Diversity and Design

Diversity and Design
Understanding Hidden Consequences
By Beth Tauke, Korydon Smith, Charles Davis


306 Pages - 146 Color Illustrations

Diversity and Design explores how design - whether of products, buildings, landscapes, cities, media, or systems - affects diverse members of society. Fifteen case studies in television, marketing, product design, architecture, film, video games, and more, illustrate the profound, though often hidden, consequences design decisions and processes have on the total human experience. The book not only investigates how gender, race, class, age, disability, and other factors influence the ways designers think, but also emphasizes the importance of understanding increasingly diverse cultures and, thus, averting design that leads to discrimination, isolation, and segregation.

With over 140 full-color illustrations, chapter summaries, discussion questions and exercises, Diversity and Design is a valuable tool to help you understand the importance of designing for all.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  List of Illustrations  Foreword by Sina Mossayeb  Introduction Beth Tauke, Korydon Smith and Charles Davis  Part 1: Race and Ethnicity  1. No Longer Just a Dream: Commemorating the African American Experience on the National Mall  Charles Davis  2. Diverse Truths: Unveiling the Hidden Layers of the Shadow Catcher Commemoration Walter Hood and Megan Basnak  3. Landscape Stories: Unearthing the Culture of Agricultural Communities in the Central Valley Patsy Eubanks Owens, Maggie La Rochelle, and Jennifer McHenry  4. Chinese Puzzle: Shifting Spatial and Social Patterns in Shanghai Shikumen Architecture Peter Wong  5. Architects at War: Designing Prison Cities for Japanese-American Communities Lynne Horiuchi  Part 2: Gender and Sexuality  6. "Should Women Build?": Debating Gender and Architecture in Germany, 1908-1920 Despina Stratigakos  7. Communicating Gender: The Challenges of Visualizing Information for Advocacy Maya Indira Ganesh and Gabriela Sobliye  8. Overwriting Hate: The Queer Writing on the Bathroom Wall Mark Addison Smith  9. Designing LBGT Senior Housing: Triangle Square, Carefree Boulevard, and BOOM Carl Matthews, Jennifer Webb, and Caroline Hill  10. Repositioning Power: An Alternate Approach to Podium Design Kathryn Anthony  Part 3: Age and Ability  11. (Re)forming Regent Park: When Policy Does Not Equal Practice Mary Jane Carroll  12. Victims and Heroes: Exhibiting Difference in Trafalgar Square Korydon Smith  13. ExcLOOsion: How Design is Failing Sanitory Provision Jo-Anne Bichard  14. Packaging Panic: The Design Consequences of the Tylenol Murders Beth Tauke  15. iTransition: Promoting Healthcare Independence for Teens with Chronic Illness Craig Vogel, Linda Dunseath, and Lori E. Crosby  Conclusion: Possible Futures Beth Tauke, Korydon Smith and Charles Davis  Notes on Contributors  Index

Biography

Beth Tauke is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University at Buffalo—State University of New York, USA.

Korydon Smith is Associate Professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo—State University of New York, USA, and the editor of Introducing Architectural Theory.

Charles Davis is Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in North Carolina, USA.

Reviews

    "We needed a book that introduces students to issues of diversity in design practice; this edited volume fills that gap. Fifteen engaging chapters argue that diversity can be an end product of a creative process that promotes social and economic inclusion. This volume places design at the center of emancipatory and progressive social practices and encourages designers and students of designed artefacts, environments, and systems to think of the social impact of their practices." – Arijit Sen, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

    "All design has hidden consequences. This anthology is a welcome addition to the literature exploring the role of designers in helping to create a more inclusive society." - Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design, Royal College of Art, UK 　

    "Diversity and Design provides evidence of the profound but often unintended consequences of design decisions across a diverse spectrum of users and range of scales from video games and everyday-use products to architectural environments. The fifteen case studies that comprise the book’s chapters illustrate how a range of factors and user characteristics influence designers’ thinking. Through content, discussion questions, and exercises, the book provides excellent tools for design instructors to better illustrate ways to avoid unintentional discrimination and segregation with design." - Lynne M. Dearborn, Ph.D, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

    "This book is a new interpretation and overview of the social issues that have been finding their way into education and practice for the last 50 years. Beth Tauke and colleagues have provided the overview necessary to take an array of perspectives and put them into a coherent and well-organized structure [allowing] educators and practitioners to continue to evolve toward a greater understanding of the continual emerging complexity in the global culture for which we are designing." - Craig Vogel, director of the Center of Design, Research and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    "This book looks beyond contemporary formal design practices to examine its struggle to impart meaning and impacts a broad public. It engages the work of our professional and academic colleagues that have operated with an awareness or the imbedded identities, diversities and marginal desires of the real community of users. The rich exemplar collection is intensely conscious of and impacted by the real diversity around us. As we make and remake our known world with this awareness, we would all do well to understand these intriguing lessons." - Nathaniel Quincy Belcher, Professor of Architecture, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

    "Current models of ecology suggest that diversity = survival and complexity = life. The ecology of environmental design put forth in Diversity and Design shows us diversity also = creativity. For design to make a difference in the things that make a difference solutions must be creative, alive, and complex, recalling Niels Bohr’s concept of complimentarity where the richness of shared experience that comes from such solutions can only be achieved through multiple, overlapping, and at times mutually exclusive points of view." - Bruce Lindsey, AIA, Dean, E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration, USA