Systems of Care
Model of Lot 8, Building for Uncertainties by Atelier LUMA, in collaboration with BC & Assemble (image: Adrian Deweerdt).
Care within design can mean many different things – caring for the environment through material choices; designing for social care; creating healthy work and living spaces. These are just a few of the ways in which care, or a lack thereof, might be approached through and in design.
Care, then, is a broad topic and one where every designer you speak to will have a different take on it. It is, however, a topic that is becoming of increasing interest to the field: the 2020 Istanbul Design Biennale was themed around empathy and care; the 2020 Designers in Residence programme at London’s Design Museum also selected care as its theme; while new design publication The Slow Grind has explored how empathetic values within the design industries might address the field’s present failings around sustainability and creative burnout.
Within this wider discussion of care within design, next year’s Maison&Objet trade fair in Paris will form a new part of the debate, with the fair having selected the theme “Take care!” for its January 2023 edition. Hosted in the Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition park, the fair will bring together designers, manufacturers, curators and trade visitors, all of whom may have different ideas about how care is, or could be, made manifest in design.
In response to this theme, Disegno commissioned a roundtable that brought together four designers with connections to Maison&Objet. In the resultant conversation, an edited version of which follows below, the panellists shared their insights into the opportunities, challenges and complexities of using the word “care” to think about design. Can care be extended beyond single products or projects and instead become embedded in the culture, business models and creative processes of the design industry?
The panel is:
Charlotte Juillard, a designer and teacher at the École Camondo, who was part of Maison&Objet’s 6 Rising Talents display in 2016. In January 2023, Noma will exhibit Charlotte’s furniture designs at Maison&Objet.
Cédric Breisacher, a furniture designer and sculptor who will show his new project Agglomera in the January edition of Maison&Objet as part of the So French display.
Marine Le Luong, a designer at Les Sismo, a design studio that was part of Maison&Objet’s digital talk series in 2020.
Daniel Bell, an architect with Atelier Luma, a research programme that presented its work and ideas around design and architecture as part of Maison&Objet’s Conference programme in March 2022.
Cédric Breisacher hand carving french oak and ash for his Bonhomine chair (image: courtesy of Cédric Breisacher).
Disegno Care can mean many different things within design, so how does it manifest within your design practices?
Charlotte Juillard I find the topic of care complicated – I’m not doing “care design”, but I did begin thinking about care when a company called Noma contacted me five years ago to design furniture using recycled materials. The reason we use recycled materials comes out of caring for the environment and the planet. Today, I'm quite concerned with the types of materials I work with and have reflected on this a lot since my collaboration with Noma started.
Cédric Breisacher I opened my own studio and workshop in Lille in 2016, which focuses on sourcing and using ultra-local materials. I work with wood from local sawmills. Last year, I also made my workshop circular, so all the wood chips are now reused and recycled into new objects. For me, care is about a philosophy of making and how we treat materials in relation to the techniques we use. Care is also about the user – this idea is the base of design for me.
Marine Le Luong I'm a designer at an agency called Les Sismo, where we define our practice as “design with care”. What we mean by “care” is considering the vulnerabilities of who and what we design for. As designers, we need to acknowledge that there are a lot of fragilities in our social, ecological and political contexts when creating solutions for clients.
Daniel Bell I think the notion of care can mean many different things depending on what context you put it in. It's not a word that I have ever directly used in relation to the work that we do at Atelier Luma. When we think about architectural projects, we think about them firstly through the notion of resources and where they come from. These can be material resources or human resources. We try to consider the different parts that make up an object or building and design them in the most sustainable ways possible. What we're often trying to do is redefine how materials get made so that they are fit for purpose for the 21st century – how materials are produced, processed and applied. If you think about design or architecture in the 20th century, it was kind of the antithesis of care if you put it in the context of human and material resources.
“ Care is also about the user – this idea is the base of design for me.”
Detail of Fauteuil Art 77,5% designed by Charlotte Juillard for Noma (image: courtesy of Charlotte Juillard).
Disegno It seems as if care is being talked about a lot more in design, but a lot of what we mean by “caring design” could also be described in other words: for example, sustainable design or social design. Do you think that applying the framework of care to these discussions is helpful?
Marine At Les Sismo, we refer to the works of Carol Gilligan [a feminist, ethicist, and psychologist, ed.] and Joan Tronto [a political scientist, ed.] who were the first to define the notion of care. They talk about every action, step or process needing to care for the environment and humans, and the importance of paying attention to vulnerabilities. This is our starting point – to take care of vulnerabilities. When we design a space or building or product, we think about how the solutions work for everyone. How do they work for people with disabilities, for example? We approach things from this angle because if it works for people with disabilities, it can work for everyone. It also brings new solutions and new perspectives, so it’s generative.
Daniel I think the reason that I have never used the word “care” is maybe because it doesn't feel strong enough. The issues of resources and the climate crisis are so severe, and the relationship with how architecture and design deal with those problems through the solutions they propose is so far away from where we need to be, that I think the notion of care is not enough. It's not a word that says “We need to act urgently about this.” I might use stronger words, such as “resilience” or “urgency”.
“I think the reason that I have never used the word “care” is maybe because it doesn’t feel strong enough.”
Charlotte It's funny, because when I started working 12 years ago I didn't really think about care. I was more thinking about creating good objects and our emotional responses to those. It was more about emotional design than caring design.But like Daniel said, the environmental crisis means everything is moving faster and faster. We cannot produce like we were producing 10 years ago. As a designer who works with brands, it is important to really think about care and not just think of it as a marketing tool. If I work with a company, I always say that if I wanted to be completely ecological, I should stop my work and do something else because when you start producing, you start having a carbon impact. The best design is the one you're not doing. But we will always create stuff and we all need to do this job, so I try to change what I can. It's important for me to consider whether the companies I work with are greenwashing. It's fine to say “We care”, but it's important to be really careful when we use this word.
Cédric In my Masters in Industrial Design I learned how to design an object for a customer. I enjoyed thinking about ergonomics and how to help the user live with objects, but it often felt like we were creating objects for created needs, and I wasn't OK with that. I heard the word “care” for the first time during COVID and I noticed a lot of conversations around it. I didn't really understand the word and I thought, “OK, what is this? Something new is happening.” I realised that what I was doing in my workshop was care. For me, it's kind of basic that I want to be respectful of my environment and to make objects that are good for the planet and for people.
Spacial design by Les Sismo for the French Ministry of Education which aimed to deconstruct the hierarchy between its users. (image: Elodie Dupuis).
Disegno How responsive do you feel your audience has been to that idea of care?
Cédric Clients react more to the aesthetics of the objects I make. It's not until the later part of the interaction when they are told that everything is made by hand and follows a particular philosophy of making. I don’t think care is why they come to me.
Disegno Does anyone else have any experiences around that? Do care and a more ethical way of working draw people to your projects?
Daniel Nobody would come to Atelier Luma and ask for something that wasn't that [caring and ethical]. We only get people asking questions who are interested in our area of design in the first place. Although, on a more general point, a client’s first interest is not care – they are more interested in the bottom line, i.e. how much is it going to cost? In terms of building a building, if you want to build in a truly ecologically way, and inside the current system of construction that we use today, it will have a huge impact on cost.
Charlotte I agree – the recycled furniture that I designed for Noma costs about double the normal price to produce. Sourcing recycled materials is expensive, although I think we're at the start of a material revolution. In the last five years the field has changed a lot and it will, for sure, increase and change more within the next five to ten years. A lot of people already want to buy better, but price is definitely still an issue. I see it every day. I designed an armchair that everyone likes, but they all say “Oh, it's very beautiful but too expensive for me.”
Material sourcing research for Lot 8, Building for Uncertainties, Atelier Luma (image: Baptiste Chatenet).
Disegno The problems we're talking about are systemic – these are huge issues which are very difficult for single practices to impact. As individual practitioners it can be quite easy to become disillusioned and feel that you can make very little difference. How much power do you think that designers have to try and nudge the systems in the right direction?
Charlotte It's important as a designer to understand where and how you can change the minds [of others] and how we can move forward. It's great to design things that people can afford, because that’s how you reach more people, which is why working with big companies is not always or only bad. I try to make them understand that they have the power to change things.
Cédric We can make choices about the supplier and the systems of production, but the final call on a product tends to come from the top – from a brand or manufacturer. When I go to the wood market I use, which is a big space where people buy wood from all over Europe, I’m the only one looking for local wood. All the other makers or workshops don't seem to care. The systems are so big that, alone, we cannot really change things. But there are a lot of young designers producing their own materials and trying to recycle industrial waste, such as Studio Peipei or Atelier Maximum. I think that by doing things together, we can have power.
LAIME 42, designed by Charlotte Juillard for Noma. Made with recycled steel tubing and undyed French wool (image: courtesy of Charlotte Juillard).
Marine It's not about design alone, but how it can collaborate. We design things with an intention behind them which can be related to political or philosophical topics. In this sense, we are able to discuss design and care with the people who can actually make the big decisions. As designers, we have to be in dialogue with people from different fields of expertise who have different agendas and objectives. You have to be able to work with these people and discuss and understand why they have the objectives they have. What are their needs? What are their fears? I think it's a bit too idealistic to think that you can do everything as designers without taking the social or the economical context into consideration. It is important for designers not to be reluctant to discuss their work with other people.
Daniel I think part of the question of whether designers have scope [to effect change] is also to limit how much responsibility we have. I was at an architectural conference in Ljubljana talking about issues of architecture and sustainability, and the conversation descended into whether or not we should have children. I was a little bit thrown by that. I think it's important to bear in mind how much responsibility we should take on and what we're responsible for and what we're not responsible for. In terms of what we do at Atelier Luma, we work with raw materials that are locally sourced, but we also have a platform to communicate and disseminate ideas and research around these projects and we collaborate with different people. We're not the only ones doing this. A lot of the people who do this [kind of work] are not really that well known. Speaking about and giving these projects the biggest platform they can have can make the general public aware that these things are actually happening, because often they are not aware of them.
Charlotte When we think about care, we also think about caring. This makes me think of the famous Model No. 41 lounge chair (1929-32) by Alvar Aalto, which he designed for the Paimio Sanatorium. His chair was designed for a place where people were taken care of and you can take care of people through [designing] good posture [into a chair] so that people can breathe better, for example. This armchair has become iconic and is now very expensive, but it was designed by thinking of ways to design for people, not clients.
“As designers, we’re there to listen.”
Chair of Philosophy design proposal by Les Sismo – a voluntary device that transforms the patient and caregivers’ relationship to restraint and rethinks protocols for capacitated care (image: Elodie Dupuis).
Marine Continuing on the Alvar Aalto example, I think there are a lot of projects in healthcare that deal with care and are really representative of it. At Les Sismo, we are currently working with patients and caregivers at a psychiatric hospital. When it comes to understanding what feels good and what does not, it is the patient and the caregivers who know best. As designers, we’re there to listen. We're working with them to design a better environment where they can more easily communicate about their distress, how they feel and how to take care of them.
Disegno A lot of what we've discussed has been talked about in design and architecture for decades, as the Aalto example shows. Care is not new as an idea, but in terms of some of the public communication around design, it feels as if it is becoming more prevalent in public discussion. It's interesting to have something like Maison&Objet take “care” as its theme, for example, because trade fairs have not traditionally been seen as hugely caring things. Are you encouraged that these debates seem to be becoming more mainstream?
Charlotte We [designers] want to do good things, but we all need to think about how we can conduct business differently and what we are complicit in. There will always be business – we cannot stop that – but we must do better in how we conduct that business.
Marine I think it’s true that there is a growing awareness around care. Recognising that there are challenges and that there is a lot of work to be done in order to better our practice may be the first step in a process that will take more years to change. Maybe the second step is to actually take responsibility and action and do something about it. I think it's good that there is, at least, this awareness. Now we have to see where, and how far, it will go.
Agglomera, furniture and products made with waste wood, by Cédric Breisacher (image: Véronique Huygue, Ensci - Les Ateliers).
“The design profession is going to change in a good way very, very quickly. ”
Daniel There's plenty of stuff you can do [in the short term to improve matters]. It's a long list. For instance, lower percentages of VAT could be attached to objects or buildings that are made from recycled or bio-sourced materials. That's something very practical that has an effect that people will think about. Or, you know the way that some countries have a traffic light system for food? It's really quick for you to say “OK, green – this is good for me” or “Red – this is bad”. There has been research to suggest applying a similar system to products. It might show that something is good but costs 50 per cent more, and then consumers are able to make a decision. We need governmental and legislative shifts in order for things to really happen. But there are also changes we could make within the industry itself to help. There is always a pressure within design to be evolving, producing, and creating new trends. I think the design and architecture world could reflect more on how we represent and develop ideas to begin to address this.
Marine I find this question about labels and how it has to come from government very interesting. From our perspective at Les Sismo, our challenge is to be included in more strategic projects so that we are able to discuss things like this. I think these are really practical topics that may not appear related to design, but which we need to take into consideration as designers to develop our practice and to better communicate what design is about.
Charlotte I think the world is going in that direction without any of our advice. I see it with the young designers. My students are already thinking of design differently to how I was thinking about it 10 years ago. The design profession is going to change in a good way very, very quickly.
Cédric I think the main issue is that we need to develop a philosophy of care which helps us to relearn our relationships with the elements that surround us – with time, the people we live with, and our ecosystems. We need to care about our relationships and evolve them to create a more inclusive practice of design; not only from a human point of view, but also from a non-human perspective. We need to find solutions by taking unusual roads.
Moderation Oli Stratford
Words Lara Chapman
This roundtable was made for Maison&Objet