Designing Change in Emergency Management: What is design? Part 1.

Introduction

The first post in this series highlighted behavioral change in the field of emergency management and framed its creation as an act of design. Although it may appear in the previous post and elsewhere as if design is something "new" being integrated into emergency management, design has always been practiced by the community. The following post illuminates design’s pervasiveness in emergency management before exploring definitions of design.

Uncovering Design

Design has always been central to the field of emergency management as it is fundamental to human activity. This declaration follows from the work of several design scholars who stand in agreement that design is an innate capacity exercised throughout day to day life. As Papanek (1984) explains:

“All that we do, almost all the time is design, for design is basic to all human activity. The planning and patterning of any act towards a desired, foreseeable end constitutes the design process” (p.3).

As expected, Papanek (1984)…