off-the-shelf machinery like printers, PRINTING laser cutters or CNC machine tools to produce customized products with no custom-built moulds or machines.
Practice layer refers to the work practices that enable and constrain the conception of the design processes. This layer encompasses open design culture, that is, the related nomenclature, professional standards, craftsmanship, rules of the trade, code of conduct, rituals and normative values.
Infrastructure layer refers to the underlying institutional and technical foundations that enable and constrain the vitality of the design practices. This layer encompasses open design substructure, that is, the related legal system, market structure and technical architecture that govern open design activities and future growth.
LAYERS OF OPEN DESIGN
The discourse so far is focused on the object and process layers, with some touches upon the practice layer. However, quite surprisingly, despite its fundamental role, the infrastructure layer is virtually ignored.
Designing Generative Infrastructure
The infrastructure that governs open design activities, business models and development is based on the related code of law, market structure and technical architecture, which together enable and constrain most human activity systems in an attempt to balance inherent conflicts and pursue the common good. In a general sense, infrastructures are designed to promote fairness, wealth and operational efficiency. TEMPLATE CULTURE Much has been written about the general nature of infrastructures elsewhere, leaving no need to reiterate it here. Instead, let us elaborate on the generative capability of infrastructure as an additional area of concern that should be considered particularly in the context of developing infrastructure requirements for open design. In view of the generative character of design in general, and open design in particular, developing an appropriate infrastructure should aim to incorporate the structural features that are most conducive to creative processes and products. Building on the concept of generative design, I suggest a set of generalizable considerations for designing such infrastructures. More specifically, I propose that the infrastructure of open design should be evocative, engaging, adaptive, and open.
Generative design refers to the design considerations in developing an array of artefacts and interactions that support and enhance generative capacity – that is, the considerations in designing systems that are conducive to the ability of a person or group to produce new configurations and possibilities, to reframe the way we see and understand the world, and to challenge the normative status quo.1 People’s generative capacity is a key source of innovation; by definition, generative design aims to encapsulate the design directives that enhance and complement that human capability.
In general, generative capacity refers to having an evocative power or aptitude that can result in producing or creating something, or tapping into a source of innovation. In the context of open design infrastructure, the modifier ‘generative’ denotes that the noun it modifies is conducive to the production of something innovative or the discovery of new and hitherto unknown design alternatives. In other words, generative design refers here to the design requirements and considerations in developing open design infrastructures – that is, the related code of law, market structure and technical architecture – that augment people’s natural ability to innovate. Subsequently, four top-level design directives are suggested for infrastructures, as follows:
Generative infrastructure is evocative
Generative infrastructure inspires people to create something unique. It evokes new thinking and enables them to translate their ideas into a new context. The infrastructure can help to create the environment or conditions that are prone to those insights by generating and juxtaposing diverse frames that are not commonly associated with one another within an underlying context. Systemic features that drive evocative design enable, for example, seeing an object or situation from multiple perspectives, testing it in multiple situations, examining it at multiple degrees of granularity, and exploring multiple overlay configurations.
Generative infrastructure is engaging
Generative infrastructure is enchanting and holds the attention of people by inducing their natural playfulness and ‘flow experience’. The infrastructure TEMPLATE CULTURE can help in the creation of engaging environments or platforms that stimulate the users’ cognitive spontaneity and playfulness as well as overall positive affect state, thus encouraging further exploration, tinkering and experimentation. Systemic features that drive engaging design enable, for example, fostering positive affect and high spirit that stimulate a state of ‘joie de vivre’, activating cognitive spontaneity induced by playfulness, and stirring up curiosity through intriguing challenges.
Generative infrastructure is adaptive
Generative infrastructure is flexible and conducive to effective use by a heterogeneous set of people in their own respective environments and for various tasks within an intended scope. It can be adapted with respect to the type of users or groups that it serves in diverse problem spaces. It is also simple to understand and easy for anyone to master. The infrastructure can help in the creation of adaptive systems or platforms that are flexible yet powerful enough to enable the generation of a continuous stream of new ideas and configurations. Systemic features that drive adaptive design enable, for example, user-induced tailoring and customization to meet situated needs, self-production of complementary extensions and features that meet new or initially unforeseen needs, automatic system-induced adaptation, and overall scalable functionality with no regard to size-related attributes.
| THE DISTINCT FEATURES OF OPEN DESIGN |
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| ACCESS | AVAILABLE, SHARABLE, LICENSED UNDER OPEN-ACCESS TERMS | CONCEALED, PROTECTED, LICENSED FOR A FEE |
| BLUEPRINTS | SPECIFIED BY COMMON DIGITAL NOTATION LANGUAGE | SPECIFIED BY PROPRIETARY NOTATION LANGUAGE |
| DERIVATIVES | RECONFIGURABLE AND EXTENSIBLE | BLACK-BOXED AND FIXED |
| EXCLUSIVITY | REPRODUCIBLE | LIMITED TO A FINITE SERIES OR ONE-OFF |
| MEANS OF PRODUCTION | FABRICATED BY COMMERCIAL, OFF-THE-SHELF, MULTI-PURPOSE MACHINES | FABRICATED BY ARTISAN HANDWORK, CUSTOM-BUILT MACHINES OR MOULDS |
| MANUFACTURING PROCESS | SUBJECT TO DISTRIBUTED AND SCALABLE PRODUCTION | SUBJECT TO CENTRALLY CONTROLLED AND PRESET BATCH PRODUCTION |
| POTENTIAL | GENERATIVE | CLOSED-ENDED |
Generative infrastructure is open
Generative infrastructure accentuates permeable boundaries
