is becoming a material or conceptual database. Databases have become the dominant cultural form of the computer age, as “cinema was the key cultural form of the twentieth century”.11
They are ‘ontological machines’ that shape both our world and our worldview. In the age of digital recombination, everything – nature and culture alike – becomes an object for manipulation. The almost unlimited number of combinations that databases offer would seem to prescribe some form of limitation imposed on the possibilities. In the case of open, database-mediated design, this calls for a new role for the designer. The designer should not give up his role as a designer (or restrict himself to his traditional role as designer of material or immaterial objects). Instead, he should become a metadesigner who designs a multidimensional design space that provides a user-friendly interface, enabling the user to become a co-designer, even when this user has no designer experience or no time to gain such experience through trial and error.
Designing Models
The task of the metadesigner is to create a pathway through design space, to combine the building blocks into a meaningful design. In this respect, the meta-designer resembles the scientist who no longer creates a linear argument, but a model or simulation that enables the user to explore and analyse a specific domain of reality, or a game designer who designs a game space that facilitates meaningful and enjoyable play, if he is successful.
Although human beings have, from the very dawn of humanity, been characterized by a fundamental openness, the concept of ‘openness’ has become especially popular in the last couple of decades. Wikipedia – one of the most successful examples of an open movement project – offers the following definition: “Openness is a very general philosophical position from which some individuals and organizations operate, often highlighted by a decision-making process recognizing communal management by distributed stakeholders (users/ producers/ contributors), rather than a centralized authority (owners, experts, boards of directors, etc.)”.4 In the global information society, openness has become an international buzzword. OPEN EVERYTHING One of the recent developments has been the emergence of open software, from operating systems to a variety of applications. However, the demand for open access not only concerns software, but also extends to all possible cultural content, ranging from music and movies to books. All information (enslaved by copyrights) wants to be free. MANIFESTOS Moreover, open access is not limited to the digital world. An increasing number of scientists are pleading for open science and open technology. They cooperate with the public and demand open access for their publications and databases. The Open Dinosaur project, for example, which advertises itself on its website as ‘crowdsourcing dinosaur science’, involves scientists and the public alike in developing a comprehensive database of dinosaur limb bone measurements, to investigate questions of dinosaur function and evolution.5 However, in this case, the demand for open access not only targets the results of their research, but also extends their objects. The OpenWetWare organization not only promotes the sharing of information, know-how and wisdom among researchers and groups who are working in biology and biological engineering, it also tries to prevent efforts to patent living matter, such as DNA.
The Tower of Babel
This implies that the designer’s task is to limit the virtually unlimited combinational space in order to create order from disorder. After all, like the infinite hexagonal rooms in the Library of Babel postulated by Jorge Luis Borges12, most of the (re)combinations of design elements will have little or no value. To some extent, the designer will create these design elements himself, while others will be added by the co-designer. The recombination of the elements will also take the form of an interaction between the possible paths within the design space on the one hand, and the choices of the co-designer on the other. Of course, data mining and profiling algorithms will also play a role by suggesting or autonomously adding design elements (depending on the metadesign). You might ask yourselves what makes the metadesign presented here essentially different from forms of mass customization that already exist, for example on the Nike website. The answer is that mass customization is part of the project of metadesign, but only part. In the main article I referred to the three dimensions of open design.
In the case of mass customization, as with Nike, the aspect related to openness only exists in the output dimension, and even there the openness is rather limited: a customer can choose from a small range of available colours. It would naturally be impossible to offer a detailed blueprint or road map for exactly what metadesigns will look like; this discussion is merely my reflections on the topic – or perhaps my considerations of a development yet to come. Creating them will be the task of the meta-designers of the future.
Designability
Some time ago, Kevin Kelly published an article called ‘Better Than Free’13 which advocated a new business model, based on free copies in almost every domain – from music, books and films to your DNA – which should be supplemented by added value. He lists eight ‘generative values’ that might enhance the value of the free copies, and for which people will be prepared to pay: immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability. I think we should add one more value: designability. It is my belief that this value will encompass all the others, presenting a great challenge for the meta-designer.
I could list many more examples of the open movement, from open gaming to open love. We seem to be open to everything. In the presence of so many trends towards openness, it does not come as a surprise that we also are witnessing the emergence of an open design movement, albeit slightly later than in many other domains. It seems to be part of a shift in the world of design from form via content to context, or from syntax via semantics to pragmatics.6 But what does ‘open design’ actually mean? In his article The Emergence of Open Design and Open Manufacturing,7 Michel Bauwens distinguishes three different dimensions of open design:
Input side
On the input side we have voluntary contributors, who do not have to ask permission to participate, and use open and free raw material that is free of restrictive copyright ACTIVISM so that it can be freely improved and modified. If no open and free raw material is available, as long as the option exists to create new one, then peer production is a possibility.
Process side
On the process side, it is based on design for inclusion, low thresholds for participation, freely available modular tasks rather than functional jobs, and communal validation of the quality and excellence of the alternatives (peer governance).
Output side
On the output side, it creates a commons, using licenses that insure that the resulting value is available to all, again without permission. This common output in turn recreates a new layer of open and free material that can be used for a next iteration.
Making Almost Anything
At the Fab Labs, founded by Neil Gershenfeld at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, these three dimensions are merging. Fab Labs give individuals access to tools for digital fabrication; the only provisos are that you must learn to do it yourself, and you must share the lab with other uses and users. Users can use the Fab Lab ‘to make almost anything’. This sounds exciting – and indeed, it is. However, there are also some serious problems connected with open design, three of which are associated with the open source movement in general.
THE DESIGNER OF THE FUTURE HAS TO BECOME A META-DESIGNER, SHAPING ENVIRONMENTS IN WHICH UNSKILLED USERS CAN DESIGN THEIR OWN OBJECTS.
The first problem is particularly linked with open
