PROJECT
DESIGNS FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS
Design exhibition for the next century. Questioning responsibility and sustainability for tomorrow, exploring social transformation through design's WHY and HOW.
WHY
Can we show the next generation
a creative and hopeful future?
Humans have developed civilization by creating all kinds of tools to enrich our lives and society. The ability to create tools filled with various ideas and ingenuity is the creative power that we humans possess. We can also call this the power to design tools. Our great predecessors’ design efforts to solve the problems at hand have made our lives richer and healthier, and our economies more prosperous.
In the process of civilization’s growth, however, we also have borrowed the Earth’s finite resources from the future and severely damaged the ecosystem. As a result, we have already exceeded the “planetary boundary,” a critical point where there is a danger of irreversible and rapid environmental change, and it is said that our current civilization can only last a few more decades or so.
It is very ironic that despite the fact that people have been working to design a hopeful future, ecological collapse, climate change, and food crises have become global problems, and the ever-widening social disparity has given rise to conflicts and divisions. In the process, local communities and traditional cultures that were once sustainable are in decline.
How can we show our children a creative and hopeful future?
HOW
We design for the future.
The exhibition showcases designs for the next 100 years.
This exhibition, held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of NOSIGNER’s incorporation, is not only a retrospective of our activities over the past 10 years, but also to contemplate designs for the future, 100 years from now, together with all of you.
In this exhibition, we present various initiatives we have undertaken over the past 10 years from two perspectives: ‘WHY’ and ‘HOW’.
Believing that good design necessitates challenges to the unprecedented and overwhelmingly new ways of thinking, we have had a strong commitment to unique methods (=HOW). However, becoming obsessed with methods can sometimes lead us to generate design for the sake of design, or even inadvertently contribute to a form of violence in unexpected ways.
The true role of design is to provide new ways for everyone. And for this purpose, what is needed is a focus and insight directed toward the purpose (=WHY) of why the project at hand is necessary and what kind of future the design will bring about.
We have positioned projects within the timeline that stretches from the past to the present, extending to the far side of the Earth within ecosystems, and we have been thinking about design from the purpose (WHY) based on this approach, which is rooted in the “Evolutional Creativity” advocated by Eisuke Tachikawa, introduced in this exhibition.
Facing the essentail issue of “how to make the world sustainable,” we have continued to value accumulating what design can contribute to the future, one step at a time. If the case studies of a small Japanese design firm can serve as inspiration for all of you and become a catalyst for changing the world, it would be our utmost honor.
DESIGNS FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS
“DESIGNS FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS” is an exhibition that looks back on the activities of NOSIGNER, celebrating its 10th anniversary, from the two perspectives of “WHY” and “HOW,” and looks ahead to the future of design for the next 100 years. Good design is one that challenges conventions and incorporates new ways of thinking and methods (=HOW), while at the same time possessing significance and purpose (=WHY), with an eye towards the future of the project.
NOSIGNER has been practicing design that combines purpose and method; based on the concept of “Evolutional Creativity” advocated by Eisuke Tachikawa, the president of NOSIGNER. We hope that the small changes that Japanese design firms have made in response to the big question of “how to make the world sustainable” will serve as a case study and inspiration for people in Taiwan, and that together we can change the world.
Evolutional Creativity Library
The exhibition hall features the “Evolutional Creativity Library,” a collection of literature by natural scientists throughout history.
At first glance, the natural sciences may seem far removed from the world of design, but they hold a variety of wisdom that can unlock the essence of creativity and design. In exploring the world of natural science in compiling Evolutional Creativity, Tachikawa began to collect rare original and facsimile books documenting the work of natural scientists over the last several hundred years. The Evolutional Creativity Library offers a glimpse into the wisdom of our great predecessors through a sampling of its collection.
WILL
A design firm dedicated to establishing innovative relationships for the future.
NOSIGNER leverages the power of design and strives to engage in social practices beneficial for the future.
We firmly believe in the power of design because a good design can mend broken connections. Design has the power not only to create form, but also to create relationships through form. We have been working under the philosophy of creating the unseen values (NO-SIGN) behind such forms.
To balance innovative thinking that generates new possibilities and designs that embody the desired relationships, it is crucial to have fundamental design capability to refine expressions and planning.
We, NOSIGNER, continuously hone our design skills and constantly aim for world-class quality in various design fields, such as architecture, space, industrial, graphic, and packaging design. As a result, we have become a world leader in various design domains.
Leveraging this expertise, we transcend the boundaries of design disciplines, discover invisible clues to relationships through thorough observation, and draw up comprehensive design strategies that create innovations useful for the future.
INFORMATION
- What
- DESIGNS FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS
- When
- 2023.9.19-11.5
- Where
- Taiwan Design Museum (inside Songshan Cultural and Creative Park)
- Scope
- Exhibition / Video / Copywriting / Edition / Video / Promotional items / Photograph / Concept Development
CREDIT
- Organizer
- NOSIGNER、台灣設計研究院TDRI
- Co-organizers
- 設計發浪 Designsurfing、Dosomething studio
- Curator
- 太刀川英輔
- Curatorial Coordinator
- 李妮燕、川喜多ノエミ、廖于婷
- Executive Coordinator
- 設計浪人、Queena Lin
- Video Coordinator
- Cowper Wang
- Curatorial Design
- 太刀川英輔、川喜多ノエミ、櫻井綾、堀本悠太、神﨑遥
- Design Assistant
- 何恺宁、丹下佳晴、廖于婷
- Music production
- 高見澤音楽室
- Copy writing coordinator
- 原田優輝
- Japanese translation
- 詹慕如
- Japanese proofreading
- 李妮燕、Chad Liu、廖于婷
- English translation
- 柯乃瑜、錢佳緯
- English proofreading
- Jerry Hsu
- Photography
- 汪德範