In this post I’d like to suggest you a Creative Commons-licensed reading, to announce you an event I’m going to participate to and start an open discussion about their common subject: what will probably be the future of Industrial Design and Manufacturing, and how we can draw a map of it?

First, I suggest you reading this publication, Future of Making Map, published by Institute for the Future here: http://iftf.org/node/1766.

Two future forces, one mostly social, one mostly technological, are intersecting to transform how goods, services, and experiences— the “stuff” of our world—will be designed, manufactured, and distributed over the next decade. An emerging do-it-yourself culture of “makers” is boldly voiding warranties to tweak, hack, and customize the products they buy. And what they can’t purchase, they build from scratch. Meanwhile, flexible manufacturing technologies on the horizon will change fabrication from massive and centralized to lightweight and ad hoc. These trends sit atop a platform of grassroots economics—new market structures developing online that embody a shift from stores and sales to communities and connections.

[...]

There is much to be learned from the maker mindset of collaboration, creativity, and open access. Yet the maker culture will not replace traditional industry. In the future, traditional manufacturers and maverick makers will be closely linked— sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing, but frequently blurring the boundaries that separate them. Success will occur when the two cultures are woven together in new and interesting ways.

via | core77

It’s a very interesting map that points out the

• Drivers
• Trends
• Signals
• Suggestions (Make the Future)

that could lead to a scenario of distributed design and manufacturing systems. It shows the social and technological phenomena driving (drivers) these trends (contrasting where we are in 2008 with where we will be in 2018), signals (a company, network, project, product, idea, or innovation) and suggestions for using the map for travelling or, better, going to where it’s heading to.

And then I’d like to announce you that I’m very honoured to participate at the I Realize 09 event in Turin on June 9-10, as a co-facilitator for the Post-Industrial Design Workshop with the Turin-based Design Studio ToDo (Thanks Giorgio for inviting me!).

And as you can see on the workshop page, we are going to study and draw a map about the future of Post-Industrial Design, starting from Generative Design, Open Processes and Projects, Fabbing, Open P2P Marketplaces…

At the end of the workshop three maps will be realized:

• NEEDS – the unmet needs, the unsolved problems
• DISRUPTIVE SOLUTIONS – possible disruptive (technological?) solutions for the identified problems
• EXISTING ANSWERS – possible answers/solutions (i.e. start-ups, technologies, ideas, groups, etc.) already existing but not well known yet.

What do you think are the needs, the possible disruptive (technological and social) solutions and the existing ones that could lead to an open, networked and distributed Design and Manufacturing System?

What do you think are the best strategies and tools for mapping an emergent system?

See you in Turin soon!

Tags: Business/Service, Design, Enabler, Fabbing, Generative system, Maps, Open Design, Product Design