> [!quote] > "[[The future is not out there to be discovered --- it must be designed.]]" > --Gerhard Fischer, CU/L3D [[Design]] is the most ancient, modern, difficult, cheapest, and most valuable human activity in the world. [[Deep Design desires willful consequences]] that are visible against the complex background of the most [[irreducible problems]] of our time. Herbert Simon's [[The Sciences of the Artificial]] has been coopted and systematized beyond all recognition in the contemporary practice of "[[Design Thinking]]." We recognize a deeper need. Design is deepened when we recognize that problems operate at [[more than surface levels]]. Below every proposed design solution, there is a deeper solution waiting to be addressed. In deep design, we recognize that design is [[Turtles All the Way Down]] Deep Design acknowledges that [[Wicked problems are the only design problems worth working on.|wicked problems are the only problems worth working on]] and suggests that perhaps [[all design problems are Wicked]]. Further, deep design acknowledges [[pace layering]] and recognizes that deepened designs are those that have the longest lasting value. As Stewart Brand reminds us, ”[[We are as gods, and we might as well get good at it]].” Never before has humanity been endowed with such power to shape the environment we live in to meet and exceed our expectations of need. Never before have designers had such a responsibility to do it right. Deep Design is not a linear process with a beginning and an end. Rather, it is a practice defined by nodes on the rich hyper-surface of daily human experience. 1. [[Deep Design Embraces Incompleteness]] 2. [[Deep Design Accepts Irreducibility]] 3. [[Deep Design Refuses Closure]] 4. [[Deep Design is Aware of the Undecidable]] 5. [[Deep Design as Stochastic Performance]] ![[Tenets of Deep Design]] If we seek deeper levels of design, we approach root causes and we build stronger foundations for higher design opportunities. A tool for the exploration of deep design is [[the Five Whys]]. As a designer, begin by asking designing the thing below... five times. Design takes time to deepen, and it is appropriate to begin your practice anywhere. If you adhere to a particular design Thinking orthodoxy, your practice may deepen from successfully running your process again, again, again, and again. Beware that Deep Design is a dangerous practice, a practice that brings wild innovation that threatens norms and existing power structures. [[Machiavelli]] and [[Literature Notes/Omnivore/2024-09-11/We Have a Creativity Problem - The New York Times|We Have a Creativity Problem - The New York Times]]