One point remains constant no matter which of John Bielenberg’s projects you encounter, be it his design practice (C2), his student-led creative lab (Project M), or the problem-solving experiment he runs with his fellow C2 founders (the MavLab): thinking wrong. That’s the shorthand Bielenberg uses to describe the process of exploring multiple expertise and entry points when solving a problem. Project M’s 2005 experiment offers a good case-in-point:
“That year, the assignment was to create an AIGA mentoring guide. One of the Project M kids drove a demolition derby car in Skowhegan, Maine every summer, so we just connected those two disparate things – AIGA mentor guide, demolition derby car – and started looking around.”
The result was the Mbulence, a used ambulance that the Project M team converted into a mobile design studio, filled with donated equipment and supplies, and drove to Lousiana to aid designers who had been hit by Hurricane Katrina.
“All along the way, people were inspired not just by the act itself, but by how this grassroots effort was conceived and executed. It’s an example of how the process of thinking wrong can lead to something that doesn’t feel wrong at all.”
Not only does thinking wrong often not feel wrong, contends Bielenberg, it may just be the most effective means of doing right.
“The more diverse minds you have working on something, the more opportunity there is to make connections that one individual or one discipline wouldn’t make. In the activity of problem-solving on these big issues of sustainability and climate change, I think you need that diverse expertise in the room. Getting out of your comfort zone is where the really cool ideas come from.”
And designers have an important seat at the table.
“This is where we are very different from a think tank or an institute that considers the issues and writes white papers. Designers like to make stuff. It’s not just the idea generation, it’s the rapid prototyping, the execution, the bringing these ideas to life.”
—Natalie Linden (www.someonemightcare.com)
