DesignLibrary Milano

04/10/2020

Design Intelligence_

The dystopian future, which has been predicted in the past century and brought by both the technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown and radical economic changes in the sociopolitical order, has produced a scenario in which humanity seems overwhelmed by the momentum.

We are blurring the lines between the physical, the digital, and the biological spheres, thus technology merges directly with human life and nature. Consequently, the thriving industrial advancement increases the dehumanizing of economic progress to the scale that we now face an existential threat in both humanitarian and environmental terms.

Indeed, we are unprepared to meet the challenges ahead: the future of jobs, global climate crisis, pandemics, systemic biases and the like. Overloaded by the myth of the ‘super capacity’ of the new ‘powers’ (i.e. technologies and finance), we often lose the connection with the reality, leave neglected catastrophic problems and our native capability as human beings to Design solutions that really matter.

The great reset is knocking on the door. A new world requires a new kind of ‘Sustainable Intelligence’ to manage it. It cannot be just ‘Artificial Intelligence’. For the first time in history, a new 5th non-industrial revolution begins with a completely different scenario for the progress: from trends in the 4th one toward dehumanization, to best practices of innovation being bent back toward the service of humanity.
Within this scenario, the culture of Design, (i.e. ‘designerly’ ways of thinking and doing) comes to play the essential capability of the ‘New World’ meaning, by merging intuition, imagination, creativity together with rationality and combining artistic disciplines with technical approaches. Re-designing, making, watching through different perspectives and proposing future possibilities, do not fit into existing models; and most importantly, do not connect innovation to the purpose.

A new type of Intelligence is to be diffused among all disciplines, the Design Intelligence.

06/06/2020

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS | ToolsForAfter - Towards new scenarios.

In a world shaken by unprecedented changes, can we foresee the tools for living the future? Can we design a new human impact on the system?

Toolsforafter is a collaborative ideas lab for the new Anthropocene imaginary. Designers, architects, authors, musicians, videomakers, artists, everyone is called to imagine a map of the Anthropocene scenarios and the tools to face them.

- Step 1 (until June 30th): ideate your MINDSET
- Step 2 (July 6th - September 30th): imagine the TOOLS

If traveling is still limited, yet we could travel to imaginary scenarios.

> For more info, visit the website: www.toolsforafter.com
>> Submit your MINDSET ideas here: [email protected]

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS | ToolsForAfter - Verso nuovi scenari.

In un’era scossa da improvvise sfide, siamo veramente in grado di prevedere gli strumenti per affrontare il nostro futuro? Possiamo disegnare una nuova influenza dell’uomo sull'ecosistema?

Toolsforafter è un laboratorio di idee sul nuovo immaginario dell’Antropocene. Designer, architetti, scrittori, musicisti, videomakers, artisti, sono chiamati ad immaginare una mappa degli scenari che ci aspettano e gli strumenti per affrontarli.

- Step 1 (fino al 30 giugno): suggerisci nuovi scenari (MINDSET)
- Step 2 (dal 6 luglio al 30 settembre): immagina gli strumenti (TOOLS)

Perché nonostante ci siano ancora dei limiti per viaggiare fisicamente, non ne sono mai esistiti per farlo attraverso nuove visioni della mente.

> Tutte le info qui: www.toolsforafter.com
>> Invia il tuo MINDSET: [email protected]

What will be our tools for The After? In the Anthropocene Era, what is useful to design? ToosForAfter is a collaborative ideas lab...

25/11/2019

Our libraries collect magazines, which shed light on the independent publishing scene active between the second post-war period and the end of the eighties. These are some of the most interesting and significant projects in the design history hence milestones in the study of the sector.

For this reason, we strongly believe that keeping our archive up-to-date means to have the possibility to draw from an increasingly prolific basin that, as never before as in this digital era, is facing the multiplication of opportunities for their dissemination and long-term sustainability.

At the same time, Milan has returned to play an important role in the European scene also thanks to events such as SPRINT—Independent Publishers and Artists’ Books Salon Milano 19, which last night closed its seventh edition and revealed, once again, a small piece of this extraordinary story that only independent publishers are able, today as in the past, to tell in a unique way by investigating radically new directions.

A reminder, for all of us, about the meaning of research in one of the most interesting field of design: its underground culture.

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Molte delle collezioni di riviste presenti nella nostra biblioteca raccontano di piccoli editori che dal secondo dopoguerra alla fine degli anni ottanta hanno realizzato progetti perlopiù indipendenti e che oggi rappresentano, a dire di chi quegli anni li ha vissuti (cioè non noi) le storie più interessanti e significative di quel periodo.
Per questo motivo, crediamo che mantenere aggiornato il nostro archivio significa anche e soprattutto attingere da un bacino, sempre più prolifico, di quel tipo di editoria, che mai come in questa era digitale vede moltiplicarsi le opportunità di divulgazione e, nei casi migliori, di sostenibilità a lungo termine.

Milano, d’altra parte, torna ad avere un ruolo rilevante sulla scena internazionale europea, grazie anche ad eventi come Sprint che ieri sera ha chiuso la sua settima edizione allo Spazio Maiocchi, regalandoci ancora una volta un piccolo pezzo di questa storia straordinaria che solo l’editoria indipendente é in grado, ieri come oggi, di raccontare in maniera unica, sperimentale e libera da schemi radicati, radicale.

Un ripassino per tutti sul valore che la ricerca ha ancora per il settore forse più interessante del design, la sua grande cultura dietro il segnale mainstream.

- © United We Stand cover by cremers - Short Studies on Sandworms - Everyedition

> pic from newest books and magazines issues available in our archive :)

27/10/2019

Alessandro is a friend, a member, and a fan. Such as many of his colleagues, students, and partners who work together in one of the best design school, in the world. We would like to thank you all here, together with KTU Dizaino centras, for the hospitality provided during this very inspiring Japanese journey.


Politecnico di Milano - Facoltà del Design, Ruta, Sarah, Hiroyuki, Keiji, Daniel, 4D conference

18/02/2019

We will remember his words, as well as his objects, which we are surrounded by, both in his work and outside of it on this empty night.

taken from "Design where you go".
by Alessandro Mendini

"If we explore inside the darkness of the contemporary Middle Ages, inside the jungle of the new millennia, a single clear fact emerges. It is useful for all of us who are involved in the “way things are and how we relate to them". The destiny of design is to transform its structure and purpose according to the tumoltuous dialectic of the social forces that on a larger scale are dealing with the evolutionary problems of our society. The rest is a mystery.

Editorial of issue 1 of the magazine MODO of the month of June 1977.
So long ago, yet the words are so close to this day.

> full text in the image below

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Ricorderemo le sue parole, oltre che i suoi oggetti, di cui siamo circondati ovunque ci si giri, dentro e fuori le pagine di carta in questa notte.

tratto da “Design dove vai”.
di Alessandro Mendini

“Se esploriamo dentro al buio del medioevo contemporaneo, dentro alla giungla degli anni duemila, appare in luce un solo fatto chiaro, utile per noi addetti al «modo di essere delle cose e di essere in rapporto con esse»: destino del design è quello di operare in sé quelle trasformazioni di finalità e di struttura che la dialettica delle forze sociali sta tumultuosamente operando in parallelo sui grandi problemi di evoluzione della società. Tutto il resto è mistero.”

Editoriale del n.1 della rivista MODO del mese di giugno del 1977.
Così lontano nel tempo, così vicine queste parole.

> nell'immagine del post il testo completo

Atelier Mendini