slow design, accelerated solutions

Going through my archives earlier in the week, I uncovered “Slow + Design” a manifesto of a “slow approach to distributed economy and sustainable sensoriality” that was published in preparation for a 2006 seminar on the subject taking place in Milan.

Using the Slow Food movement as a starting point, the authors first outline the slow approach as

the simple, but in current times revolutionary, affirmation that it is not possible to produce and appreciate quality if we do not allow ourselves the time to do so, in other words, if we do not activate some kind of slowdown. However, slow does not only mean this. It also means a concrete way of actually putting this idea into practice. It means cultivating quality: linking products and their producers to their places of production and to their end-users who, by taking part in the production chain in different ways, become themselves coproducers.

Turning to “design”,

we can observe that a “new design” is emerging: a design that adopts a systemic view, that looks at the complexities of social networks, develops a capacity for listening and interrelates with the creativity and diffuse entrepreneurship that characterise contemporary society. In so doing it becomes an active part of the transformation processes underway and in those that must take place, confronted as we are with the enormous issues at stake.

These passages — and many others in the 27-page document — resonate as strongly with me today as they did when I first encountered the manifesto a year and a half ago. From my perspective as a Process Designer grounded in the practices and methods of MG Taylor, my fascination is in seeing how “slow design” can enable groups, organizations and communities to accelerate their path toward solutions.