MANILA – Arch. Tobias Guggenheimer, Dean at the SoFA Design Institute and part of the powerhouse jury for the adobo Design Awards talked about his design teaching philosophy at the adobo Design Series.
The question of what good design is is so fundamental that most designers forget to ask it themselves, Guggenheimer explained. He said that good design revolves around three concepts: utility, firmness and delight. “A design is many things simultaneously,” he said. “Utility means it has to serve a purpose. Firmness means it has to be technically appropriate to the task, and delight means it has to be beautiful. Design is as much a philosophy as it is a practice.”
He elaborated on his philosophy-centered approach on teaching design. “Human beings are largely divided into our emotional and intellectual selves,” he said. “And as designers, we are required to be able to access both of those realms, until we fully realize the design.” Guggenheimer said that designers should not rely on “intuitively looking through magazines, websites and libraries” for inspiration. He explained that design should be approached as a very personal experience. “Just by virtue of our own uniqueness as translated in our design work, we see that there is an unlimited source of inspiration,” he said.
Guggenheimer said that designers should be masters at storytelling through their designs. “Designers tell stories that are meaningful to themselves, their clients and the world at large.” He also said that there is an unlimited source of imagination inside every designer that remains untapped. “Few things are in unlimited supply in the world,” he said, “but imagination as expressed through a story is one of them.”
He talked about there being an “unjustifiable bias” about design. “This is because we literally create culture. Anything that people realize is part of the structure of our tangible and intangible universe,” Guggenheimer said. Designers have a responsibility as creators because they contribute to the local and global culture with their creations.
The adobo Design Series 2014 was held on March 28 at The Mind Museum.
