SUDesign

E’ possibile finalizzare la creatività di giovani studenti di design per valorizzare le capacità produttive del sud del mondo?

Designing for the south of the world implies a clear consciousness of the problematics and the diversity of contexts in which a lot of populations are found themselves unable to satisfy primary needs such as food and water.The major part of the following project focuses precisely on the different aspects of the problem of water. Changing the target, going from the first to the third world, or from “our”10% to the remaining 90%, implies a radical change of the designing process, a flip, a return to the essentials, to the idea that the form follows the function, a creativity dedicated to simplification.The demands having been changed, the approach to the problems as well as the state of mind in which they were considered changed too. First of all, we paid attention to a distant reality, not immediately understandable, far from preconceptions and from the superficial stereotypes created by the media.To understand that “the poverty has not been created by the poor” as Nobel Prize Muhammad Yunus said, actually implies a deep analysis of the causes, giving up the idea of the irreversibility of the problems, by understanding them and looking for achievable and possible solutions thanks to the designer's own working method, a methodology which is linked to the real feasibility of the developed objects. From this point of view, it will be seen how the projects follow extremely cheap manufacturing logics, some feasibility on the spot, easily transportable, reusable or derived from the re-use, objects that assume double function. The design finally goes back to its original form, and from mannerism it goes back to be and to represent a service.

Mauro Oreste Paialunga