AIGA + NREL

“All organizations need to continuously

renew themselves, adjust to external

change, solve problems, create new

patterns in the form of strategies, products,

and services and keep moving forward.”

– GK VanPatterNextDesign Leadership Institute

At what point do you stop seeing obstacles ...

... and start seeing opportunities?

Excavating the culture of design

Archeological digs unearth fragments and artifacts. When pieced together, these objects can recreate “a day in the life.” We can imagine the experiences that were enhanced by their use. Further examination would reveal that the early designers of these experiences used their understanding of their culture to meet their needs, not just for self preservation but also to advance their civilization.

What will we leave behind?

Likewise, what will future archeologists find in our layer of time? What will we leave behind that indicates we lived in a creative culture, full of technological advances, with an understanding of the human experience?

Where do we look?

There was a large car dealership in Detroit. They sold new and used vehicles that were parked over several acres of land. There also was a porter there named Barney. Barney did everything. He swept floors, cleaned bathrooms, shoveled snow. He did all the things no one else wanted to do.

In the winter, when it got really cold, the batteries in all the cars would die if the cars just sat there.

The mother of invention

The solution was to have someone start all the cars on the lot and let their batteries charge for a few minutes. Barney was that someone, and it took him all morning. Eventually, he created several giant key rings, one for each lot of cars.

This is how designers think as problem solvers. We can create solutions and experiences using tools and user understanding that meet human needs.

Same problem, new technologies to apply

At a new car dealership many years later, I noticed that each car had a little solar panel inside the windshield. It was maybe 4”x 9”, and it had a wire that fed down to the DC plug (former cigarette lighter).

The ghost of Barney

I asked a salesman about the little solar panel. He said: “We’re using that solar thing to keep the batteries charged. The alarm systems drain the batteries.”

So here, the application of a new technology with the understanding of a human need can solve an old problem. But we, as designers, can think in greater scales and broaden the context of their application.

Where is the user value?

This model expands the range of goals taken into account when designing. We can advance our designs by using human-centered understanding and considering how those interactions meet the desired experience. By starting at the experience end of this model, designers and engineers actually get closer to achieving the goals we want.

Motor Car Street/Highway Driving

Components

ToolsSystem

Experience

Where are the designers?

AIGA, the professional association for design, is a community of more than 19,000 professionals, educators, and students. It aggressively engages in demonstrating the value of design through AIGA-sponsored events, activities, and publications.

Recently, AIGA demonstrated its social responsibility by lending its expertise for the redesign of the voting ballot system. It also launched a sustainable Web site that provides information to designers so that they can make informed decisions concerning sustainable design practices. But, are there boundaries to the value design?

(o + a)2 = d + c = e

(observe + analyze)2 = discovery + creativity = experience

AIGA + NREL? Design + Science? How do we tap the collective power of these two disciplines? AIGA + NREL. You would think these two organizations have nothing in common. Or do they?

Actually, these organizations have some similarities. They both occupy the same layer in time. They both are tasked with initiating change. And, they both are a collection of innovative professionals who create artifacts, systems, and experiences that have outcomes that impact the world we live in. Their common goal is to create a better future than the one unplanned for.

NREL The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colorado, is the principal research laboratory for renewable energy for the Department of Energy. NREL is growing again, and recent global developments have renewed its efforts. As energy resources have become a national security concern, our nation is looking for reliable, clean, and affordable energy solutions. Here is where the new opportunities exist. It’s here that designers can advance their craft and strategic thinking and contribute to the largest social concern possible—the environment.

This is the point.

Whether it’s in artifacts, systems, or experiences, the future of design and innovation is in how we continue to change the way our values are communicated. Where will we register our talents? Where do we apply our skills? To whom will we impart our knowledge?

Look inside innovation, and underneath the mystique, you find problem solving. Look underneath the mystique of design, and you will find a form of problem solving there as well. The difference is in how we do the how, what tools we use, and how we think about connecting patterns to humans.

The Next opportunity.

In some of the most unlikely places lie the opportunities for the greatest change. Changes that impact our daily lives, the environments in which we reside, and the world as we know it are already beginning to be realized.

We, as designers and innovators, should initiate where the opportunities of our future world will begin. Not only because we have a stake in it, but also because we can effect how these changes will enrich our lives.

At our core, we are about strategic renewal and solving problems in human-centered ways. We have become a key player not only in the creation of successful strategies, products, and communications but also to the development of organizational innovation capabilities.

From this perspective, design and innovation can play a key role in both the creation and the enabling of a human-centered world. The Next opportunity is for AIGA and NREL to demonstrate how this collaboation could work.

We can do this the hard way or ... Our nation currently relies on coal, imported oil, and natural gas for most of its energy. These fossil fuels are nonrenewable, that is, they draw on finite resources. As these become depleted, and more expensive, we need to develop alternatives and new energy resources. Their development and application is the challenge. Are there ways to integrate renewable energy through design?

Translation: “The beach is your’s – Protect it.”

What is renewable energy? Renewable energy is energy derived from resources that are regenerative or, for all practical purposes, cannot be depleted. Renewable energy sources are fundamentally different from fossil fuels and do not produce as many greenhouse gases and other pollutants as fossil fuel combustion. Our most abundant and cleanest energy sources can be found in water, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass resources. Their availability is sustainable if not infinite , and they’re in our backyard.

Because what once was ... Greensburg, Kansas

... no longer is. Wednesday, May 9, 2007. After a category F-5 enhanced tornado, with winds estimated at 205 mph destroyed about 95 percent of this farming town.

Someone will rebuild this town, and whoever does will be designing it with humans needs in mind. Here is the opportunity to broaden the context of our work. Here is the social need for solutions to be developed with our culture of design knowledge and technology.

What do you see?

How do you build a town? Google + NREL. As Greensburg, KS, rebuilds, NREL is working with Google to develop a plug-in for their SketchUp software. The buildings being designed would use NREL’s efficiency model plug-in to see how energy-efficient new structures would be before building them. This empowers people to understand how decisions such as which direction should a house face, or how the placement of windows can affect the energy efficiency of a building.

AIGA + NREL = innovate, create & sustain Creative environments will be conducive to ideation that will lead to innovative ideas. New technologies would be created through design and science that mesh with our visual landscape and enhance the human experience. Life cycles of technologies would be realized through strategic and sustainable initiatives. Here is an opportunity for the direction of NREL’s growth.

This partnership would introduce many new research methods that will help NREL innovate, create, and sustain these developments in future technologies and in communities.

Where do we go from here? Part of AIGA’s new mission is to advocate the value of design to business, government, and the public. There aren’t many public projects with a greater scale of impact than a successful AIGA + NREL relationship.

Here is the opportunity to empower designers to enrich society. We not only share the same future but we also share the same responsibility of how that future is built.

AIGA164 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10010www.aiga.org

National Renewable Energy Laboratory1617 Cole Blvd.Golden, CO 80401www.nrel.gov

Excerpts from GK VanPatter were reprinted from Infodesign, a publication about the design of information and experiences.

Designed by Bill Gillies to facilitate a discussion between AIGA and NREL about future opportunities.

August 2007

AIGA + NREL Can we begin a dialogue?