Beautiful New World – Is Design Dubai’s Future?

The first International Design Forum (IDF) is presently taking place in Dubai. It focuses on design in and for the Arabian world and is about to become a great success. Since 27 May 2007 the participants have been discussing jointly with renowned designers, architects and personalities from industry and science about the future role of design and creativity as innovative driving force. As official partner of the IDF red dot is on location with an exhibition of award-winning products and engages in strengthening the role of design as an economic factor in the Arabian world and actively promoting Arabian designers.

“It is important for us to be present here, in one of the world’s fastest growing cities”, says Professor  Dr. Peter Zec, initiator of the red dot design award. Zec does not only play an important role as member of the Design Advisory Board, his expertise as design promoter and president of the international umbrella organisation of industrial designers, ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design ), is also sought after in many panel discussions.

Already on the first conference day he spoke about the issue of design economics, and in a large plenary session he discussed in front of about three hundred participants which industrial branches might have the largest innovative potential in future – a question that will be of existential importance for a city like Dubai which has to prepare for the time after the oil boom and which strives for attracting the most promising industries. Zec stressed the fact that many branches had a large innovative potential like aerospace, nanotechnology or robotics. He added, however, that we reached a point where the many possibilities inherent in technologies were not applied since they were simply not devised. This meant there was a lack of ideas or phantasy. Since almost anything conceivable could be realised sooner or later with the means we had already at our disposal. That is why we needed visionaries, young people thinking further and beyond our present world of products. A view likewise advanced by the designer Karim Rashid, also member of the Design Advisory Board. In his opinion, always looking back and not ahead is one big problem of our time when it comes to creating new products.

The major part of the speakers from western industrial nations, however, agreed on one important prerequisite: The possibility of independent thinking and freedom from state influence on the one hand and a highly qualified education (in design) was needed on the other hand.

Accordingly, the establishment of an academy of design in this part of the world is one of the key issues of the conference. Experts from all over the world discuss about the qualities and potentials of a new and high-quality design education which does not only follow and copy western patterns but also offers an answer to the particular demands of the region. The challenges are multifarious; design does not present a real value in large parts of the Arabian world. This, according to Sheikh Majed al Sabah, founder and managing director of the Villa Moda, Kuwait, is not last due to the fact that there is no design education. The profession of a designer was not approved and an adolescent could not simply approach his parents expressing the wish to become a designer. A design academy in this region, however, could basically change this attitude in the medium term.

The application of design in and for the Arabian world represents another danger which, in the opinion of Khalid Al Malik, president of Tatweer, consists in the fact that nobody takes a close look at people’s needs. It is important, says Al Malik, to consider factors like education, culture, environment and religion when products or buildings are created. Zec confirms: “Good design always has to communicate safety; it must not make those feel insecure to whom the object is assigned, neither make insecure nor overstrain. Sensibility is what is needed here. Every new design, be it a building or a product, has to help people to feel well by communicating simple handling alone by its shape and to really make life a little easier. Only then will it be accepted, not when flowing over with technological possibilities which do not reveal themselves to anybody. It is better to concentrate on the essential.”

At the congress they almost all agreed that it would not suffice to import western products and design ideals. Zec: “Dubai is still a young city, an almost unknown quantity. It holds enormous potentials: Many things develop faster than in old cultural nations since the most different traditions, monument protection, structures grown for centuries and similar things must not be taken into consideration. On the other hand it holds the danger of a certain randomness. It is necessary to think about what are your intentions, what kind of visions you have for the region and what kind of image you want to communicate. Finally, it is also a question of developing a language of design and architecture of its own and to realise all this step by step with a continuously high standard of quality.”