Towards common sense

Nowadays, ecological and social problems resulting from ongoing globalization and the uncontrolled development of civilization and excessive consumption have forced us to pay more attention to the role of designers as co-creators of material culture. People began to wonder about the responsibility of people practicing this profession, and about the indirect but significant impact of design on the changing face of the world and consumer behavior.

Sustainable development is currently one of the terms defining all human activities aimed at caring for the natural environment and responsible use of natural resources. This concept has also been transferred to the field of design as sustainable design [1].

The term sustainability was first introduced around 1700 by Hans Carl von Carlowitz. This was related to his noticing the problem of excessive exploitation of trees for the needs of the mining industry operating in Saxony. The felling of trees was carried out in an uncontrolled manner, and the forests had no chance to regenerate. Hans Carl von Carlowitz criticized these activities aimed at short-term profit and proposed the concept of sustainability in forestry -
only as many trees could be cut down as could regrow at the same time. [2]

In the 1980s, the ecological crisis prompted a return to sustainable activities, and the Brundtland Commission defined the term as follows:

At the current level of civilization, sustainable development is possible, i.e. development in which the needs of the present generation can be met without compromising the opportunities of future generations to meet them. [3]

The indisputable dependence of design on environmental factors, natural resources and economic and social processes encourages us to relate the idea of ​​sustainability to design activities, which is currently a very desirable direction.

Sustainable design [4], as a consequence of sustainable development, emphasizes the role of systems-based activities, because everything is interconnected. It is not only the design of material objects, but thinking covering all other aspects of life, ultimately shaping a sustainable life model. Such attitudes are especially necessary nowadays. Uncontrolled consumption requires a critical look from designers.

Already in the 1980s, Victor Papanek wrote about what is so current today - about new values ​​that should guide a designer, about responsible design, in opposition to the so-called styling. His famous statement from the book Design for the Real World [5] can be quoted:

There are professions more harmful than the profession of industrial designer, but they are few...

An important figure who undertakes and develops the ideas of sustainable design is the design theorist Ezio Manzini, professor of the Faculty of Industrial Design of the Politecnico di Milano. Characteristic of his considerations are proposals for the development of a new model of the designer and user as responsible co-creators of the surrounding reality. Usage scenarios used in design work are intended to help outline such attitudes. Manzini points to the important role of the user, who becomes an active co-creator of the project, responsible for the idea, its implementation, implementation and all phenomena related to it. The scenario-based design method proposed by Manzini is intended to promote socially and environmentally responsible behavior. Manzini also argues that a designer, aware of the side effects, can question the need to create material objects as the final result of the design process, and instead propose a change in behavior and unfavorable habits, and a re-evaluation of the way of life. This will result in an increase in responsibility for the actions taken and the creation of conscious attitudes among both designers and recipients.

Due to the fact that responsible actions in the sphere of design are postulated, guidelines for its new social role have been formulated and related to our contemporary reality, taking into account social, economic and economic phenomena. The most important of these tasks, addressed to both designers and recipients of the results of designers' activities, are: conscious and responsible functioning in the culture of mass production and increasing consumption, returning to the roots and traditions, promoting, emphasizing and strengthening regional and national identity, environmentally friendly design , taking into account features such as longevity, functionality, and biodegradability.

Currently, we can observe many new life models based on awareness of civilization threats and economic crises. An example would be living in accordance with the ideas of minimalism. This is not a new doctrine, because Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in the 4th century BC, preached the need for freedom from material goods and self-sufficiency, and he demonstrated it, among others. living in a barrel. Nowadays, minimalism does not have to be limited to this barrel, but it can certainly protect against excessive consumption and draw attention to deeper values.
in life. We can quote here the words of Henry Thoreau, which are the motto of minimalists, that a person's wealth is proportional to the number of things he is able to give up [6]

The time when the material side of human existence begins to outweigh all other aspects related to the condition of spirit and mind is an excellent moment for designers to take up new challenges, and finding new areas for humanitarian design projects and being guided by the good of the general public and the environment in which we live can be an alternative to activities involving design for purely consumer needs.

At the Faculty of Industrial Forms of the Academy of Fine Arts. Jana Matejko in Krakow, there is an Alternative Design Studio, which is in opposition to design aimed at cooperation with industry and large-scale production. This studio was founded by the late Professor Mieczysław Górowski in 1983. As a reminder, I would like to add that Górowski is one of the most outstanding Polish poster artists.

The unique teaching program of the Alternative Design Studio emphasizes two aspects of design - the ecological theme and drawing inspiration from native culture. In view of the phenomenon of global consumerism, associated with intensive - often excessive - exploitation of sources of natural raw materials and energy, the Studio is making efforts to make future designers - co-creators of human material culture - aware of their co-responsibility for bringing to life products that, in the final stage of their existence, may turn into useless waste. The second aim of education is to draw students' attention to the value of native material and spiritual culture. The expansion of globalization trends forces us to reflect on the richness and diversity of the world's cultural heritage and to attempt to manifest our distinctiveness. Therefore, in striving to achieve competitiveness and originality of the projects created in the Studio, students are encouraged to learn and carefully analyze elements of Polish and Slavic
traditions and their adaptation to your own ideas.

The concept of establishing the subject of Alternative Design was born in the 1980s. This difficult period in the history of our country was not easy for education. The economic and political crisis, martial law, the emerging Solidarity social movement and, finally, the tensions associated with waiting for freedom were the background for the activities of universities, including the Faculty of Industrial Design of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. Professor Andrzej Pawłowski (outstanding creator, theoretician, founder of the Faculty of Industrial Forms), the then dean of the Faculty, tried to ensure that everyone was provided with employment at that time, and at the same time that the program was shaped according to the preferences and qualifications of teachers, and the skills and predispositions dictated the choice of their own educational path. Seeing abilities in people was very typical of Pawłowski. When asked by the Finns what was most important in design teaching, he replied that it was people, their predispositions and potential.

For Andrzej Pawłowski, it was obvious that Mieczysław Górowski had strong interests in collecting folk crafts - furniture, tools, household ceramics, and folk art - paintings, sculptures. It confirmed his interests and supported him. Pawłowski often had to excuse him from work so that he could go to antique fairs on Tuesdays and Fridays, where he looked for troughs, querns, and presses. He called himself an "amateur ethnographer", and throughout his life he managed to collect many valuable works of folk art and folk equipment, not only from Poland but also from, for example, Africa.

Pawłowski also noticed in Górowski, apart from ethnographic inclinations, an extraordinary sensitivity to ecology, which was their common belief.

Mieczysław Górowski was a student of Andrzej Pawłowski, he chose him as his master. As an assistant, he participated in many of his professor's research works. He was very pleased with his creative and intellectual attitude, which he identified with and followed. Andrzej Pawłowski was the first in the creative community and in teaching to begin to raise issues of ecology and point out the problem related to the ecological responsibility of designers.

They both saw the threats arising from excessive trust in technology and from progressive industrialization and submission to globalization tendencies. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was little talk in Poland about the connections between design and ecological thinking, and concepts such as "ecology" or "ecological threats" entered public consciousness very slowly - censorship was an effective brake here, not allowing the disclosure of any problems in the mass media. Poland was a country striving to shift the emphasis from agriculture to industry, and since they wanted to do it quickly, no one looked at the consequences of rash actions that had a negative impact on the environment. Currently, an approach to design that recognizes these threats and responds to them is called sustainable or responsible design or eco-design.

Pawłowski and Górowski's common interests, fascinations, reflections on culture and civilization and concerns about the rational development of design, as well as the specific personality traits of Górowski himself, contributed to the creation of a studio whose program sensitized students to specific aspects of design.

To understand the ideas contained in the program of the Alternative Design Studio, it is worth getting acquainted with its creator.

Mieczysław Górowski was born and grew up in the countryside, far from civilization, which shaped his worldview, his thinking and his later creative attitude. Hence his sincere, authentic love for nature, admiration for folk art and crafts, as well as caution towards the progressing industrialization and distance and reflection on the consumerist lifestyle.

He himself often said that he never had to prepare particularly well for classes with students, because he knew everything from his own experience. In education he could give vent to something he had not studied, because it was within him. At every opportunity he emphasized his origins, which were a source of pride for him! He also often expressed regret for those who denied or were ashamed of such provenance. He talked about his roots every time he started a new semester of classes with students, as an introduction and elucidation of the origins of the issues being discussed. Former students remember these lectures as full of sincerity and simplicity, and the Professor reminded them more of a "gazda" full of life's wisdom than a teacher focused on dry didactics.

The village the Professor came from was Miłkowa near Nowy Sącz. Life in the countryside means being closer to the earth, arranged according to the seasons, day and night, contact with nature, adapting work to its rhythm and cycles. Such a life breeds respect for what you can get from nature, not by plundering it, but by hard work. It is drawing from nature through coexistence, symbiosis without any claims. How easy it is to find these references in the Professor's attitude, in his teaching program, and in his works!

Life in the countryside also involved observing calendar obligations, participating in church events, holidays and parties. Górowski knew Shrovetide, the rigor of the four decades of Lent, making towers, and Midsummer's Eve games from firsthand experience. He knew the rituals in their original form, untouched by commercialism and distortion, which accompanies us today in the urban environment, but in the countryside it disappears, simplifies, trivializes and fades away. Searching for truth in customs, restoring their original meaning, reactivating dying traditions, will be reflected in the Professor's teaching program and in the topics formulated for students.

From the very beginning, Górowski became familiar with the practical approach to life and organizing an environment for existence based on what was at hand, self-management and self-sufficiency. He had toys that his father made for him (e.g. a wooden bicycle) or that he assembled himself (e.g. "wagtail", a stick toy, or willow squeakers made in spring). Artifacts necessary for existence were also the result of resourcefulness - you either made them yourself or made something that could be exchanged with someone else for a needed thing. And it was all done from materials that were "at hand", those that nature offered in its generosity - the hollow trunk was a seat, and the root was a clever planer. Tools, equipment and furniture were shaped with an intuitive sense of form and ergonomics - rules, concepts that no one in that environment had heard of at that time - with awareness of material features, and the primary value was usability. This is how it used to function in the rural environment.

Mieczysław Górowski introduced his life experiences into the teaching program, adapting them to contemporary realities. This program showed great care for Polish culture, raising awareness of the process of its slow disappearance and the blurring of its character in the era of globalization. He saw the reason not only in the progressing globalization, but above all in the Polish mentality, prone to denying its own identity.

Górowski's teaching activities were supported by the collection of equipment and folk art, gathered in room 307 of the faculty building at ul. Smolensk 9 in Krakow, where classes are held. Many of his stories concerned the principles of operation of these objects, their construction and the values ​​of the materials used, as they are intended to introduce students to the atmosphere of the topics discussed and stimulate their imagination.
and sensitize.

An important teaching element, carefully cultivated by the Professor, was looking for inspiration and observing patterns in the native material and spiritual culture, so at the beginning of each class Górowski went with the students to the Ethnographic or Archaeological Museum, and sometimes also to an open-air museum, e.g. in Wygiełzów. Almost every topic was constructed in such a way as to draw inspiration from such places, and these practices are maintained to this day.

about the Professor's death, the Alternative Design Studio is still functioning, and its continuators are trying not to lose the idea and thought that was given by him.

In a few sentences I will outline the current program of the studio.

The nature of the classes and discussions is intended to encourage students - future designers - to reflect before designing a product and to raise awareness of the consequences related to the impact of the subject on relationships between people and the natural environment during the use process and after its completion. It is also about making people aware of the value inherent in their own culture and that in design work they can refer to the spiritual and material wealth inherent in folk culture, which is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, which becomes especially important in the era of globalization.

The aim is also to indicate values ​​that are outside the consumer trend, to which design undoubtedly contributes. Raising awareness that responsible design activities can contribute to improving relationships between people can encourage the user of a given facility to behave well and determine their lifestyle and worldview.

Students are encouraged to follow the so-called “common sense” to avoid producing unnecessary things. We direct it towards self-sufficiency and self-management.

An important aspect is to familiarize students with old crafts, old production techniques, tools and materials, as well as simple, available technologies, e.g. batiking, felting or printing using non-printing methods. It takes place through additional workshops.

The student's experiences related to his or her place of origin are taken into account in the education, which may be an opportunity to discover interesting customs and cultural codes occurring in a given region, and may also contribute to the discovery of one's own identity.

The objects designed by the student should have educational value for the user and teach him, among other things:

• respect for your own culture
• good behavior
• responsible social attitudes
• care for the natural environment

The implementation of a given project should not involve the use of non-renewable energy sources and raw materials.

The solution proposed by students should be possible to implement by craftsmen, local producers or people practicing disappearing professions. Production may also be related to the activation of professionally inactive people. Students should look for and observe solutions in the products of folk culture and refer to simple principles of physics.

The effects of students' activities should take into account the user's physical capabilities and natural energy: wind, water, sun.

The topic published in the summer semester of 2015 was: “Demystifying wicker” is a good illustration of the ideas promoted by the Alternative Design Studio.

The topic assumed wise, simple and modern use of wicker and taking into account the manufacturing capabilities of local craftsmen. In the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the traditional craft of wickerwork was once a popular and profitable activity. Unfortunately, currently it is almost exclusively done by the oldest residents, who complain about the lack of interest in this field among younger generations. Wicker is an extraordinary material. It grows quickly and can be disposed of just as quickly, e.g. burned or simply thrown away - the environment will accept it. The right weave can make it a very durable structure. As part of the given topic, students were supposed to notice these special properties of wicker and translate them into design language.

Footnotes:
[1] Sustainable design, sustainable design.
[2] Sustainable design. Analysis of the impact of sustainable design on the increase in the competitiveness of the Greater Poland region on the European market, Prepared by prof. Academy of Fine Arts Katarzyna Laskowska, Aleksandra Adamczyk, Paweł Grobelny, Poznań, 2009.
[3] Ibid
[4] Currently, this relatively new approach to design is still taking shape and, in addition to sustainable design, there are many terms defining such trends in design: eco-design, green design, responsible design.
[5] Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World. Human Ecology and Social Change, Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago, 1984. “There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few… by creating a whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape, and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breath, designers have become a dangerous breed… In this age of mass production when everything must be planned and designed, design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself). “This demands high social and moral responsibility from the designer.”
[6] Following the article by Beata Chomątowska, Diogenes enters the barrel, Przekrój, 49/2011. Original source: (…) for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone, Henry D. Thoreau, Walden, Yale University Press New Haven and London, 2004, p. 79.

The Alternative Design Studio at the Faculty of Industrial Design of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow operates under the supervision of prof. Maria Dziedzic. It is run by Dr. Anna Szwaja with the support and consultations of Piotr Hojda, M.A. The work uses fragments of Anna Szwai's doctoral thesis entitled A project to publish selected works by students of Alternative Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Ideas and goals in the curriculum of the Alternative Design Studio, implemented under the substantive supervision of Professor Maria Dziedzic.

More works at https://wfp.asp.krakow.pl