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Critical design
A new paradigm for learning
and practising universal design
Anne Britt Torkildsby
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
The Norwegian Laboratory of Universal Design
The world is facing emerging global challenges, such as the cli-
mate change, the food crisis, and financial crisis – not to forget
war, migration and population growth, and the fact that by 2050
the world population of sixty-year-olds will have doubled. Thus,
the next generation designers, architects, engineers, etc. ought
to be adequately equipped to deal with whatever problems this
brings along.
Traditional design methods focus on creating practical solutions
to the problem; e.g. by applying functional analysis into the pro-
cess. This is all well and good. However, it may not be enough as
regards to addressing today’s emerging universal design issues,
such as the one of altering the built environment to fit the increas-
ing amount of elderly. Universal design is commonly described by
the three keywords inclusion, access, and participation.
- What if design, architect, engineer students, etc. were equipped
with methods to turn these terms upside down and so be able to
implement, early in the design process, a critical design method
that makes it possible for them to turn everything – they thought
they knew about universal design – upside down and see things
fromanother perspective?
- Moreover, can critical thinking and a certain amount of provoca-
tion provide the students with alternative starting points for cre-
ative thinking, and thus generate more tools in their prob-
lem-solving toolboxes – making them ready to be even better
problemsolverswhenthey laterdowntheroadsteps intothereal
world andwill have todeal with universal design at some point in
theircareers?
Pictures by Elisabeth Higson
—Anne Britt Torkildsby has a background in industrial design from
UmeåInstituteofDesign inSweden, holdsa PhD indesignfromThe
Swedish School of Textiles, and is now associate professor/senior
researcher at The Norwegian Laboratory of Universal Design, part
ofthebiggestuniversity inNorway, i.e.TheNorwegianUniversityof
Science and Technology (NTNU).
Her research interests are in the areas of critical design thinking
applied in universal design settings (design methodology) as well
asuniversaldesign ingeneral.Atthe laboratory,all mattersrelated
to vision, hearing and mobility with regard to buildings, outdoor ar-
eas, transport and design are studied. The findings furthermore
contribute to the knowledge on universal design – hence how to
make sure the physical world of tomorrow is a better place to be
than the physical world of today!
3x one hundred
Charlotte Truwant / Dries Rodet
Truwant + Rodet Architects
With
3x one hundred
we will investigate resilience as a tool or as a
design opportunity. If one defines resilience as the capacity to
successfully adapt to changing conditions or the ability to re-
bound from a stress or a disturbance, then it becomes a funda-
mental aspect of the design process. Nowadays resilience is an
important quality for a designer, as the demands imposed on the
profession increase exponentially. Being under constant pres-
sure, the designer is facing two options, either to give in to pres-
sure or to surpass him/herself and bounce back. He can turn prob-
lems into opportunities, allowing the initial idea to keep its clarity
and radicalism while it’s being processed, questioned and trans-
lated into a finalized project.
For the workshop
3x one hundred,
we will use the resilience of the
participants as an opportunity to push the limits, to get off the
beaten path and to design without preconceptions. The demands
of the design exercises will become too big to handle in a conven-
tional way and rather than succumbing to the self-imposed pres-
sure we will use it as a lever to reinvent our working methods. We
will have to employ techniques such as abstraction and sugges-
tion not to get stuck in details but to be able to keep a focus on the
essential.
With
3x one hundred
we will try to answer the question: ‘How to
make one hundred models, drawings and visualizations in one
day?’
—Truwant+Rodet isanofficebased in Basel (Switzerland),active in
architecture, urban research, territorial visions and design. It was
founded in 2013 by Charlotte Truwant & Dries Rodet. In addition to
this activity, they each hold an assistant position at EPFL. Char-
lotte Truwant has joined in 2014 the academic chair of Prof. Harry
Gugger at LABA. She is researching on spatial representation, en-
vironmental aesthetics and contextualism. Dries Rodet taught as
anassistantfrom2011till 2013forthestudioofJeannetteKuoatthe
EPFL in Lausanne, and collaborated on the publication ‘the A-typi-
cal Plan’. Since 2013 he is part of the studio FORM led by Kersten
Geers. Truwant + Rodet won in 2017 the Swiss Art Award.
