In a lecture a couple of weeks ago Mike Press told us to ‘THINK BIG’ by this he meant that we are not textile designers in Dundee or in the UK but designers on planet Earth, we need to think big to achieve big. We need to be daring and take risks, small ideas are safe ideas. In design you have to be in front of everything else, aware of what’s happening in the world around us, aware of what other designers are doing and brave enough to take risks.
Recently I read an interesting article in WIRED magazine entitled ‘Data on the move, The petrol car will take a backseat in tomorrow's city centres’ by Joe Simpson and I think his perception of the future is a big idea. Here is the link to the article online: http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/11/features/digital-cities-the-transport-of-tomorrow-is-already-here.aspx This idea aims to revolutionise the workings of our cities by drastically increasing the use of digital technology in order to ultimately change the appearance of our cities and the methods of transport we currently use. The proposed scenario suggests congestion, time spent travelling and the cost of travelling would be reduced. Ease of parking as well as road and pedestrian safety would be greatly improved.
In the article Joe Simpson writes ‘This scenario is not far-fetched. It’s actually a combination of existing concepts…’ however, I think the scenario is far-fetched, it is a big idea. Joe Simpson is thinking big. To try and transform a scenario such as this in to reality would be very daring. It may be possible but is it realistic? The cost I imagine would be huge and to redesign an entire city centre would be very time consuming and damaging for local businesses, also would elderly people and locals be in favour for such change, or would they find all the disruption a huge annoyance? But who knows what the future holds? Some aspects of this scenario would be relatively quick and easy to put in to practice, so perhaps ‘think big’ scenarios such as this may become reality in a few years time in order to combat ever-increasing congestion and pollution in city centres.
1 comments:
Interesting!
I've been to a few cities at times of big change, like Nottingham and Edinburgh while the tram lines were being laid. And then in China this year they'd just finished building subways and in Beijing had recently held the Olympics. China's funny - I walked from my hotel in Shanghai one morning and then walked back in the evening, and the street had basically vanished, been dug up! I've heard tales about people going to a great restaurant, recommending it to their friends who went the next day, only to find it had gone and a block of flats in its place. They're doing LOTS of building there!
But when you think about it we put up with constant change in many cities. To build the London Underground, or NEw York Subway, they dug whole streets up or tunnelled underground. The Channel Tunnel project turned the south east of England in to one big building site. And the London Olympics area is unrecognisable from the wasteland it once was. Somehow we become oblivious to it all and when it's finished we forget the disruption. Cities, especially big ones like London, are redesigned all the time...
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