[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 190 (Thursday, November 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17856-S17858]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE IMPACT OF DESIGN ON COMMUNITY AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I rise today to note the extraordinary 
impact of design on community and product development. Many years ago I 
helped establish an Institute of Research and Design in Rhode Island. 
But to my regret, I was not able to get it properly launched. The 
organization was intended to help my State take advantage of the 
enormous economic benefits of new designs created by our citizens. 
Design impacts our economy, environment, education and social sphere. 
It is a strategic national resource with potential to improve the 
global competitiveness of U.S. products. Design is a tool to analyze 
problems, develop critical thinking and communicate solutions. It 
offers numerous opportunities for creative partnerships with 
government, manufacturing and technology industries, social and 
community planners, scientists and educators. As the following speech 
documents, all of us make design decisions in nearly every life 
activity.
  Because of the presence of the internationally-acclaimed Rhode Island 
School of Design [RISD], Rhode Island attracts a large number of people 
to the State to discuss design issues. Last March, RISD hosted a 
National Design Conference, sponsored by the National Endowment for the 
Arts, that explored the main challenges for design in the coming 
century and ways in which design strategy can be better employed to 
increase American economic competitiveness. In mid-November, the 
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies held its annual meeting in 
Providence where the professional and volunteer leadership of the 
Nation's State and jurisdictional arts agencies discussed the 
challenges of leadership in the changing environment of public support 
for the arts. NASAA devoted the better part of a day to discussions of 
design programming, and featured Roger Mandle, president of the Rhode 
Island School of Design since 1993, as a keynote speaker.
  An art historian, educator and current member of the National Council 
on the Arts who served as deputy director at the National Gallery of 
Art for 5 years following 11 years as director of the Toledo Museum of 
Art, President Mandle possesses a comprehensive perspective of the 
societal importance of arts and design. Rhode Island and the Nation as 
a whole have benefitted enormously from his work. Mr. President, I 
would ask unanimous consent that this important address delivered by 
Roger Mandle be printed in the Record following my statement.
  There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               Designing To Meet the Needs of the Future

                           (By Roger Mandle)

       Thank you for being here today. It is more important than 
     ever that we come together through gatherings such as this to 
     plan the future of design in America, to in fact design the 
     progress of our culture and our society. I am convinced that 
     issues of design hold the key to the future, which isn't 
     surprising, perhaps, considering my current role.
       What I am going to talk about today is the importance of 
     design in terms of community development and economic impact, 
     and the potential of design for meeting the needs of the 
     future. By ``design,'' I am referring here to both the noun 
     and the verb. When I refer to the noun--the art of design and 
     the discipline of design--I am thinking of good design, 
     design that is appropriate, well thought-out and 
     aesthetically pleasing. When we think of the verb ``design,'' 
     we think of the creative process, the act of conception and 
     invention. Today, I want to talk about how both aspects of 
     design--the practice and its outcome--play a pivotal role in 
     the world in which we live.
       Practically everything we do in life--as individuals and as 
     communities--involves a design decision. Whether consciously 
     or not, we solve problems and make choices by following the 
     design process, using creativity, experimentation, intuition 
     and thought to come up with the ideal solution to the 
     challenges we're confronted with on a daily basis.
       As individuals we design everything from our careers to our 
     homes, our dream vacations, even our own look. The process 
     involves: examining the circumstances, defining the problem, 
     considering the resources, trying certain arrangements, 
     establishing probabilities and testing outcomes. In many 
     ways, it is similar to the process a research scientist 
     follows in testing a theory.
       In making these day-to-day design decisions, however, we 
     don't just want our homes or clothes to look good, we also 
     need them to be comfortable and functional. Good design is 
     the effective use of available resources in patterns, 
     combinations and arrangements that provide pleasing solutions 
     to needs. Good design makes the things you use everyday work 
     better for you. It also makes good business sense, because 
     products that are well-designed sell better.
       To most of us in this room it's clear that art and design 
     are essential to the health of 

[[Page S17857]]
     our communities not only from aesthetic, philosophical, psychological 
     and emotional vantage points, but due to sheer economics. As 
     communities, corporations and countries have become ever more 
     multinational in scope, they have come to recognize that to 
     remain competitive in the world marketplace, they must rely 
     on strong design.
       Here at RISD we've noticed in the past five years that 
     increasingly more business leaders and heads of state and 
     local governments are awakening to the fact that design 
     matters, that it, in fact, is among the most important 
     components of community and product development.
       On a national level, the importance of innovation in design 
     is now recognized through the annual Presidential Design 
     Awards. It is also recognized through such critical 
     conferences as this and the one the NEA is planning for this 
     winter, with RISD as a major sponsor and organizer.
       Internationally, there are lessons to be learned from 
     countries such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and 
     Switzerland--to name but a few--where good design is a way of 
     life. I recently returned from a trip to Korea, where art and 
     design have long been valued not only for contributing to 
     culture but for strengthening the economy as well.
       At RISD and the country's other leading art and design 
     colleges, the correlation between good design and a strong 
     economy is underscored through a wide range of industry- and 
     community-related projects. U.S. News & World Report's annual 
     guide to the best colleges in the country, which was released 
     earlier this fall, points out that contrary to popular 
     perception, an education in the arts and design to no longer 
     destined to lead to a life as a starving artist precisely 
     because of this correlation. ``Reality and art education may 
     sound like contradictory notions,'' the article suggests, 
     ``but they are quietly merging at the nation's leading 
     colleges of art and design.'' (I am happy to add that in this 
     same issue of U.S. News & World Report RISD was evaluated as 
     the top visual arts college in the country.)
       Projects that connect students with the real world and have 
     a tangible economic impact not only provide them with 
     practical skills for future employment, but serve industry by 
     providing research and development services at a minimal 
     cost. Corporations currently working with art and design 
     colleges throughout the country have tapped into the creative 
     energy and talent on these campuses to research and develop a 
     wide range of products.
       In addition, municipalities turn to institutions such as 
     RISD for a range of design services, including help in 
     planning basic infrastructure needs. For instance, RISD runs 
     a Road and Land Institute that brings engineers, landscape 
     architects, city planners and others together to discuss the 
     aesthetic as well as practical needs of new and expanding 
     roads.
       Art and design schools also offer the commercial sector 
     access to creative think tanks where students and faculty can 
     actually develop such innovations as the ideal ``Universal 
     Kitchen'' for the 21st century, an example of a current 
     collaboration between RISD and Frigidaire. RISD students have 
     been working with MBA candidates from Harvard and MIT to 
     design, develop and market innovative products of the future, 
     many of which have formed the seeds of successful new 
     businesses.
       While RISD has been collaborating with Nissan, the Art 
     Center College of Design in California is renowned as a 
     training ground for the world's leading auto designers and in 
     return, enjoys support from General Motors and other industry 
     leaders. By the same token, nearly every animated film since 
     the 1980s has been produced by alumni of California Institute 
     of the Arts, founded in the '60s by Walt Disney and his 
     brother Roy. Thanks to industry support for CalArts, the 
     college has in essence returned the investment by educating 
     the creative talents behind every recent Disney blockbuster, 
     from The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, to The Lion King and 
     Pocahontas.
       Art and design colleges also offer ideal settings for 
     partnerships with the business world such as one RISD is 
     undertaking with a local business school, Bryant College. 
     Together, we are creating a Center for Design and Business as 
     a joint venture with regional companies. The Center will 
     offer a wide range of educational programs and services to 
     help artists and designers develop competitive business 
     skills. It will also promote design excellence in all areas 
     of business and foster innovative product development. 
     Through the Center, we will help local companies to translate 
     ideas, technologies and resources into viable commercial 
     products and will also stimulate the region's economy and 
     create new jobs.
       All of these examples emphasize the importance of design 
     education to the future of our economy and the well-being of 
     our communities. Unless we offer design students a solid 
     foundation in the economic, political, social and historic 
     forces that shape our society, however, they have little 
     understanding of the contexts in which they're expected to 
     find innovative solutions. Before we can acknowledge them 
     as some of society's best thinkers--the people we turn to 
     for answers and breakthroughs--designers need to be 
     educated to be socially responsible citizens of the world 
     who are equipped to grapple with and solve problems of our 
     own making.
       We have been polluting the world with noxious fumes, 
     poisonous words and violent acts for too long. Technology may 
     bring us closer to these problems, promising to help us 
     figure out solutions to them, yet it creates a more 
     complicated network of issues to confront than before. The 
     principles of good design can offer us a way out of this maze 
     of self-destruction. But how?
       Recently, entrepreneur and visionary Paul Hawken spoke to 
     the RISD community about the importance of design to the 
     future of our economy and the environment. Hawken's message, 
     which some of you may be familiar with through his books The 
     Ecology of Commerce, Growing a Business and The Next Economy, 
     is essentially this:
       ``If every company on the planet were to adopt the best 
     environmental practices of the `leading' companies--say, the 
     Body Shop, Patagonia, or 3M--the world would still be moving 
     toward sure degradation and collapse. So if a tiny fraction 
     of the world's most intelligent managers cannot model a 
     sustainable world, then environmentalism, as currently 
     practiced by business today, laudable as it may be, is only a 
     part of an overall solution. Rather than a management 
     problem, we have a design problem, a flaw that runs through 
     all business.''
       Hawken goes on to point out that: ``Just as every act in an 
     industrial society leads to environmental degradation, 
     regardless of intention, we must design a system where the 
     opposite is true, where doing good is like falling off a log, 
     where the natural, everyday acts of work and life accumulate 
     into a better world as a matter of course, not a matter of 
     conscious altruism.''
       As a society, it's essential that we rectify this most 
     fundamental of all design problems if we're to ensure our 
     existence into the next century and beyond. Together, we need 
     to use our heads--our collective creativity--to puzzle our 
     way out of societal dilemmas and to design a sustainable 
     future. Hawken proposes redesigning the manufacturing process 
     along with the product so that the durability and 
     recyclability of the end product and its by-products are 
     accounted for at the beginning of the process. Here, more 
     than ever, design matters.
       By definition the arts and design are problem-solving 
     pursuits capable of proposing answers to some of our most 
     gnawing human dilemmas. In our communities, issues of design 
     aid in rethinking public housing, strip malls and the layout 
     of neighborhoods, and in creating optimal functionality in 
     our classrooms, hospitals, libraries and parks. In education, 
     the arts help build understanding across disciplines, create 
     passion for learning, heighten the sensibilities of students, 
     and give them tangible evidence of their progress.
       Design, which by its nature requires exploration and 
     experimentation, helps foster an open mind. It also fosters a 
     mode of thinking that sounds very simple but eludes many of 
     us: it enables people to think visually--to think 
     creatively--and solve problems with speed and clarity.
       At colleges of art and design around the world, we teach 
     our students to see things others don't, enabling them to 
     find solutions, alternatives and opportunities other people 
     might overlook. If a manufacturer turns to RISD, for 
     instance--as they frequently do--and asks for help in 
     designing a better toaster, we might in fact design an 
     economical, ecologically sound toaster that looks better than 
     any you've ever seen. But we're also just as likely to 
     interpret the request as an invitation to come up with a 
     better way to make toast instead.
       Young artists and designers use their unique ability to see 
     and to think creatively to launch an astounding array of new 
     businesses, capitalizing on their rigorous but flexible 
     education to pursue careers that are deeply satisfying. As a 
     result, you'll find graduates of these schools doing 
     everything from creating magnificent public sculpture and 
     making feature films, to designing software, weaving fabric 
     from recycled plastic and inventing better bicycles.
       People educated at art and design schools teach some of the 
     most innovative classes in our nation's public schools, art 
     direct some of the catchiest commercials on television, and 
     produce some of the most popular music in the country. Not 
     surprisingly, perhaps, the education tends to be flexible 
     enough to allow others to go on to become successful doctors, 
     lawyers, politicians, and nationally acclaimed restaurateurs.
       ``So what?'' you may ask. Well, all of this activity--the 
     result of artistic energy and talent--demonstrates that 
     design is, in fact, integral to our lives, that design 
     matters.
       Paul Hawken urges us to find new ways to design business so 
     that we effectively use natural resources in a sustaining, 
     non-destructive manner. Stephen Sterling has shown us that 
     our values relating to the use of our natural resources are 
     based on the Western linear view of history and causation, 
     which amplifies the idea of limitless maximization. Bigger 
     must be better, regardless of whether it requires the use of 
     more and more resources, further degrading our environment. 
     Our approach to production has been literal; it now must be 
     poetic. We must find solutions that are metaphors from 
     continuity and for survival, that enable us to treat life as 
     a cycle--as a spiral in which growth is controlled by 
     intelligent use and replacement of resources. Here again, 
     innovative design is the answer.
       As we all recognize, the social and cultural problems 
     facing America's cities and towns today are significant. At a 
     time when our society promises so much material wealth, few 
     are able to benefit from it; the great irony in this land of 
     plenty is that so little is available to those who need it 
     most. Now that 

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     Congress is proposing to eat away at the limited programs we do have, 
     what will we design to replace them?
       In a world so rich in resources, logic dictates that the 
     most basic life sustaining options should be available to 
     those who so desperately need them. In this context, of what 
     value are design and the arts?
       Maslow's hierarchy of needs places the arts and education 
     at the top of the ladder, with food, shelter, and the more 
     ``basic'' necessities at the bottom. But as a society we are 
     just now beginning to recognize that the effective delivery 
     of reasonable services and products to those with few means 
     can be achieved through good design.
       Right now a small team of RISD students, faculty and alumni 
     are working to develop portable, low-cost housing for the 
     world's refugee population in conjunction with the UN High 
     Commission for Refugees and the Red Cross.
       RISD is also working with Habitat for Humanity to develop 
     new designs for affordable housing, and designers in a number 
     of our urban centers are creating low-cost shelters for the 
     homeless. In addition, we are looking to designers to work 
     with engineers in developing electric cars and other more 
     energy-efficient forms of personal and mass transportation to 
     replace outmoded gas guzzlers of the past.
       In order to enable artists and designers to lead in their 
     chosen fields, those of us charged with guiding the country's 
     art and design institutions need to work with schools to 
     recreate curricula, reallocate resources, and expand 
     experiences for students that teach appreciation and respect 
     for human creativity and invention as well for limited 
     resources.
       The future into which these students will be launched is 
     already at hand in many respects. We know that it will be 
     technology-driven for communications, visualization, and 
     information. We know that resources will be ever more scarce, 
     and the options for using them constrained by the long-term 
     effects of manufacture. We know that our nation, indeed the 
     world, is filled with the tensions of boundaries that are 
     ever more sharply dividing people by color, language, 
     religion, and region. We know that the need to create 
     educated, creative, and tolerant citizens is even more 
     important than at any other time in history--and that our 
     nation's willingness to invest now in the education of 
     these citizens of the future is still in question.
       Why? Because art and design, by their very nature, 
     represent change. They may help us adapt to change, to 
     express that change and create chances for it, but to many 
     people this is more threatening than comforting.
       ``The artist and society have a tentative relationship,'' 
     says Jane Alexander, chairwoman of the National Endowment for 
     the Arts. ``The artist is often the sentinel on the 
     precipice, heralding change as it peaks over the horizon. 
     Artists challenge, ask difficult questions, and rattle our 
     cages. They can make our skin itch, or souls bristle, and 
     touch us to the heart's deep core.''
       What this conference aims to do and we need to do as a 
     nation is to recognize the values and thought-systems 
     inherent in design-related fields. We need to help our 
     neighbors understand the vital importance of the arts and 
     design in creating strategies to rebuild and enhance our 
     communities.
       When former Apple CEO John Sculley spoke at RISD's 
     Commencement last June, he challenged our graduates to be 
     either a mirror of society and reflect what's going on, 
     giving their interpretation or perspective, or to be a lens 
     that shows what can happen, what the possibilities are.
       Throughout history, of course, artists and designers have 
     held a mirror up to society, producing work that chronicles 
     where we are or suggests where we might go. Rosanne Somerson, 
     head of RISD's new Furniture Design Department, reminded me 
     of the other day that furniture, like clothing, speaks 
     volumes about a society at any given point in history. When 
     else but during the Sixties, for instance, would we have 
     invented the bean bag chair and mini skirts? Next fall, to 
     illustrate the symbiosis between design and society, RISD's 
     Museum will host the first of a two-part exhibition on Dress, 
     Art & Society, curated by Lorraine Howes, head of our Apparel 
     Design Department.
       Design and the manufacture of products not only captures 
     the pulse-beat of society at any given time, but sends 
     important signals about what we value. Urban planning also 
     affects our lives, creating social strategies out of our 
     living spaces.
       Who had ever even heard of workstations a mere 10 years ago 
     or considered the concept of phone books, encyclopedias or 
     the entire collection of our National Gallery on CD? More 
     importantly, how would any of these innovations have been 
     developed without the critical input of designers?
       What we are witnessing in the latter years of this century 
     is the pivotal turning point when technology is being handed 
     by the engineers who created it to us to use. It's artists 
     and designers, however, who will help us make the most of it. 
     Designers are creating the visual language of software, 
     influencing not only what we see on screen, but how we 
     explore and process information. Here again, as Sculley 
     points out, it is not the technology that is important, it is 
     the consequences of the technology--how artists, designers 
     and others make use of it.
       One hundred and eighteen years ago RISD was founded by 
     women with foresight and commitment to the improvement of 
     society. These 19th-century visionaries realized that the 
     arts and design are an essential ingredient in the vitality 
     of a community, of an economy and of a nation.
       And they weren't alone. An intelligent appreciation of art 
     and design has always been part of the American democratic 
     promise. Our Founding Fathers recognized this and upheld it.
       ``I must study politics and war,'' John Adams wrote to his 
     wife Abigail, ``that my sons may have liberty to study 
     mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study . . . 
     navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their 
     children a right to study painting, poetry, music, and 
     architecture.''
       At times it is difficult to fathom that as a nation we seem 
     to have strayed so far from the underlying sentiments that 
     made this country strong. When our government spends less 
     that 5/100ths of one percent of the national budget on all 
     forms of cultural subsidies, how can Speaker Gingrich 
     continue the pretense that the proposed elimination of 
     federal funding for the arts has anything to do with the 
     national deficit?
       The politicians of the day somehow ignore the fact that art 
     and design are serious business and that without a minimum 
     federal investment as an incentive there will be a far 
     smaller return. You have all heard the figures--that for 
     every dollar of federal support, the NEA and NEH help 
     leverage $16 in private funding. Yet our Speaker of the House 
     still fails to acknowledge that the not-for-profit arts--
     organizations such as the ones many of you in this room work 
     with and support--employ 1.3 million people, generate $37 
     billion a year in economic activity and most importantly for 
     those concerned with the bottom line, return $3.4 billion a 
     year to the federal treasury through taxes. This return is 20 
     times the dwindling budget of the NEA.
       During its 30-year history, the overwhelming majority of 
     NEA grants have supported projects that include such laudable 
     design innovations as architect Bill Warner's plan for the 
     Providence river front. If you haven't already had an 
     opportunity, while you're here you should take a walk along 
     the completed portion at the foot of the hill, just south of 
     the train station. It was thanks to a small NEA grant that 
     Warner originally proposed a major waterfront revitalization 
     project in the city that is having enormous repercussions for 
     business, industry and the state's economy. For Rhode Island, 
     the vision of this one designer has definitely made a 
     difference.
       ``Great artists and designers have always been 
     discriminating people,'' says painter Alfred DeCredico, a 
     RISD graduate and one of our associate professors of 
     Foundation Studies. ``The life work of great artists and 
     designers constitutes a commitment to humanity and to what 
     they believe is true. What is often perceived as arrogance 
     and an insistence on control is in reality an adherence to an 
     ethical stance,'' DeCredico goes on to point out.
       This ethical stance can help illuminate and define the 
     progress artists, designers, art educators and advocates make 
     as a creative community. In a wider sense, the arts and 
     design also help shape or mirror the values of society. In my 
     view, artists and designers are central to each level of 
     human existence, from the basic provision of food and 
     shelter, to the sustenance of community, manufacturing and 
     governance.
       In conclusion, I want to reiterate that in this age of 
     high-speed information and economic uncertainty, the need to 
     recognize the value of good design has taken on great 
     urgency. Either by plan or default, we are designing how we 
     wish to be remembered as a society.
       To maximize the potential impact of good design on solving 
     the challenges facing our communities, designers need to be 
     adequately educated, properly nurtured and competitively 
     compensated. In short, they need to be recognized as 
     invaluable contributors to the future health and well-being 
     of society. Once that happens, the possibilities will be 
     staggering.

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