The olympics, the 2012 version of which is steadily taking shape near to me in east london, seems a very funny thing from a design point of view. Its a regular event requiring more or less the same infrastructure every four years yet we never re-use anything - we just leave expensive under-used stadia dotted around in the name of 'regeneration'. Why "spending half a billion pounds to end up with a second-rate athletics stadium marooned in yuppy housing developments in the Lower Lea Valley" (Gordon MacLaren http://www.asd-realtime.org/2007/11/17/spectacle/ ) is regeneration beats me. The stadium we are getting is at least modest but it is still commercially unsustainable and hasn't been designed with a shared end-user in mind like the commonwealth games stadium in manchester. The 'legacy' of the stadium seems to be a like-for-like replacement of the aethletics facility at crystal palace.
Why does the olympics have to move around? Surely only in terms of it as a financial spectacle. It would be just as good if it was in Greece every year and maybe it would even build up more character. Alternatively why haven't we designed a reusable stadium that could be reassembled in different cities.? Or a giant olympic ship..?
There seems something wrong with the amount of waste this event creates by starting from scratch every 4 years.
agony of designing
Dear Ben
I appreciate your agnony. I think you touch on something very deep...all the way down to the moment when we wonder the meanings of our existence.
Why does the olympics have to move around? The question is not unlike: 'why do we design new arts, new music, new dances, new plays, new buildings, new products, new knowledge when there are plenty of these already....?
Let's step back and think why do we (re)design at all? or wonder why HAVE we BEEN redesigning at all?
I am reminded of the expression that the purpose of life is living. And for that matter, the purpose of design is designing (this is the view of john chris jones). I am also reminded of herbert simon's teaching: we might design in such a way that leaves 'possibility' for the following generations so that they 'can' also design. I cannot say i am deep into the 'sustainability discourse', but what I do understand is the concern is the same as simon's.
sustainable design implies the wish to continue designing...i think.
improvement
"why do we design new arts, new music, new dances, new plays, new buildings, new products, new knowledge when there are plenty of these already....?"
surely improvement? what we design/ redesign improves on the existing situation or at least tries to.
maybe the olympics is the same. each time a chance to improve on the last.. but there is a large amount of repetition too, repeating things just in a different place... and that seems quite different to me.
or just variation
hi ben, i think we often redesign because the environment changes and the existing design is not suitable/useful/anymore to the new environment. this is not really improvement, or? this is actually a point raised by Wolfgang Jonas, among others: design is not about progress, just variation or adaptation. do you agree? (by the way, did you receive the Birkhaeser book that i sent you?)
adapting..
hi rosan, i think that both designing in order to provide something different (i.e. expanding the range of choice) and also designing to meet a changed situation could be included under 'improvement' for me (improving the situation rather than the design itself?)...yeah, I wouldn't necessarily link improvement with a grand idea of Progress..but i do think we design through variation, adaptation, revolution etc. usually by trying to make things a bit better or at least more interesting..
(yes yes, thankyou again, looks wonderful..!)