Non-Intentional Design (2020)

Brandes et al. (2009) define Non-Intentional Design as ‘the everyday re-design of the designed world’ (ibid: 10). It is ‘the user’s motivation to use an object for a purpose other than that for which it was professionally intended’ (ibid: 12). As design researcher, NID is one of my passions and research area as it shows what people do spontaneously with objects when facing a situational problem. I have thus investigated the street from an empiricist perspective, observing and taking pictures of what I could see, as for example a bicycle basket transformed into a wastepaper basket, lampposts and walls as advertising hoarding, trees and railings as mop holders, power cables and fences as clothes rail, etc. At times, different solutions arise to solve the same problem, as when mops dry on different supports, or the same element has different uses to offer, as when trees are used as bins, to hold mops, to stretch muscles, etc. As such, the non-intentional use of mundane objects can be observed in Guanzhuang street through the following selection of images. Where there is people, there will be Non-Intentional Design.