05/01/2009

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i34/34b00601.htm

BY THOMAS FISHER

The world desperately needs a design version of public health, and so do architectural schools and the profession itself.

At a time of declining employment in architectural offices and fading prospects for architectural graduates, an enormous amount of work remains largely overlooked by the profession: the provision of design services for the billions of people on the planet who need what architects can provide but who lack the ability to pay. Most architects have long sought more-lucrative work among clients who do have the means to pay. But with the financial crisis putting a severe crimp on traditional commissions, the time has come for designers to rethink our reason for being. Do we really want to continue to be servants of the superrich, or does our responsibility — and our overlooked opportunities for new types of services — also lie with the health, safety, and welfare of all?

This design-for-all philosophy would certainly demand a new business model and new forms of architectural education, possibly even a new profession. The design professions have traditionally followed a medical model of practice, in which the designer addresses a client's particular needs just as a physician does a patient's, supported by an educational system that focuses on creating custom solutions to problems. That model has served the needs of the planet's wealthiest population very well, but it largely leaves out everyone else. In response to the health needs of underserved populations, the medical profession helped give birth in the mid-19th century to a new profession — public health — to deal with illness and disease within entire populations. Design played a part in the birth of that field, when Frederick Law Olmsted, the nation's first landscape architect, served as executive secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which developed recommendations for Union Army camps during the Civil War. Since then, design and public health have largely gone their separate ways.

That may be changing, however, as public health and design interests have once again begun to intersect. The realignment stems, in part, from some of the major health threats we now face, including chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, that can arise from Americans' sedentary lifestyle, and possible pandemic viruses, such as SARS and avian flu, that can come from overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Designers have played a part in the creation of those conditions: We have contributed directly to the physical inactivity of Americans through the design of communities that are overly dependent on cars as a means of transportation, and we have contributed indirectly to the pestilent slums in which much of the world's population now lives by failing to bring our skills to a vast, unserved sector of human society.

Public-interest design can help change those conditions, but it demands a business model much different from that of current design practice, and more like that of public health. Clients might consist of government groups like the U.S. Agency for International Development, intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank, or private groups like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Those organizations already spend billions of dollars annually to improve housing and sanitation in poor countries, so there is no lack of support for the work that needs doing. Public-interest design practices would also very likely tap a much wider range of colleagues — from public-health and technology professionals to cultural consultants — than architects now do. And firms would undoubtedly need relationships with university-based design schools to leverage the research capacity of the latter. Public-interest design firms might have nonprofit as well as for-profit versions, depending on the source of financing and type of work.

While public-interest designers would still provide solutions to particular problems, the scope of their work might involve an entire slum or region of a country, addressing basic needs of shelter, sanitation, clean water, and energy production. Much of the work, though, would probably entail the development of prototypes that could be produced at very low cost in local communities and be carried out by unskilled laborers in myriad cultures and climates. The development, testing, delivery, and continuing evaluation of easily replicable solutions would constitute a major portion of the work of public-interest design. That, in turn, would require an education that draws from a wider range of disciplines — anthropology, cultural geography, economics, industrial engineering, public health — than most design programs now do.

The nature of practice and the scope of education in public-interest design raises the question of whether it can coexist within existing design fields or if it constitutes a new profession, related to but distinct from other forms of design. Public-interest design encompasses all of the other design fields, so some knowledge of design thinking, techniques, production materials, and methods seems essential. But traditional aspects of design education, such as the creation of high-cost, resource-intensive solutions to meet the needs of the world's wealthiest, would be largely irrelevant to this new field. Public health became separated from medicine for similar reasons, and I suspect the same will happen with public-interest design.

Professional turf, however, must not distract us from the urgent work that needs to be done. The need extends to a sizable share of the world's population. Experts estimate that the number of people living in slums will reach two billion by 2050, with as many as 200 million environmental refugees fleeing coastal flooding and inland droughts over the next century, and hundreds of thousands of people dying annually from contaminated water and poor sanitation. The need for better-designed systems, structures, and settlements has become a top priority, and not just for those who live in unhealthy environments. Slum conditions can provide a breeding ground for problems — disease, political instability, terrorism — that affect everyone.

While there might not be enough jobs for architects in the current economy, there is more than enough important work for public-interest designers to do. We need only to figure out how to do that work — how to prepare for it, practice it, and make a profession of it. Designers are creative people, with a process that enables us to envision futures that do not yet exist. So the creation of a new field of public-interest design should not be beyond our ability. We must seize the opportunity before us, go where we are most needed, and do what we do best.

Thomas Fisher is dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He has written extensively about the social, environmental, and ethical aspects of design, most recently in his book Architectural Design and Ethics: Tools for Survival (Architectural Press, 2008).