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Greg TewVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design AppreciationVirginia Tech University Design Appreciation
Welcome to Design
Appreciation. My name is Greg
Tew, you can call me Greg. I’ve
been teaching this class since
2010. Since then, a lot has
happened in the world of
design, and in our lives, so
while this class is a story of
how design shapes our lives it
is also a story of constant
change. At the end of each
chapter, you and your
professor will have the chance
to discuss the story and the
ideas that lie ahead. Let’s get started with some first
thoughts about the class. What are your expectations?
That’s part of what we will talk about, but mostly the class is about the
many complex ways design influences our quality of life and how design
innovation must play a central role in our future. Two-hundred thousand
years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent time each day rounding up
the food they needed, doing some cooking and chores, and then they spent
Greg, will this class be like art appreciation, but focused on the
things we buy and architecture instead of paintings?
>>
View of the Rialto Bridge in Venice, built 400years ago. Venice is one of the most beautifullydesigned cities in the world. What are webuilding today that will be worthy ofpreservation and enjoyed by people 400years from now?
Absolutely. There are people who deny climate change is happening, and
many more don’t believe human activity is causing the change, but new
reports are being published all the time confirming WE are the reason our
climate is changing. When I first started teaching this course, you had to be
an avid reader of the news to know anything about this monumentally
important problem we all face. Today, climate scientists agree there is only
one in one million chance climate change is due to something other than
human activity. We have created a very serious problem we don’t want to
fix because to fix it we have to make changes in our lives. People generally
don’t like change unless it’s fun. Not many of us see climate change as an
opportunity for fun, but what if it was fun? What if we created a scenario
where the best life we could live was a life that stopped climate change?
That’s our challenge in this class. I think stopping climate change is the
most exciting and important design challenge of all time.
Back in 2010 I avoided the issue of
climate change until the very end of
the story I tell in this course. I had to
fully explain the story of humans for
the idea of climate change to seem
like a real point of concern. But since
2010, climate change has become a
dominant issue in the news. We must
respect it as a serious threat in our
lives, so I now start talking about this
issue on day one. Design is problem-
solving, climate change is scary but it
is also a very exciting design problem
that needs a desirable solution. There are millions of people working on
solutions, but we need billions to embrace the solutions being proposed. Is
There’s the concern about climate change. Automobile emissions
are a big part of that problem.
>>
4
Venice has �ooded when the tides wereparticularly high for many years, but the city issinking and sea levels are rising. The �oodingproblem is getting more serious every year.Will Venice have to be abandoned?
the problem of climate change real and immediate? Well, here's an article
with thoughts on the subject.
Read the article and watch the videos in the article. You'll need to do this
throughout this course.
By now, you are either intrigued by where we are going in this course or
you might be disappointed that it will not be mostly about the aesthetics of
design. Let me clarify a couple of things. Learning how to design is a long
challenging process for most people. Design majors put in very long hours
working on their projects. Design is a labor of love—it’s hard and it’s slow.
This is not a class to teach you how to design, it’s about appreciating—
grasping the full implications of—design in our lives.
We could spend the semester discussing the aesthetic merits of one car or
another, one couture dress on the runway or another, or one tall building or
another. But to truly appreciate the power design has in our lives – for good
and for bad, we must look at the entire system shaping the world we live in.
We are at the end of our first day of class. To close it out, there is one more
important thing to know.
The essence of design is the development of ideas. In design school we
spend most of our time discussing ideas, and unlike math, in design there
is rarely one right answer. As a class about ideas, you might disagree with
some or even all of what is in this book and in this class. That’s OK. With
total sincerity, all points of view are welcome and encouraged. The
ideas and points of view in the book are my own, based on many years of
Final Call to Save the World from “Climate Catastrophe”
Design Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or ThatDesign Is Not Just This or That