In late September, I sat awed during the first of the "Speaking of Design" lecture series listening to Zaza Kabayadondo, Smith College's Co-Director of the newly-launched Design Thinking Initiative while she discussed public vans or matatus as they are known in Kenya or kombis as they are named in Zimbabwe, as works of design. I was amazed because these vans that I am very familiar with were used to explain concepts of design. It is not every day that a 'Third World' object is discussed in a positive light!
A matatu is a ten to fourteen seat mini van that is the commonly used transport system in Eastern and Southern Africa. They first emerged around the 1970's public transport was privatized in several nations of the continent. Traffic in cities like Nairobi and Harare is dominated by these vehicles because the majority of people use them. Matatus are usually Nissan models and their actual appearance and use sharply contrast with the manufacturer's clean, crisp intentions. Often, their owners send them to artists and mechanics for physical re-designing while their functions are also tweaked to suit the demographics they serve. Instead of a boring plain color, they are covered with graffiti, pictures, variant colors and powerful music-systems are installed to add even more style or personality to the van. In terms of their usage, they often exceed the manufactures holding capacities and speed recommendations.
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Matatus help answer the question that Zaza brought up in her talk, which is, "Who gets to call themselves a designer?" because they challenge the traditional definition of a the person that makes. She argued that while Toyota designed the vans, the local artists and owners are designers too, because they have employed creativity to customize Nissan's original work for specific contexts. Sadly, most people would only acknowledge Nissan as the sole designer. And so I believe that everybody is a designer meaning each person has the potential to design something for themselves or others. Skills aside, its the thought and problem-solving approach which counts.
When it comes to design, people often think that only a chosen few are allowed or able to be "makers". Zaza suggested that the main reason behind this misconception is that a power structure determines who are the credible designers and who are not. Therefore, while an architect, engineer or urban planner is considered a legitimate designer, a tailor or farmer is not seen as one. I think that this disparity spills over into the education and practice of these professions. It becomes then no surprise that certain populations, usually the most oppressed within a community, are often missing from these fields that control design and its definition.
Just as matatus are works of design so is everything else in the world hence creative thinking needs to be encouraged to all people. Zaza defines design thinking as "being able to look at a question analytically, systematically, at the same time picture how the question could be re-framed or turned on its head" something that needs no fancy titles. We each need to be confident that we are capable of making something that either meets needs or solves problems rather than leaving it all to the conventional designers to do the work for us or dictate what we should or should not do.
The relationship between traditional and nontraditional designers should be symbiotic so the users and designers equally contribute rather than parasitic, where the user feeds off the designer or vice versa. Trust me, I do not say this out of spite for designers; I am an architecture student myself!
I believe that the concept of design is so overrated that people stop believing that they can be creative and make something useful, and I find this disheartening. Its very comforting to see that Smith's Design Thinking Initiative pushes back on the flawed dominant understanding that only a chosen few are designers "...with a bold position of questioning who gets to design. This questioning is a call for activism, empowerment, participation, inclusion and critical engagement with the processes that shape our world."
