Victor Papanek “Design for the Real World” (pdf download)

Victor Papanek:

“In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically, and chemically, the best and simplest thing that architects, Industrial designers, planners, and others could do would be to stop working entirely”

“In one of our Eastern colleges a six-foot-long steel pipe with a diameter of 1.5 inches was immovably fixed into the cement floor of a basement, so that one foot of the pipe was below floor level and 5 feet stuck straight up. A ping-pong ball was then introduced into the pipe, so that it would rest at the bottom, 6 feet from the top opening. Placed in the room were a miscellaneous collection of tools, utensils, and gadgets. One thousand students were introduced into the room, one at a time, and asked to find some method for getting the ping-pong ball out of the pipe. The attempts to solve the problem were as various as the students themselves: some tried to saw through the pipe, which proved too strong; others dripped steel filings on to the ping-pong ball and then went ‘fishing’ for it with a magnet, finding that the magnet would adhere to the pipe wall long before it could be lowered all the way down. The attempt was made to raise it with a piece of chewing gum on a piece of string, but enough pendulum action was acquired in raising it so that the ball would inevitably drop off. To stick a series of soda straws together and try to ’suck’ it up also proved impossible. But sooner or later almost all of the students, 917 out of 1,000 (a respectable performance indeed) found a mop and a bucket of water in a corner, poured the water into the pipe, and floated the ball to the top. This, how- ever, was only the control group.

A second series of 1,000 students were then asked to solve the problem again; conditions remaining unchanged with one slight exception. The bucket of water was removed, and the psychologists substituted an antique rosewood table on which a finely cut crystal pitcher of water, two glasses, and a silver tray rested. Out of the second group only 188 solved the problem correctly. Why ? Obviously because over 80 per cent in this group failed to ’see’ the water. The fact that a crystal pitcher standing on a rosewood table is more noticeable than a pail in a corner is obvious. What we mean to imply is that the second group failed to make the associational link between water and a flotation method. The associational gap was a much more difficult one to make with the handsome pitcher than with the pail, even though normally we are not given to pouring water out of a bucket to float ping-pong balls either.

A third version of the test removed both the pail of water and the pitcher. A surpisingly large number, nearly 50 percent, of these (male) undergraduates still solved the problem correctly by urinating into the pipe.”

That which exists may be transformed
What is non-existent has boundless uses.
LAO-TSE

The economy of the marketplace, however, is still geared to a static philosophy of “purchasing owning” rather than a dynamic one of “leasing-using.” - Papanek

Earlier we spoke about the artist suffering from the tyranny of absolute choice. But if he doesn’t care to poke fun at the machine, become a machine, turn himself into a bogus witch doctor, construct tiny boxed universes, elevate the commonplace to a symbol of banality, or let out his aggressions on a middle class no longer capable of being shocked, the area of choice is narrowed abruptly. One thing remains: accidents.