Habitus Magazine | Issue 20

On our masthead we have the phrase ‘Living in Design’. Far be it for me, as the editor, to ask what this means. But you, as a reader can – and you should. Because the word ‘design’ is a slippery customer.

‘Design’ is a word over-used, loosely used and generally flakey. For example, ‘design’ is often used as a synonym for fashion. And it frequently implies something approved by a faceless clergy of black-shirted imams – something which, once unquestioningly embraced, will guarantee membership of a celestial elite. Never mind whether the emperor is wearing any clothes because no one will dare say so.

But design is a process. The products which result are like artefacts left behind. Hopefully, though, they are useful artefacts because that is what design is meant to be: useful.

Maybe that line on our masthead should read ‘Living by Design’. This suggests – to use a word currently gaining more and more currency – mindfulness. In other words, instead of stumbling through life taking things as they come, we (as individuals and as communities) need to be mindful, making informed decisions as to where we go and how we get there. Living by design is to live with intention, with purpose and with an awareness of what is around us.

What this suggests is that design is fundamentally a future-oriented process, a way of actualising a vision for the future. Read Tony Fry’s Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (UNSW, 2009) for a heavy-hitting exploration of this idea. Another way of putting it is to say that design is the link between creativity and innovation. But whatever definition we come up with, design is about living in the world.

Now that I think about it, Habitus is really about those people who live by design. Not just the architects and designers, but all those people who aspire to add value in their lives, who take control of how they live and who value quality of life.

And just as design is a process, the products which result are not – despite our lazy assumptions – fixed in time, either. They may be artefacts left behind, but like any other artefact they continue to evolve. For those who live by design, living with those products is a relationship and a form of stewardship. Physically and contextually, the artefacts of design continue to evolve. And in an era of growing awareness of sustainability, these things of quality should always be of this world.

More or less everything in this magazine is about this process, but in this issue I especially recommend you look at Tim Ross’s love affair with all things Modern, the exciting new venture in Jakarta which is The Goods Dept•, Justin Hill and Simon Cundy’s loving make-over of a house in Galle and Luigi Rosselli’s remarkable response to a dramatic seaside site in Sydney.

PAUL MCGILLICK | EDITOR