Reflection 4

The lecture this week started in relation to the video assigned to us which was in context to a particular branch of design. A branch I believe that most designers don’t put a lot of thought into or research upon before designing. Our design for research class also heavily emphasizes the fact of how important researching is and knowing who one is designing for. The video entirely talked about designing for the differently-abled, which made me think as to what extent do we as designers on no matter what level or to what extent we design, consider those who are differently-abled, understanding how we as designers need to come up first with a cognitive structure where the differently-abled can access their surroundings in the same way as everybody else. A functional design that reimagines urban space, architectural structures, an environment that is accessible to people with different abilities, and can access all materiality that surrounds them without having to feel as being the ‘other’. This also further elaborated into extents of engineering and as to what defines it boundaries and what labels someone in particular as an engineer. Where a person using different materials in his surrounding using its material and structural affordance designs a form that then exists as an extension of one’s physical self and to what extent can it be taken to in forms of design.

The lecture also helped me question as to what extent do designers in Pakistan work concerning designing for accessibility which helped me come across a project launched by a renowned fashion designer, Hasan Shehryar Yasin (HSY) a renowned fashion designer who in his latest project has incorporated works of differently-abled artists of NOWPPD through which the works of these people would be sold across all HSY stores in the country, providing these people with a platform to showcase there work and promote inclusion, The designer also ingeniously talks about the future of technology which also relates to what was spoken in this week’s session, with 2030 on its way we need to understand and evaluate, think critically, observing the trend in the past how technology has evolved in the past form 1985 up till now, and is expected to progress in the same way in the next 10 years, hence we need to understand how technology impacts different spheres and regions culturally and economically. In the past, the existence of social relations where people use to help in presence building up on bonds and relation without the sense of providing material infrastructures to help with whatever people needed help with. Understanding that with the evolution of technology came better quality lifestyles and lifestyles changed for the better, but at the same time came a sense of isolation, where the social relations somewhere and somehow faded away because the needs were fulfilled with the help of newly designed and technologically abled material infrastructures where the need of human presence faded and technology took over drastically, which should make us think and question as to where we are headed and if technology is helping us or making us dependent upon it’s, something to think about instead of designing thoughtlessly.

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