Montreal Design Declaration (2017)

The first Design Summit Meeting, held in Montreal in October 2017, was the first time the design community convened internationally across a broad spectrum of disciplines together with a serious array of international organisations. Eighteen bodies signed the declaration that came out of it, among them the International Union of Architects, the International Federation of Landscape Architects, Cumulus, the Design Research Society, the DESIS Network, the Bureau of European Design Associations, Architecture Sans Frontieres International, the Commonwealth Association of Planners and the International Federation for Housing and Planning. Officials from UNESCO, UN-Habitat, UN Environment and ICOMOS were present at the signing, which the document records carefully as presence rather than as endorsement. The declaration opens with a preamble that is unusually attentive to what design is not being asked to do. It is cognisant of the diverse range of contexts, both formal and informal, where design has an impact, and mindful of the immeasurable value of local and traditional knowledge for appropriate and innovative design solutions. It recognises the need for strategic leadership on design at every level of government, and therefore the need for governance models, political agendas and policy to take design into account. Its definition of design is the sharpest line in the document. Design is the application of intent: the process through which we create the material, spatial, visual and experiential environments in a world made ever more malleable by advances in technology and materials, and increasingly vulnerable to the effects of unleashed global development. From that definition nine calls to action follow: design advocacy, design metrics, design policies, design standards, design education, responsive design, responsible design, vigilant design, and the recognition of design's value across society. Three of those nine are the ethical core. Responsive design is design that answers the degradation of the physical, social and cultural environment and the risks of unfettered consumption. Responsible design asks designers to recognise their enormous capacity to be destructive as well as constructive, and to share the work of refocusing from human consumption to the enhancement of human life. Vigilant design, written in 2017, asks designers to ensure that the impact of algorithms and technology is ethical and inclusive of social, cultural and ethnic diversity. The declaration then states an intent to collaborate with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda, the Paris Climate Accord and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, to develop a world design agenda, and to inspire designers, described in the document's own words as too long the servants of producers, to better serve humanity as the ambassadors of end users. An annex proposes twenty collaborative projects grouped under metrics, common language, policy, education, demonstration, standards and common cause. The annex is honest about its own status, stating that undertaking any of these would require resources, negotiation, coordination and management, and that a process would have to be created to decide which were launched. None of this is binding. Eighteen professional organisations signed a text about their own conduct and their own advocacy; no state ratified it and no mechanism enforces it. Its significance is that it is the point at which architects, industrial designers, graphic designers, planners, landscape architects and design researchers found a single set of words they would all put their names to, and that those words include an explicit acknowledgement that design can be destructive.