge continues to double every ten years. our knowledge today will be only about 3 percent of the knowledge available in 2027.”1° (p. 7) This means that 97 percent of the knowledge we will use in 2027 will be developed between now and then.

On the other hand, we know we have a growing subculture of the information poor. A recent re- search report by Stanford Research Institute’s Inter- national Center for the Study of Social Policy iden- tifies 41 long-term societal problems-one of them is about the information poor:

“A post-industrial society places high value on possessing and effectively using information. However, the gap is widening between those who are information rich and those who are information poor. Economic, educational, social and motiva- tional factors create an uneven distribution of ability to make use of our sophisticated new communications technology.”” (P. 276)

We, as educators in the classroom, and educators as fonr-givers in the culture, are in a strategic po- sition to help bridge this gap by devising new and approachable methodologies and organizational for- mats for reviewing the trade-offs and implicit values in our individual and collective choices regarding our natural and built environment.

W e are not only responsible for creating sensi- tiue and appropriate structures but also for convey- ing the informed urgency that sensitive and appro- priate structures be created.

Those we serve are in trouble as is the finite ecosystem and the obsolete institutions that purport to serve us. By focusing not on our own professional securities but rather on the critical needs of our students and the culture in this time of chronic change, we will have accommodated our own needs in the long run, and will have helped to bring about the requisite societal transformation upon which our very survival depends.

People want to participate, they want involve- ment, but people need new grids, embodying new data and new values and meaning. They need con- ceptual bridges and linking systems from the old to the new alternatives.

They need new visions of the future-images, pictures, plausible and hopeful scenarios. They need supportive, tangible spaces which attend their im- mediate realities, and they need flexible and adap- table spaces which will admit change and future pos- sibilities.

We designers and educators are a very prepos- sessing lot. We have extraordinary skills and percep- tions-unbelievable tenacity and creativity-if we could only unscramble ourselves and our antiquated educational systems so that they are working for us and not against us, we could make an unprecedented contribution to the larger problems.

In terms of our professional work in the field: Yes, of course, our fact-tracks will change-in

kind and amount. Our technology and materials will change as will our energy and resource allocations. And we will have to accommodate these changes at every level of the design process.

Still-while this is necessary-it is not sufficient. Somewhere in all of these adjustments we have lost the user of these glorious new designs. Harry Weese, AIA in Chicago, comes through loud and clear: ‘&In our fixation with architecture as a sculptural response to an economic equation, we have neglected the ground, the sky, and most of all, the user.”12 (p. 82)

I would like to submit a further indictment. It is my feeling that the entire design community shares, along with academic, business, and civic leaders, an unconscionable blindness to the real needs of a uery different set of users in our society-users

which do not correspond at all to our packaged and pass6 stereotypes. We must open up our closed sys- tems, engage in interdisciplinary dialogues, gather relevant data, and sit down together and determine who these people really are and what they are trying to tell us (if they have not already given up trying).

This will not be an easy task but neither is the time in which we live. Far too often, for far too long I’m afraid, we have remained in the safe and stagnant oxbow of the river rather than venturing out into its vibrant-if treacherous-current. By so doing, we have unwittingly become part of the prob- lem, not part of its solution. The more we rehearse our reticence to plunge in and the more we ration- alize our fears to confront these pressing issues head- on, the more rigid and intractable our habits become. It is in this way that our neurosis perpetuates itself.

I am not suggesting that designers or the built environment can “solve” these contemporary prob- lems single-handedly or even directly, but I am convinced (curiously, by history) that it can vividly temper, the experiences we have with it by the relevancy of the images and values it embodies. The time has surely come for the creation of new forms for new content which affirm our humanism rather than our mechanisms. As Hazel Henderson so aptly puts it, “Perhaps now is the time to recognize that the real factors of production are energy, matter and knowledge, and that the output is human beings.”

The external built environment is the largest, most graphic, most pervasive, and most tangible force in our lives. Likewise, and perhaps more sig- nificantly, interior space is the most intimate. It is an internal, physical jacket as close and enveloping as our skins. It can be as functional and transcendent as our pulse, and it can trigger infinitesimal asso- ciations of who we are and who we could become. It is time that we attended more seriously not only its appropriate technology but its rich chemistry and implied philosophies as well.

As designers, we have the trained capacity for holistic thinking, for comprehensive planning, for continuity and flow. We are trained observers, image- makers, visionaries, problem-solvers. We understand the nature of synergy and interdependencies. Our visual and conceptual languages have prepared us more naturally for the tenets of the emerging para- digm than perhaps any other group. If for no other reason than this, we have the moral obligation to act upon it. So it is: We clearly have the capacity, we need only develop the courage and commitment to act upon it.

In the final analysis, Plato’s observations are as appropriate today as they were for his time. They may well be the seeds of our own future. if we would but heed them:

“Whatever is honored in a country will be cultivated there.”

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REFERENCES ‘Henderson, Hazel. Creating Alternative Futures, T h e End of Economics. Berkely Windhover Books New York: Berkley Publish-

ing Corporation, 1978. *Cornish. Edward. T h e Studv of T h e Future. An Introduction T o T h e Art and Science of Understanding And Shaping Tomorrow’s - . -

World. Washington, D.C.: World Future Society, 1977. *Fowles, Jib. (editor) Handbook of Futures Research. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978. Beer, Stafford. Platform For Change. New York: John Wiley and Sons Ltd., 1975. Bateson, Gregory. Steps T o An Ecology Of Mind. Ballantine Books. New York: Random House, 1972. Bowman, Jom, Fred Kierstead, Chris Dede, and John Pulliam. T h e Far Side Of T h e Future: Social Problems And Educational Re

construction. Education Section. Washington, D.C.: Book Service, World Future Society, 1978. Toffler, Alvin. (editor) Learizing For Tomorrow, T h e Role Of T h e Future I n Education. Vintage Books. New York: Random House.

1974. Boulding, Kenneth E. The Meaning Of The 20th Century, T h e Great Transition. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper and Row.

1564. Ackoff, Russell L. Redesigning T h e Future, A Systems Approach T o Societal Problems. A Wiley-Interscience Publication. New York.

John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1974. McHale, John. The Changing Information Environment. Westview Environmental Studies. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1976.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Random House, 1970. 2. Harman, Willis W. “The Coming Transformation,” T h e Futurist, February, 1977, and April, 1977. 3. Kuhn, Thomas S. T h e Sirucfure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. 4. Taeuser, Conrad. “A Changing America.” American Demographics, January, 1979. 5. Dullea, Georgia. “Vast Changes in Society Traced to the Rise o f Working Women,” New York Times, November 25, 1977. 6. Harris, Louis. Symposium address, “Working in the 21st Century,” cosponsored by the Colgate Darden Graduate School of Bus-

iness Administration, University of Virginia, and the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, April, 1979. 7. Snyder, David P. “The Corporate Familq, A Look At A Proposed Social Invention,” The Futurist, December, 1976. 8. Schuniacher, E. F. Small is Beautiful, Economics as if People Mattered. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. 9. Rosen, Stephen. Future Facts. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976.

10. Kraegez, Wilfred. “Futurizing a City,” World Future Society Bulletin, May-June, 1978. 11. Schwartz, Peter, Peter J. Teige, and Willis W. Harman. “In Search of Tomorrow’s Crisps,” The Futurist, October, 1977. 12. Blake, Peter. Form Follows Fiasco, W h y Modern Architecture Hasn’t Worked, Atlantic Monthly Press Book. Boston: Little

Brown and Company, 1977.

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