What is design in the context of your discipline and what is common to designing across multiple disciplines? How has your understanding of design changed since the beginning of semester and what new skills have you developed?

Within the context of product design, design to me means and relates to two factors that can operate cohesively, or differently to one another. Those factors are people and meaning. I find that product design either directly relates to user experience; products designed to benefit people and provide some form of gain. That is the people factor. I also find that product design can produce unfamiliar objects, influenced by strange ideals. They are objects that blur the lines of art and product design. They often carry and display their influences through their form. This is the meaning factor. These factors can and often do operate with one another to create designs. These factors do carry onto other disciplines of design but change in their form and appearance. I believe the main similarity in differing disciplines of design however is the way in which designers alike must have an understanding of their world around them. They must know how it works and what makes it work. To understand how our surrounding world works allows us to know what can be added, what can be changed, what is needed and what is wanted. We can take this understanding to design according to our discipline and produce products that can suit the word we understand, or even change it, but with calculation. 

My understanding of design has changed significantly since I began this semester. If I was to answer the same question without the understanding I’ve gained I would most likely answered with a discussion about function and aesthetic. While not necessarily wrong in answer, function and aesthetic are so small in comparison to what design is about. The idea of systems is one subject covered that eluded to my understanding that design is about understanding our surrounding word. Systems discuss the relation of one thing to another or one design to another. Put into a larger context, systems inhabit every part of our world, natural or not. We must understand these systems to successfully add to or change them with our designs. A design that does not understand the system may be an unsuccessful design and even impair the system.  One thing I’ve learnt and also really enjoyed is the side of design that explores the meaning behind the visual. Hidden meanings and values often lie behind the visual of the design. That to me is the meaning factor of design that I discussed before. My understanding on this factor of design has encouraged me to not think so literal and explore the side of art that comes with design. It has also allowed me to search for new inspirations through varying unrelated projects and mediums. By analysing various photographs and drawings in my subjects, I have found a new appreciation for things I did not know I had. My ability to draw and to create visually has also grown. Project 1 really challenged me to capture visually appealing features within a moderately mundane setting. Other subjects which assigned tasks to recreate certain mediums of works has also contributed to my increased ability of creating visually. The emphases on visual mediums in this semester has shown me a new way of thinking. A way of thinking that allows us to express very detailed and accurate drawings or a drawing which capture ideals and meanings in an indirect fashion. 

What is systems thinking and why is it relevant for designers in the 21st Century? How has your understanding of the consequences of design changed since the beginning of semester? How might systems thinking be applicable in the context of your own discipline?

System thinking is to understand the operation of and interconnected state that much of our surrounding world adheres to. We currently find ourselves in the most complicated point of human history. The network of systems which inhabitant our human world are so complex that individuals dedicate their whole lives to understanding just one of these many, many systems. As technology evolves and expands, so does the complicated nature of our world. As designers, we must understand our world. To understand our world as a designer is to understand what it does and how it does it. This is integral as designers must then design based off this understanding and then employ their design. Their design will become part of a system and that system may depend on that design or if it is badly designed, that system might fail because of it. As we grow, so do our worlds systems and thus, it is integral for us to understand these systems, especially in the 21st century, the most complex time in human history.

As I learnt about the integral nature of systems thinking for designs in the 21st century, my understanding on the consequences of design grew. A bad design can lead to desire consequences. In the context of systems thinking, a design can hinder or halt the operation of system. If an uneducated person decided to contribute to the design of a rocket heading to mars and was set to design the navigation system, there is a very likely chance that rocket would not succeed. The same can go for the simplest of designs. Design consequences often stem from a lack of knowledge on how that design will operate. That is why as a designer, it is extremely important to understand our surrounding world. Compared to the beginning of the semester, my understanding on the consequences of design would not be the same. I believed a bad design was simply a bad design. I did not consider the consequences for the things that design related to. I was not aware of systems of design.

System thinking is extremely relevant to the discipline of product design. Every product from every designer adheres to some form of system. Even the most obsolete of products and designs can adhere to some abstraction of a system. However a good design understands the system they are part of similarly to how a bad design does not. To produce the simplest of products, a chair, a light, a kitchen knife, the understanding of how it will adhere to their respective system is necessary. Each of those products connect and impact other designs and their respective systems. A chair can impact the floor by scratching it or it might provide you good support and help your productivity. These tiny details are important for designers to consider. These tiny connections are systems and must be considered by product designers.

A place, like a city or a campus, can be read in many ways depending upon the frame or context through which it is explored. Explain how your understanding of the Observed Environment has changed as a result of the system framework you explored. How can you relate this understanding to the broader context of Sydney (or where you currently are) as a city?

Over the course of last several weeks, lockdown has confined me mostly to the boundaries of my home. While tiny in comparison in both regards of scale and complexity to campus of UTS, I found my home to still be rich in systems and designs of which surrounded me. One ideology from the week 2 readings which I found stuck with me throughout this assignment was about cities; how they’re complex systems with unnoticeable details. This ideology I found shifted me to explore the hidden nature of many systems. Ironically however I found that these details were seemingly uncomplicated, for example I began to notice the subtle system associated with light control; a blind and curtain. I set out to explore these systems for their ability to facilitate relaxation within my home. However what I found when I set out to originally photograph these systems in project 1 were that the systems that facilitated relaxation were a very broad range in pre existing systems. For example comfort systems, light systems, material systems and outdoor systems, all of which facilitate relaxation through their pre existing function. This changed the way I view systems. These systems were capable of being categorised into many differing systems, all capable of something different through the same function. This alluded to my understanding of the flexible nature of systems. They can, so long as they are being viewed within the right context, adhere to a large assortment of systems. One function can do many things. For example, a system of light might serve with the main function of providing light, but in doing so it can also be seen as system that facilitates relaxation, encourages productivity, alters mood and a system of art. 

This same understanding of hidden systems and flexibility of systems can be applied to the broader context of Sydney as a city. The ideology gathered from the week 2 reading comes into direct play here. The unnoticeable systems hidden within a city become so rich, which for me is deeply fascinating. Personally, I’ve had an obsession with alley ways, which in their own way are a hidden system of hidden systems. The doors of the alley ways hide hidden rooms of buildings and rusty staircases climb up to stunning views. The systems of alley ways are hidden, but raw. The flexibility that I began to understood can also be applied in the city. The multitude if systems here can be interpreted and used for so many different reasons. A staircase can be used as a system of travel, a system of exercise, a system to get you to a good view. This flexibility folds into the integral need for designers to understand their surrounding world. By understanding the flexibility, we can began to understand how certain systems can be used and how we can use them to design around or for.