Charles and Ray EamesSomething has been going on in this country during the last decade that I believe is changing how we relate to design. I titled this section "design is the new food" because this is a revolution that has already occurred in the food category, and it relates to how passionate, curious and knowledgeable we are becoming about design in a non-faddish way.
Why? Because we, as a country, have reached an age where we are less focused on blind expansion and are finally paying attention to the details and quality of what we eat and how we live. Or you could say that, as a nation, we've entered middle age.
Take food as an example.
When my father was my age, his idea of a good home cooked dinner was a steak on the grill, iceberg lettuce and a cocktail or beer (remember, Americans didn't drink much wine back in the 50s and it certainly wasn't cool, unless you were an artist, beatnik or poet). If my father were to be just coming up now, even not being a foodie, he'd be talking instead about a ribeye steak, arugula salad and he'd definitely be drinking wine, let's say a Burgundy or a Pinot Noir (because he'd know that this goes well with red meat). He'd have to, because the choices available to him are just not that simple anymore, and it's OK for guys to be into this stuff. Being knowledgeable about food is macho.
Cooking and food have changed.
Alice Waters, Julia Child and Chuck Williams
As a result of the work of countless chefs, writers, and merchants since World War II like Alice Waters (Chez Panisse), Julia Child, and Chuck Williams (Williams-Sonoma) who brought to America a deeply European knowledge of good food and cooking, we have taken a good deal of our leisure time and paid attention to food and the cooking behind it (and broadened our influences).
The kitchen has replaced the living room as the center of the home with a wide variety of home appliances that not only cook really well, they are also status symbols. Restaurants, specialty food providers and wine makers have proliferated to feed, teach and serve our desire to eat well, eat diversely and know more about where our recipes and ingredients come from. McDonald's wants you to know they’re healthy and young, hip tattoo covered urbanites treat running restaurants or starting breweries with the same intensity that their counterparts in the 60s "turned on, tuned in and dropped out."
And then there's television.
When you have entire channels devoted to food like Food Network and The Cooking Channel and celebrity chefs popping up everywhere like prairie dogs, you know something's happening. As the Chicago Tribune says:
"We may be living in the golden age of food television. Twenty years ago, you had to wait for Julia Child and a few others every week on PBS. Today, it's such a hot commodity that ABC is canceling soap operas and replacing them with a foodie version of "The View" hosted by chefs." (Chicago Tribune, April 18, 2011)
Bottom line, as a culture we undergone a massive education around cooking and food. We've "gourmetized." We want to eat a greater variety, shop smarter, cook better and talk about it.
But it's been quietly now happening with another aspect of the home: design, or what used to be called decorating.
The judges and host of Top Design's first season: Margaret Russell, India Hicks (host), Jonathan Adler, Todd Oldham, Kelly Wearstler
For the very same reasons, we've begun to take a similar interest in who designs what we put in our homes, where it comes from, what it's made out of and how we can do it all ourselves.
The growing environmental consciousness has had a part in this, but so too has a desire to increase our style knowledge via design.
While design may not be quite as juicy as food, the easily identifiable beauty of a nice home that is both comfortable and intelligently put together is central to our lives and now something that we all want to focus on.
From the Eameses, Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller and Edith Heath to Martha Stewart, James Dyson, Muji and Jonathan Adler — we look to designers now not just for the things they make, but for how to live.
Better design = better living.
It's a practical passion, but it's also aspirational as we try to create apartments and homes that express ourselves and work better for simple things like having guests for dinner, working at home or adding another child without moving.
Suddenly, everyone wants to be an interior designer and not just a cook.
And this is all a good thing, because it means that deep down we want to gain greater mastery over our lives.
As Socrates famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Little by little, we're examining the corners of our lives and really enjoying it.
So, who designed the chair you're sitting on, what style is it and what is it made out of?
If you don’t know the answers to all three questions, I bet you will.
It’s just a matter of time.
Next:
Chapter 8 - Blogs Change Everything
Previous:
Chapter 6 - Our Mission is to be of Service
Good Links
>> Introduction to "The Ten Things..."
>> Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure
(Images: Vitra, Cooking Capsules, Hooked on Houses, Williams-Sonoma, Top Design)
Coming to Terms with a Knockoff: Original vs. Reproduction Furniture Design
Monica & Austin's Charming Bungalow
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Ercol Bar Stool
True Greek Recipe: Paximadi Bread Salad with Tomatoes, Feta and Capers
True Greek Recipe: Paximadi Bread Salad with Tomatoes, Feta and Capers
This is good because we are becoming more aware of how and from where objects around us come into being. We can appreciate that in the beginning of that chair or can openers "life" someone had to come up with it's concept and design it to be efficiently manufactured at a articular price point, so that we can buy it, take it home and use it. I can remember back when people would ask me about being a designer...most of them were surprised to find out that common, everyday objects that they could find around the house, were actually designed.
Why are all the examples shown upper-middle class icons? Yuppie is Yuppie. Let's think long and hard about design for everyone, not just shoppers and hipsters. Aging population has far different needs than young families.
Palmetto, Give us your examples! This is just a starting point. Fill us in.
To follow Palmetto's point, I would argue that both the food revolution and the budding design revolution have been largely middle- to upper-class Anglo phenomena thus far. I live in a neighborhood where the nearest grocery store is over 2 miles away. The nearest retailer selling anything resembling what we would recognize as "designed" - Target - is over 10 miles away. Both are basically inaccessible via public transportation. My neighbors buy nutritionally garbage food at the Quickie Mart and sadly many furniture "purchases" come via predatory rent-to-own stores. None of this is to say that awareness or appreciation of design are lacking - thanks probably to HGTV's presence on basic cable - it's that the disposable time and income needed to make quality design a part of their lives is.
Well said, matt in kc.
I can see why functional concerns could be an issue for older folks, but not so sure why the aesthetics of design would be any different. It seems to me that once past the child/teen stage of life, aesthetics becomes more an issue of personal taste and what you wish to spend your money on than on your age.
Palmetto, be sure to check out the work at the Center for Universal Design (North Carolina State's School of Design). These architects have been working on many of the issues you may have concerns about for over 30 years now. With retirement communities popping up all over the country it makes sense to design homes with future accessibility in mind. Even the smallest step can be formidible to someone with an impairment. Whole sections of a home can become no longer usable.
I live in the UK, where what you eat, and what you have in your home have become status symbols. Food and home improvement shows merely reinforce and perpetuate this.
Yuck. TV shows edited to incite consumer spending. And every promotional still for "America's Next _____" features static and smarmy body language. Uncross those arms! Nature is the best designer; watch and see the patterns, if you can.
Www.able data.com can offer you access to products designed for those with disabilities (including issues that the elderly face) and someone above has already mentioned universal design which benefits everyone and will become more prevalent, thanks to ADA building code requirements.
Able data should be one word. iPad spell correct keeps messing it up.