Design: A Very Short Introduction by John Heskett

Author:John Heskett [Heskett, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Art, Criticism & Theory, History, General, Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), Contemporary (1945-), Design, Graphic Arts, Product, Social Science, Popular culture
ISBN: 9780192854469
Google: 5hxqRkf4znkC
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2005-12-15T18:29:09.987522+00:00

18. Expansion or concentration of the footprint?: American and Japanese bathrooms.

and their internal arrangement in the domestic environment is subject to very different pressures. Bathtubs in Japanese homes are often small, for example, intended for a seated or crouched posture, rather than lying recumbent – communal bathhouses giving more space are not uncommon. Toilet and bidet functions are often incorporated into a single pedestal and controlled electronically. Similarly, instead of separate, large washers and dryers, the two functions are combined and miniaturized. Refrigerators are also small but technologically advanced, while cookers are broken down into small modular units to be fitted more easily into kitchen wall storage systems. The latter point also illustrates that spatial limitations force the axial emphasis in Japanese homes to a vertical rather than a horizontal plane – they have to stack instead of spread. In addition, it is still usually necessary for many functions in Japanese homes to be organised on the basis of convertibility rather than in terms of dedicated space and equipment – for example, with En living spaces switching to sleeping spaces and back again. vironm

Within the framework of such general cultural differences, however, ents the home is still in most countries the one location where anyone can organize an environment to match his or her personal lifestyle and tastes, in a manner not available elsewhere. Although there are, of course, innumerable pressures to follow the fashions manifested in ‘style’ magazines, manufacturers’ advertising and retailers’

catalogues, the ability to personalize a space and inject it with meaning remains one of the major outlets for individual design decisions.

In contrast, an overwhelming majority of decisions on how workspaces are organized are made by managers and designers, and the people who work in them have to live with the consequences, with few possibilities for modification. As the twentieth century progressed, concepts of appropriate layouts for manufacturing plants and offices changed in response to changing perceptions of work and its management. With the rise of large corporations in the early part of the century, the ideas of Frederick W. Taylor and his 73

successors in the Scientific Management movement were dominant. The ideas of Taylor and his followers were an effort to assert management control over work processes by imposing standardized procedures. He advocated finding ‘the one best way’

for any task and the main tools in organizing workers to fit this pattern were time-and-motion studies. Factory workers became subordinated to manufacturing sequences planned in every detail to maximize efficiency on the basis of mass production. Office workers sat at desks arrayed in uniform ranks, similarly organized and controlled in a strict hierarchy. In some bureaucratic systems, the position and size of desk and chair perceptibly changed with each increase in rank. In both factories and offices work processes were focused on the completion of highly organized functions for known problems and processes.

From the 1960s onwards, some companies began to experiment with looser systems of management, in which, within an overall emphasis on leadership rather than control, workers were Design

encouraged to interact in teams and contribute more actively to processes.

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