Going mobile: Aesthetic design considerations from calder and the constructivists

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Barry, D; Rerup, C
• 署名单位: Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Western University (University of Western Ontario); University Western Ontario Hospital
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1050.0165
• 发表日期: 2006
• 页码: 262-276
• 关键词: Organization design; flexibility; network; organizational aesthetics; METAPHOR; ANALOGY; arts and business

摘要

Desion thinking has long tried to join form, function, and aesthetic appeal. In cars, furniture, architecture, typography, clothes, or photography, good designs regularly solve problems of movement, massing, and balance in attractive and inspiring ways. The field of organization design is comparatively young in this regard, having mostly focused on questions of efficiency and expediency rather than aesthetics; nevertheless, designers are increasingly being called on to create organizations that sing rather than just work. Here, we consider how aesthetically sophisticated design thinking from the arts might be applied in organizational design. Specifically, we consider the case of Learning Lab Denmark-a research institute that has experimented extensively with aesthetically informed organizational design-in light of the mobile art of Alexander Calder and other constructivist artists who championed flexible design. We conclude that in such organizations, (1) designers must strike an ongoing, interactive balance between centric and acentric design orientations and practices, (2) aestheic consideration is fundamentally important when it comes to crafting effective design, and (3) designing processes should be given as much attention as design solutions.