001 Chapter One: Where Do We Stand in Time?

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001 Chapter One: Where Do We Stand in Time?

It feels impossible, doesn’t it? Trying to design something meaningful, something that resonates or endures, without first truly grappling with when and where we are. We swim in the currents of our time – the relentless flow of Past, Present, and Future – but how often do we consciously navigate them? How do we truly inhabit our specific moment, this fleeting “Hic et Nunc,” this here and now, while still understanding the echoes of yesterday and the shape of potential tomorrows? This question lies at the heart of what I hope to explore, forming the very bedrock of a symbiotic approach to design.

002 Finding Our Footing in the ‘Now’

So, how do we grasp this moment, our contemporary reality? I find myself returning to the thoughts of philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who warns how easily we can drift, becoming ghosts in our own time. He suggests something paradoxical: truly belonging to our present requires not just immersion, but also a kind of distance. It’s not about escaping into nostalgia, but about consciously creating a space for critical observation, a vantage point from which we might actually see the present more clearly than if we were simply swept along by it.

Agamben paints this vivid picture of a poet riding time like a charging beast. To truly perceive, the poet must lean forward, creating a gap, a momentary disconnect from the sheer momentum. It makes me wonder: what happens when we, as designers, lean forward like that? What “darkness,” what overlooked realities or marginalized possibilities within our field, might we perceive if we weren’t so dazzled by the apparent “light” – the latest trends, the dominant technologies, the loudest cultural narratives? We absolutely need to be aware of these forces, yes. But I believe a truly symbiotic designer cultivates this ability to step back, to question these currents, to see beyond the immediate demands and perhaps glimpse pathways towards more sustainable, more equitable, perhaps even more profoundly human futures.

003 The Weight and Wisdom of the Past: On Whose Shoulders?

Of course, we don’t arrive in this present moment out of thin air. We’re shaped by what came before. Umberto Eco’s words often echo in my mind: “It is difficult to move in a vacuum and institute ab initio reasoning.” It’s that famous, humbling image of dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants – our ability to see further, he reminds us, is often because others have already built the vantage point. Think about it: the first cars looked uncannily like horse carriages, didn’t they? We build upon existing forms, existing knowledge, whether we consciously acknowledge it or not. Engaging with the history of design, understanding its twists and turns, its triumphs and dead ends – this isn’t just academic exercise; it feels like a necessary dialogue with our own lineage.

But Eco adds a crucial layer: the awareness that one day, others might stand on our shoulders. What kind of foundation are we building right now? What responsibility does that entail? It calls for a certain humility, doesn’t it? Recognizing that seeing further might just be “historical luck,” as some have put it, rather than proof of our own genius. For me, acknowledging this vastness, this cumulative weight of knowledge, and the inherent limits of my own perspective, feels essential for a more thoughtful, more responsible way of designing.

004 The Heart of the Matter: Emotion, Choice, and Why We Design

This leads me to a critical, perhaps uncomfortable, question: Which giants do we choose to stand on? Whose legacies do we choose to carry forward? This struck me profoundly when reading the work of Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana. He spoke about how children seek guidance, how they yearn to learn “to do things properly” from those they admire, needing that reference point to think deeply. It highlights the power of mentorship, a dynamic I see constantly in design. But it also flips the question: as we shape our discipline, what kind of mentors, what kind of “giants,” are we choosing to become for those who follow? Should we listen to those who encourage overconsumption, or those dedicated to resolving the complex problems we have caused?

Even more fundamentally, Maturana challenged the neat separation we often make between reason and feeling. He argued that our theories, our rational constructs, are ultimately built upon non-rational premises – ideas we accept, often unconsciously, because they resonate emotionally. When I first encountered this idea, it felt like a key unlocking a hidden room in my own understanding of design. How often do we pretend design is purely logical, purely objective problem-solving? Isn’t it true that our values, our anxieties, our hopes – our emotions – powerfully shape the problems we even notice, let alone the solutions we dare to imagine? We choose which projects stir us, which paths feel right, often driven by something deeper than cold calculation.

Maturana and Varela’s later work on Autopoiesis – the idea of living systems as self-producing, self-maintaining entities – extended this thinking into cognition itself, suggesting our very way of knowing is tied to our being alive, including our rich emotional inner lives. If this is true, then how can any truly symbiotic design ignore the emotional landscape? Our choices ripple outwards, evoking feelings, shaping experiences, impacting well-being in ways we must strive to understand and respect. Our actions, I suspect, spring as much from our inner lives, from the connections we feel compelled to make, as from any calculated strategy.

005 Breaking Free: The Hard Work of Questioning Dogma

So, if our choices are tangled with emotion and history, how do we avoid getting stuck? Maturana offered another crucial insight: genuine reflection demands we “let go of attachments,” suspending our comfortable prejudices and expectations. Only then, he suggested, might conflicting ideas reveal something closer to the truth. This resonates deeply with the challenges I see – and face – in design. How willing are we, really, to question our cherished assumptions, to challenge the established norms of our field, to truly listen to perspectives that make us uncomfortable?

It’s so easy to slip into dogmatism, isn’t it? That “unfounded positiveness,” as the dictionary calls it, that shuts down curiosity and locks us into fixed ways of thinking. Design feels rife with it sometimes. The unquestioned belief in a single “right” way, often inherited from a specific historical narrative (usually Western, usually focused on industrial production). The subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) dismissal of other ways of making, other ways of knowing. How many times have we seen ideas presented as absolute truths, simply because they fit the dominant model? This isn’t a new problem – I think back to Victor Papanek railing against irresponsible design decades ago. The inability, or perhaps unwillingness, of certain influential groups to acknowledge realities beyond their own has contributed, I believe, to many of the crises design now faces.

Where does the antidote lie? Perhaps, as Maturana implies, in intellectual humility. In acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers, that our perspective is limited, that we might be wrong. It means being open, truly open, to learning from others, especially those whose voices have been historically marginalized. For me, this starts with questioning that colonialist stance still lingering in parts of the design world – the self-appointed authorities defining what “real” design is, often implicitly positioning their own work as the standard and dismissing everything else, particularly work emerging from the Global South or from outside established institutions. Later in this exploration, I want to delve into what “Design” might mean if we considered the collective wisdom of the entire global community, without these ingrained hierarchies and exclusions.

006 Stepping Towards a Symbiotic Future

Thinking through these ideas, our place in time, our debt to the past, the role of emotion, the danger of dogmas, feels like essential groundwork. They challenge us, push us, and ultimately, I hope, equip us to approach design differently. They form the philosophical soil from which a framework for symbiotic design might grow.

This isn’t about finding a new set of fixed rules. Instead, this Symbiotic Design Framework (SDF), as I envision it, encourages a more holistic, more relational way of seeing. It asks us, as designers, to be more than just clever problem-solvers. It calls us to be attentive observers, empathetic listeners, perpetual learners, and, crucially, informed and critical thinkers aware of our own positionality and impact.

In the chapters ahead, I want to unpack this framework further – its core ideas, its structure, the relationships it tries to illuminate. We’ll look at practical applications and case studies, asking how we might cultivate these more symbiotic connections through the things we make and the systems we shape. How can we genuinely design for sustainability, accessibility, inclusivity, and well-being, always holding in mind the intricate web connecting our actions to the world around us? The journey towards a more symbiotic future, I believe, begins right here: with a fundamental shift in how we perceive ourselves, our work, and our profound responsibility within the complex tapestry of life.

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