Ghanaian chocolate,
Korean street.

In 1960 Ghana had a higher per capita Gross Domestic Product than South Korea, by 1997 Korea had broken the US$10,000 barrier.

South Korea has embraced manufacturing and moved into key fields of high technology and innovation.

See http://www.worldbank.org/research/growth/ for detailed information.

Determination

by

Design

Part of this book was written in a housing development which was equipped with state of the art communication technology in the nineteen seventies. A cable TV and radio distribution system delivered two hours of black and white television programming each week from a community studio within the Fishermead estate, Milton Keynes.

In more than thirty years the system has not been upgraded, in part due to changes in ownership and related legal issues. Today, however, many of the residents of the area are enjoying direct satellite broadcasting which delivers a bewildering choice of programming to their homes.

The shift from wired to wireless delivery, in particular the domestication of military invention of the artificial earth orbit satellite, has transformed the availability and distribution of information and communication resources.

This book addresses the consequences of the shift from hierarchical to essentially disintermediated systems of delivery. It is concerned with the balance between the constraints imposed by design decision-making in technical and social artifacts, and the space for those outside the initial decision loop to occupy and modify those design spaces.

Details of the author and contributors are available here

The book is divided into three parts:

Part I
Design and Development: the worlds we live in

Chapter 1: Design and Determination: overcoming exclusion in an emergent global system

Chapter 2: Chains, Networks, Webs: the topology and geography of a global system of development

Chapter 3: Wicked Problems and Evil Empires: postivism, complexity and the Cold War origins of the information society

Chapter 4: Virtual Working: public and private place and non-place

Chapter 5: Windows of Opportunity: supporting development with appropriate technologies or appropriated technologies?

Part II
Determination and Design: frames and paradigms

Chapter 6: Finding a lever to move the world: the design paradigm and its value

Chapter 7: Time-Frames and Design Decision-making

Chapter 8: Finding a Place to Stand: a “metatechnical” framework

Chapter 9: Culture, Design and Design Cultures: achieving transferability and sustainability in development processes

Part III
From Geography to History: designing a place in the world

Chapter 10: Development by Design: two national development paths

Chapter 11: Development: cultural consonances in post-Cold War development

Chapter 12: Through the Window or Through the Looking Glass: prospects for greater equity in development.

This page is maintained by
Stephen Little
The Open University Business School
Milton Keynes, U.K.

s.e.little@open.ac.uk

Last update 24 August 2004