shape of things to come: predicting future designs

What kind of furniture will be designed in future? whether cycle will remain frozen in its form and features as it has been for last six to seven decades, or acquire new features and functions? will design, engineering and management  schools add one more choice to an existing customer of mobile phone or transport  sector, or start addressing the needs of those who have still use hundred if not thousand year old technologies or service models?   Recently while being interviewed by a European foresight group trying to predict the natu re of innovations in future, i realized how disconnected the world of imagination among many Eurocentric  institutions was with the Asian  way, as i see, unfolding in future.  let me explain.

furniture: among a whole range of designs that i saw, none required people to sit on the ground. Chairs has occupied the imagination of the mind completely. but millions of people still eat food in Asia and Africa sitting on ground. And that is a very good posture. Tea is served in Japan on low height tables with rituals requiring sitting on ground. Gandhi ji wrote on a desk sitting on ground or even a bed. should not our designers offer the ergonomic and health advantages of such furniture. of course, this will require modification in sartorial options as well, but why not. how long will we clothe us, furnish us and present us in formations not suitable for our climate, culture and community spirit. Yesterday, when design students were presenting their reports on possible solution to reducing drudgery of tea leaf picker women ( a  problem i assigned to them) at Gmund, Germany ( more on it next week), the audience was sitting on the ground in the hall. May be once Europeans start doing it, we will also do it, colonised as our minds are.

Large number of people in Europe use cycle to their work though they can afford cars. Cycle is considered healthy and green. In our country, the moment  we have arrived, we start using car to cover even short distances, forget the use of cycles. Once rich people start using cycles, cycle paths will emerge, municipalities will not design urban infrastructure of this kind for poor of course. But let me shift the focus a bit. what about designing cycles with new features. many readers have read about cycle based washing mACHINE. BUt cycles have been used for cutting vegetables, making salad, juice, as a workshop for drilling hole sor cutting things, shaving sheep or horses, pumping water, if you live to third floor, water does not come up due to low pressure, use cycle to pump it; cycle to exercise of course and do fifty other things.

we need to rethink multifunctionality, frugality, diversity and resilience, the four features of nature which also can and should mimic in future designs for development, and diversity.