Throughout this semester I learned about various topics that caught my attention across the different courses. Yet, Design Across Scales introduced me to topics that I want to explore as a potential field to work in as a designer. The topics that really grabbed my attention where Reductionism vs. holism and life-oriented design as I think they are the most relevant topics and the ones that we should really focus on as designers.

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The reductionism vs. holism lecture really opened my mind to the different systems all around us. Before this lecture, I never really looked deep enough in search for micro and macro systems that make up this universe. But now after this lecture I was able to see the depth and connectedness of this world. While I understand reductionism, I personally look at the universe in a holistic way. On one hand, holism refers to when we look at a system as a whole without focusing on the separate components and how they operate. On the other hand, reductionism focuses on the idea of separate small systems and reducing them to their core components. While both of these sides of perception of reality are valid, I like the holistic idea of how everything around us is part of one whole system with interdependent parts. For example, on a mezzo scale, we have a flower. If we look at it from a holistic view, we will only see a flower but looking at it from a reductionist point of view will make us think of the complex system in the flower such as the stem, petals, stamen, and pistil. It can be even reduced more to the cells and their components such as the vacuole, mitochondrion, the nucleus and much more. The thing that makes me like holistic view more is because if we think about what the reductionist view tells us to do it to figure out all the small parts inside a system and due to our technological capabilities, we might not be able to do that. There will always be components inside each components, so how deep can we search?Yet, as designers we should be able to zoom in and out to see both of these perspectives to see what the target market will need, want and see in our proposed solutions. We cannot only have one view of the world around us, as we need to think of how the macro and the micro systems work and can be analyzed and adapted to our needs 

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I find nature...space...the universe in general really fascinating and that is why the life-oriented design lecture really shook me to the core. It made me realize that there is a way for me to mix between my passion, design, and my interest, nature. I was amazed by how one of our greatest problems can be solved with just a small inspiration from the tree outside our window, for example. Solutions to all of our problems are all around us right now but they are in need for someone to be able to connect the dots, this is where designers come in. We need to fill the gap by looking at the amazing way nature works and adapting it to our needs. I really think that this is a concept I would like to explore as a future designer.

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Even though I found all the topics in this course interesting, I could not really see myself being as interested in was “synergetic design”. Yes, it is important to connect diverse components to create a greater solution, but there are other priorities in relation to design that we need to solve in the individual systems separately before connecting them. For example, we need to find a way make individual systems more sustainable and seamless. Before jumping to connecting systems, we need to solve the problems in the systems that we have already as improving how they operate, their use and concept would give us a better chance of coming up with a greater outcome when we connect them. Nevertheless, synergistic design can be a concept that can be a great concept to explore later on in order to bring strong connections between our complex systems.

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Overall, this course really opened my mind to “design thinking”. It allowed me to feel the design process, from understanding the different scales and analyzing them in holistic and reductionist views to connecting them to nature, making them more sustainable, to connecting and piecing them back all together to give back a greater seamless result. Every single lecture in this course has taught me something that I want to use as a future designer. It has definitely influenced how I see the world and my thought process. Knowing that we learn from nature, I look at different living forms, like leaves, whales, dirt, ladybugs...etc. searching for ways that ideas can be adapted for a design solution. With sustainability in mind, I look at different products around me thinking of how it was made? How wasteful was it to make this? How can it be designed better for the environment? For us? All these thoughts run in my mind ever sense we learned about these topics. I am really thankful for this course as it gave me the opportunity to see the world differently. Moreover, I think understanding the world and the things around us make us better designers. What is the point of designing products for us if we do not understand what “us” are struggling with? Leaving with and around? Design is everywhere, everything, we just need the eye to look for it in the things around us. This is why we need to look around more and think with a big picture in mind, taking in consideration the problems, the people, and the surroundings.

 

Finally, I found this course and learning journey to be quite insightful. It reassured me of what I want to do as a future designer. As I mentioned before, I have an interest in exploring nature, space and the universe around us in general, this was something I wanted to push further but I did not see the connection to design before this course. Now, knowing that I want to purse that in a way, I want to adapt ideas from nature all around us to create better solutions for human problems through product and fashion design. While I can explore the use of life – inspired material and its manipulation, I can use it in creating solutions for problems that we failed to understand across various scales. Overall, I want to further explore life-oriented design and sustainability as a future designer as I find that these two topics can be a way to connect us as people with the space around us for a better and brighter future.

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