Kerala State Institute of Design: Infrastructure and Directions in 2012

Kerala State Institute of Design: KSID - Where do we go now?

Architects visualisation of KSID campus

On 9th and 10th November 2009 I was invited to a vision document meeting at Kovalam and this event was reported previously at this post here on my blog as New design school at Kerala State level.

The proposed institute has come a long way and the infrastructure is now taking shape on the ground and we will now need to review and refresh our approach and take the next steps in the process of establishing a new design school for Kerala State.

For this first meeting I had also submitted a note that raised several questions and proposed some directions that would need to be addressed by the political and administrative establishment in Kerala that is dealing with  the setting up of such a school of design. We would need a working definition of design as well as a strategy that could inform the managers and faculty in shaping the programmes and activities of this new institution. My note of 2009 is quoted below and these questions are still relevant when we go forward towards the establishment of the infrastructure and teaching programmes and other activities of the institute.

Quote

Kerala State Design Institute: An approach paper and some thoughts for the meeting.

Prof. M P Ranjan

National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad

7 November 2009

Design is a very old activity and Kerala is full of great examples of its sensitive but unselfconscious use in most of their traditional buildings and spaces, traditional artifacts, festivals and events and traditional knowledge systems, all of which are the product of great design thinking in the past. However we need to ask the question in the context of the emergence of modern design as a contemporary discipline and one that has now been seen as a critical resource for development and planned change across many sectors of need. We now need to know – What does Kerala really need? Do we know the answer to this question?

This is very different from asking the question – “What does Kerala want?” – another design institute! What shall be the unique differentiators and driving principles here?

Ever since design was imported as a fairly developed offering from the West (USA and Western Europe) into India in the post Independence era we have been asking this question and there has been much confusion on the true role of design amongst even those people who funded and managed design in the country including those in Government as well as at the Institutions that were set up to further the use of design in India. The initial impetus came from Western ideas that were adopted wholesale and it took many years of engagement before the faint questions started emerging about how this genre of design could be adopted to local conditions in a developing economy such as India and at the same time corporate industry went ahead and addressed the consumption side of the equation and used design as a corporate bedfellow to generate hype, style, and a pursuit of business profit.

Many people equated design to being a subset of art and numerous art colleges set up in India over the past century were called upon to provide services in the design sectors and this has produced a vast range of design professionals across many sectors of Indian industry in the absence of any formal design education schools in the country. Design has also been equated with science and technology and numerous R& D centres have been set up across India to deal with technological innovation and technical and scientific research and these too have created bodies of expertise that have impinged on various design contributions in many sectors in India. However, the products from design schools have been few in comparison and it is only after economic liberalization that many of these trained individuals have been able to make a significant mark in the innovation landscape of the country. In recent years design is being seen as a management resource and in particular design thinking is being offered as a critical new approach to planning and creating exciting scenarios for the solution of complex problems facing all kinds of development and business objectives.

A few year ago, in 2005 as part of my Design Concepts and Concerns course, I asked my class in the Foundation Programme at NID to explore and imagine the nature of new design schools that may be needed across a number of regions of India since there was the talk in those days about an impending Design Policy for India and it was under active discussion in Government as well as in some circles of design professionals and academics in India. Many interesting alternatives were explored and offered by the students teams each having looked at the regional resources and their own map of the strengths of each region since the thesis was that design is a local phenomenon that must be based on available resources to meet recognized local needs. Each region has its own strengths that can be leveraged to get it locational advantage as well as traditional resources that could form the platform for differentiated and unique offerings informed by the local culture and its creative reinterpretation as a modern offering to meet contemporary needs.

Around the world new design institutes are springing up each day and the diversity of these new institutes are a challenge for us to try and understand the forces that are at work in the attempts to apply design and design thinking to a whole new set of applications and areas that have so not been addressed by traditional design schools that have been based on the imported models from the West. Over the past 15 or 20 years we have tried to look at the introduction of design capabilities to Indian needs in specific sectors and here I can offer the examples of three specific institutions with which I have had a personal association in trying to articulate and establish in a climate and a context in which design itself is not easily explained nor understood by those who need to nurture it and provide it with sustenance in the form of funds and a climate in which it can take root and grow. This I believe will be one of the biggest challenges for the new institute in Kerala and much of our effort may need to be focused on trying to make a space for it and the people associated to establish themselves before they are asked to deliver great results.

The experience so far points out that there are several approaches that could be taken and much will depend on the canvas that is available on which to paint our visions. The establishment of IIT’s and IIM’s in India seem to have some consensus as far as scale, reach, content and value but unfortunately no such consensus exists when it comes to the establishment of a design based organization be it a school or a development oriented organization. We will need to cross this hurdle first at the forthcoming meetings on the 9^th and 10^th November 2009 at Trivandrum and if we can get both a political as well as administrative blessings for a shared vision for a new design institute for Kerala the task ahead will be much easier than the various cases shown by many the efforts that have taken place across India in the past 20 years. However there is no ambiguity about the value of design when we are able to embody design thinking and action skills in particular individuals and teams through the process of design education and it is here that we need to ponder as to whether we need specialists or generalists who can be open to work with the huge body of technical and administrative teams that are already available from many fields and use this as a base to make for a vibrant platform for innovation with the use of these capable and flexible generalists who are able to work as team players and provide the essential ingredients to bring sensitive change where it is most needed in Kerala.

The big question is what are these needs and what needs to be changed and how should we go about this?

Some recent efforts to look at design from a fresh perspective are worth noting and we may look at our emerging understanding of design and design thinking in a number of unconventional areas of application before we freeze on directions and content. Design and design thinking have been applied to numerous exciting and complex situations and we need to take stock of these before we spell out the roles and responsibilities of a new institute of design for Kerala that will find its direction and purpose and reach maturity and excellence over the next 10, 20 and 50 years ahead. Can we look forward and jointly draft scenarios that are plausible and feasible and then decide the platforms form and content and articulate the way in which we can navigate our way towards the future?

References

1. Charles& Ray Eames, India Report, 1958, Government of India, New Delhi

2. National Institute of Design, Feasibility Report for IICD Jaipur, Government of Rajasthan, 1993

3. National Institute of Design, Feasibility Report for Bamboo & Cane DevelopmentInstitute Agartala, Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, Government of India, 2000

4. National Institute of Fashion Technology, Accessory Design Curriculum, NIFT New Delhi, 1991

5. Soumitri Varadarajan, Ambedkar University, Service Design Curricullum, AmbedkarUniversity, New Delhi, 2009

6. UffeElbek, Kaos Pilot A-Z, Kaos Pilot, Aarhus Denmark, 2003 (http://www.knowmads.nl/) and (http://www.kaospilots.dk)

7. G K VanPatter, NextD website, Sensemaking initiatives 2002 to 2008 (http://www.nextd.org/)

8. Design for India blog (http://www.designforindia.com)

Unquote

Admin block at an advanced state of construction at KSID campus

The Government of Kerala has taken a step that no other State Government has done so far, that of setting up a design school to address the needs of the region. The only other example that comes to my mind is the setting up of the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design (IICD) in Jaipur as a centre of excellence for creating change agents for the crafts sector using design as a core driver. This institute was set up by the Rajasthan Government based on a Feasibility Report for the proposed School of Crafts that was prepared by me as a member of the National Instituite of Design, Ahmedabad in 1993. In 2001 we helped redefine through our Feasibility Report, the role of the Bamboo and Cane Development Institute at Agartala to use design as a core driver for the bamboo sector of the country, as a sector specific institute that used design, technology and management in an integrated manner to get best results. Kerala too will need a forward looking vision statement in the context of our new understanding of design and the ongoing debates that have been raised by the mindless expansion that has been initiated by the DIPP, Government of India for the premier design education institute of the country, the National Institute of Design that led to a public outcry from groups of concerned design academics and professionals from across India through a new initiative called the Vision First initiative that has called for a serious rethink and wider discourse about the four new NID's that are proposed as part of their plans.

We now need a second meet on the proposed KSID's directions and this should lead to a clearly articulated vision statement that can help both Government of Kerala and the KSID functionaries to steer the institutes fledgling infrastructure as well as its new education programmes through the political channels of approval and public acceptance in the days ahead. Just yesterday evening, I was discussing the status of the KSID proposals with the members of the vision meet in 2009, Prakash Moorthy and Sangita Shroff, while having tea at the BMW at the NID Paldi campus and later last night I saw P T Girish's note in my mail box with the attached photographs of the KSID as it stands today. Another interesting coincidence is that I have just started teaching a course at the CEPT University for the Masters level programme at SID, the MIAD class on
Understanding Crafts and its Context in India where we have assigned the students three States to research, Rajasthan, Orissa and Kerala and they have an assignment to explore the use of local crafts in space making tasks that could be applied to the creation of a new holiday resort in their region. More about this course in another post soon. These connected set of events triggered this particular blog post and I hope that Kerala sets up a leadership position with the use of design for development and that this move will go well beyond what is needed in the crafts sector but also look at the needs for "Design across the 230 sectors" of our economy where design is critically needed but our political and administrative class do not yet seem to know this from the kind of support that design gets in the national and state budgets today. Can Kerala show the way? Only time will tell.

M P Ranjan

Design for Good Governance: A Call for Change

The result of many national plans since Independence is the grave political and social unrest that is facing us in the form of a very angry citizen near the bottom of the pyramid who for the first time can see the lives of the other affluent sections and the growing middle class played out in full colour in daily broadcasts of the television channels and the open access through the internet in an age of heightened communication. Access to communication brings transparency and raises aspirations for dramatic change.



Charles & Ray Eames had warned us about this impending impact of such disruptive change through extended communication, a change in kind and not in degree they said, in their 1958 India Report based on which the National Institute of Design was set up in 1961. We have not paid heed to this sanguine advice it seems. They had called for the use of design to address the needs and aspirations of a people in the throes of such change but we have perhaps let slip an advantage by not channeling adequate investments to address their dreams and aspirations in close partnership with the people directly. The communication boom and an era of transparency have ensured that the Indian consumers are no longer willing to accept the mediocre which was often provided locally by the makeshift offerings popularly called “Jugaad”, when better value is now available. For example, in many parts of India the poor have shunned incompetent public education systems to place their child in more expensive private schools and in going the extra mile to avail quality where it is on offer, a new phenomenon for both urban and rural India that is communication enabled.

No international design solutions are available that are ready and off the shelf to address the pressing problems of the Indian people such as affordable healthcare, rural and urban sanitation, dispersed quality education at the primary and secondary levels, agricultural and rural tools, rural housing and mobility and a host of other design opportunities across 230 sectors of our economy that are in crying need of design attention. These will have to be addressed locally and innovation and design will be the way forward but the infrastructure for action is not in place since the existing institutes are barking up the wrong tree it seems.

There is a new form of design action that is being innovated ad applied which is not to be confused with the form giving activity of traditional industrial design and usability exercises, although it would include elements from the old form of design thought and action. Here we are proposing that the design action take into account the structure of society along with their macro aspirations, their histories and cultural preferences as a starting point and from here build imaginative approaches for products, services and systems that would include the meta-system, the infrastructure, the hardware, the software and the processware to ensure a perfect fit to the circumstances and requirements of the particular situation. This kind of offering is complex and would need a multitude of knowledge and skill sets to be brought to bear with sensitive social and cultural orientation and with a fine tuned economic and technical feasibility. Design for inclusive development is therefore a multi-disciplinary activity that needs to draw a variety of knowledge and skills in an innovative and future oriented setting that is well informed about the legal and the ethical parameters.

In this form it becomes a powerful political activity since it is propositional in the manner in which it visualizes and presents several realizable alternatives for the stakeholders from which the process of selection and decision can begin in a climate of optimism and participation. It is a democratic activity at the very heart and gives power to the people who are at the location and to those who would be most impacted by its implementation. This shift in design thinking can be better understood through the model that I have proposed that explains the Three Orders of Design – Form, Structure and System – material & functional, aesthetic & socio-economic, environmental and political – all of which need to be addressed in all cases if we are to be assured of its sustainability and relevance to the local context.

The opportunities that are available in our society today can keep all of us busy and productive for many years to come. Addressing these can be a challenge for both technology as well as art education and create business opportunities for a host of new services and products that are unique to our situation which I will attempt to illustrate with some case examples and metaphors. Further, I also find the peer review system of the research publications as not so perfect for the dissemination of design insights although it does work wonders for science analysis and knowledge creation but it may be extremely defective for design demonstration since the idea of “design opportunity”, a very specific term – a combination of perception and imagination – excludes the viewer or reader from "seeing" the imagination part of the designers statement and therefore it compels the designer to take the idea far down the visualisation and realization path before it can even dawn on others that the idea is truly credible. This means that we may need to create a platform or even a multitude of platforms for design incubation and development that can be accessible to many across numerous areas of application and these kinds of platforms just do not exist in India today,

How do we create effective autonomous and decentralized action strategies and how do we roll this out across our country? This will be one of the central questions that can change the current impasse in development approaches dealing with poverty and development in many parts of India. The current conviction that we hold is the use of a macro-micro design strategy which has been developed after years of application. Use of design thinking will be at the heart of our strategy to try and achieve these innovative offerings. One particular form of thinking which is abductive thinking which is used by all those who eventually achieve new and path breaking approaches. This involves looking to the future with a search for potential possibilities and alternatives rather than analyzing past approaches to find mistakes to correct. In my view this kind of thinking (abductive) when combined with the action of visualization and building models that externalize the thought into tangible forms are at the base of the building of conviction and motivation that may be needed by communities of decision makers.

The lecture will explore models for design thinking and share some useful metaphors to help grasp the complex ideas. This kind of thought is not the sole purview of the designer but the combination of this kind abductive thought with the action of visualization is the root of most break through innovations and inventions. The big question for me is how can we place this in the hands of many disciplines across the university and not let it remain in the realms of art and design centres and a few management institutes. Such action is also political in nature since the future focused act of building possibilities challenges current positions and comfort zones.

Perhaps the myth of design thinking needs to be propagated so that all disciplines try their hands at this adrenalin creating kind of thinking with action and make it a part of their own method, a sort of sprinkling of the design salts into their own sets of tools.

Download the visual presentation and abstract of my keynote lecture at the Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida delivered last week as a pdf file from this link here.
Design for Good Governance pdf file set of show & full text 5.0 mb

Design for Politics & Good Governance: Electoral process and Design for India

Use of Design for Good national and Regional Democracy

Prof M P Ranjan’s Papers

Image 1: Jaagore.com website with an aim to register one billion new voters as part of the Indian democracy.

A new campaign has hit the regular TV programmes calling for an awakening of our youth towards the need to vote and be involved in the political process of the Local region, State and the Nation. The advertisment campaign is quite effective and I was curious to check what it held out as a promise for the youth to participate in individually and as a group. I have had my own problems with the electoral process since in the last General Elections I was unable to vote since my name was messed up in the electoral rolls and my ID card too had defects and worst of all my polling booth just could not be located all through the day in spite of trying several locations in our voting area.

Image 2: Jaago re TV Commercial from the YouTube offer.

I had tried to get my name corrected in a subsequent round of verification and I had visited a couple of schools to get my voter identity card reissued with a hope that the data would come out correctly but this too seems to have failed due to the clumsy manner in which the data collection was organized and I was on the lookout for another opportunity to correct this mistake.

Image 3: Map interface that is offered to locate ones house and from it ones constituency for the registration process.

This gave me the incentive to respond to the advertisment that appreaded on TV calling for new voter registrations which was launched in the public interest by Tata Tea Ltd and an NGO based in Bengaluru called Jaanagraha, and we were directed to a website called Jaagore.com, where the word Jaago means to wake up, a wake up call for all voters. The website proclaims a lofty ambition of registering one billion voters across 35 cities in India and so far at last look they had succeeded in getting all of 220839 people registered when I last checked the site. What I saw was encouraging. Someone had taken the initiative to use the web to reach out and build a system that could be of public good. However as I went further into the site I realized that while it was a technical success at the design level much still needed to be done if they were to reach their stated objective.

Image 4: FAQ about the voting process at the Jaago Re website.

I had talked about Jaanagraha, the Bengaluru based NGO in my London debate about the next Design City and they were here involved in another venture for public good but I missed the use of design that I had advocated which could make this effort both effective as well as be a great experience for the user. What I miss the most is the language tools that could enable non English speaking citizens to participate in this initiative and the site itself could use many layers of design engagement which could make it an offering that could stand the test of variety and complexity which this current offering fails to provide. Not that this cannot be done. The web is very forgiving and flexible and at any stage the organizers can give their audience an improved interface and a much better feel and performance if they used design along the way. However I still give this a thumbs up for the initiative and wish it all the very best in the days ahead and hope that design finds a way into this initiative somewhere along the way of success.

Image 5: Electronic Voting Machine – story of its design in 1988 at NID for the Election Commission of India.

This reminded me of the Electronic Voting Machine that was designed by the National Institute of Design for the National Election Commission way back in 1988. It was the preliminary user testing that helped embed many intangible features into the interface at that time when perhaps for the first time cardboard models of the voting machine were taken into the field by the design team to conduct semiotic tests of issues of usability, particularly with illiterate users, and this is what I believe has made this particular design survive the test of time and it is still functional and effective It took ten long years to introduce it into 10 percent of the elections and another long period to reach the 100 percent mark and be used in all assembly and parliamentary elections across India. Design is a sensitive process and not just an object that emerges at the end of that process nor is it the effect of technology alone since there are so many human and other factors that need to be taken into consideration which makes it a truly wicked problem, but one that can be tamed with imagination and sustained design action.

I do wish that the Jaagore web effort would follow this process through a number of iterations and reach the success that it deserves through the use of sensitive design thought and action in India. The people of India deserve this kind of attention and care. Design is indeed politics. Unlike the politics of opposition and negotiation that is practiced through the party politics of our times it is the the politics of proposition, consensus and conviction building that can be adopted by the leadership of the community. This is the message that I had conveyed in my London presentation at the Design Cities debate where Bengaluru was voted as the most likely candidate for the future title, if we get it right in the days ahead.

Prof M P Ranjan’s Papers