I.

We find ourselves continuously at the
fastest pace of civilizational change
that we've ever known…
until tomorrow proves us wrong,
again, and again, and again.

It is terrifying.
It is dizzying.
It is fascinating.

As a designer, technologist, artist, and entrepreneur,
it's my job to pay attention to these
cultural and technological changes
and try to make meaningful sense of them.

We're living in an environment of mystifying complexity.
How might we manage this complexity in our lives?

Well...consider martial arts.

When you study self-defense,
you aren’t learning how to
handle a specific punch
at a specific angle
by a specific opponent.

Instead, you learn to handle almost any
punch that might come your way.

You don't just study punches.
You study movement and power.
And from there you can better handle
many different opponents and situations.

A discipline is an organizing force.

It allows the practitioner to adapt to
a situation by integrating certain principles
and practicing them until they become second nature.

I believe that design is one of the most
important disciplines that we can
cultivate in our present, chaotic age.

Design is fundamentally about
creative problem solving.

Which problems?
The obvious ones are:

How do we communicate something graphically?
Graphic Design.

How do we create a product that people will love?
Industrial Design.

How do we arrange an organization to meet its members’ shared goals?
Organizational Design.

How do we plan a city’s infrastructure?
Urban Design.

How might we arrange our lives to be more meaningful?
Lifestyle Design.

And it goes on.

There is a huge scope for the field of design,
which is exactly what makes it so interesting.

How can design be so expressive in nearly any context?

Christopher Alexander answers this question
elegantly in his book Notes on the Synthesis of Form.

He argues that "the ultimate object of design is form."

What is form?

Form is the artifact rendered from the process of design.

Consider:

The device you're reading this on is form. People designed it.

The seat you're likely sitting on is form. Someone designed that, too.

The building you're likely inside is form.

The clothes you're likely wearing are form.

And it's not limited to purely physical outputs…

Traffic laws are form.
The internet is form.
Our shared language is form.

The "ultimate object of design" seems
to be nearly everything ever made.

And that's exactly right.

Design is the process of intentionally shaping form.

That means the scope of design is everything
that humans intentionally create.

Deciding what to create is the essential design problem.

To paraphrase Alexander:
form is both the output of and the
solution to any given design problem.

He uses the term "fit" or "fitness" to describe how
well any design solves its intended problem.

A boat with a large hole in the bottom has
poor fitness to the problem of resting on water.

A hammer with no handle has poor fitness to the
problem of pounding things precisely and powerfully.

All design problems are solved by seeking fitness.

This process is fundamentally a creative one
because each form a designer shapes is new.

If some form already fits the context,
it has already been created, and therefore
the design problem can be considered solved.

In all other cases, the designer must create
or arrange some new form to fit the context.

Once a design problem has been solved,
the nature of the remaining problems changes.

For instance, say you've created "the chair,"
which is fit for the context of “sitting.”

How do we efficiently produce copies of this chair?
Where do we source the material for these chairs?
Who can craft and assemble these chairs?
When will these chairs be on the market?
How will we transport these chairs to retailers?

We now see two fundamental ways of looking at problems:

We have "creative problems," which
involve intentionally shaping form
that has not previously existed.

And we have "productive problems:"
administering the forms we've created.

Once we've designed a building, for instance,
the building must be built, made inhabitable, and maintained.

Once we've designed a law,
the law must be voted on, implemented, and enforced.

Once a painting has been rendered,
the painting must be framed, mounted, and showcased.

For many people, creative and productive
problems may seem at odds or incompatible,
but they are tightly coupled.

Every productive problem begins as a creative problem.

And every creative problem requires consideration
of the productive problems that result from their design.

For example, a book is first created, and then
copies must be produced and distributed.

Okay...
Take a minute to observe everything around you.

It's likely that most of the objects in your space began
as a creative problem and, through productive activity,
made their way into your life, hopefully intentionally.

Designers are fundamentally concerned with both
creative problems—creating new forms—
and productive problems—how those forms
are produced and brought to society.

Anyone who has intentionally created something new
has participated in the process of design, but
how much an individual cultivates this
ability depends on their intentionality.

So then, design can be framed as
a general problem solving approach used
in cases where a solution does not yet exist.

With such a broad scope, we have to ask:
how do we manage the complexity
of so many creative problems?

Luckily, we can turn again to
Alexander's foundational design theory:

Design is the process of synthesizing form from context.

What is context?

Context is anything which is relevant to your design problem.

Are you designing a bridge? You'll want to consider all of
the context related to that specific design problem, including:

the landscape,
the traffic patterns,
the materials,
the regional climate,
the structural requirements,
the history of bridges,
the community,
the cultural history,
the timeline,
the budget,
the politics,
the team,

and so on.

Context defines both the constraints and possibilities of form.

And, since we can't reasonably interrogate all of
the context related to a specific design problem,
we must choose which context to incorporate
into our design process.

Like a chef bringing only what’s needed
to the stove, a designer must focus on the
specific context required to solve the problem.

A chef selects their ingredients, tools, and space...
and then they cook.

The process of turning context into form is synthesis.

Synthesis results in a newly shaped form.

It is a fundamentally creative act, because the
synthesized form carries the intention of the creator with it.

A designer brings their experience, perspective,
craft, and personality to any form they create.

That is to say, a designer brings their own context.

It doesn't matter which form emerges from
the design process—whether a bridge, a dish,
software, or a song—because design encompasses
the full scope of intentional, human creativity.

So then...

• Design is the intentional shaping of any form.

• Context defines any design problem.

• Form is the output rendered from the process of synthesis.

• A form which fits its context is the solution to the design problem.

These concepts are applied, consciously or not,
by anyone intentionally engaged in the creation
of new objects, systems, behaviors, or ideas.

Until now, these concepts have been fairly well-established,
but we're entering an era where technology is forcing us
to reexamine our assumptions about this entire process.

For better or worse, machines are rendering more form,
with increasing quantity, quality, diversity, and fidelity,
be they physical machines or digital computers.

If, as Alexander says, "the ultimate object of design is form,"
then how is design relevant to the increasingly
automated shaping of form?

Hyperdesign is a new design discipline created
within the context of extreme automation.

Just as a martial artist studies movement and power
in order to handle many different types of conflict,
so too must the designer think and act differently
in a world that is approaching infinite form.

And while this new way of thinking about design
was provoked by technological change,
you'll soon see that it is by no means
bound to any specific technology.

Hyperdesign is simply an organized approach to the
complex and profoundly human act of creation.

II.

Any important technology will challenge
our understanding of the world and
how we belong within it.

Transportation technologies challenge us
to redefine our relationships to
space, time, and community
as we move further and faster.

Communication technologies challenge us
to redefine our perceptions of
connection, identity, and truth as we
express ourselves more and differently.

Medical technologies challenge us
to redefine our understanding of
life and death as we test the limits of both.

We see a similar effect in every major category
of technology, whether it's energy, agriculture,
manufacturing, or computing.

Important technologies force us to
form new perspectives of ourselves.

What is a technology?

It is an intentional organization of energy.

A hammer, for instance, organizes kinetic
energy right onto its face when swung.

An oven organizes heat energy to cook food.

A computer organizes electrical energy to process information.

We can control this organization of energy
through a given technology's interfaces.

A hammer's handle, say.
Or an oven's knobs.
Or a computer's mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen.

How much control is a function of
the design's fitness to its context.

A hammer's handle was shaped to fit the
context of a human hand interfacing with
the handle as the hammer's face comes down.

The hammer head was shaped to meet the
context of the handle and to the context of the
whatever it might come in contact with;
perhaps the head of a nail being driven into wood.

As our technologies organize more and more
energy for us, we are abstracted away
from the productive problems.

For instance, one way to communicate over
long distances is by physically writing a letter
and carrying it from one continent to another.

In this case, the interfaces to the existing technologies
are the pen, paper, stamp, envelope and post office box.

More human energy was spent on the productive problem
of transporting the communication than the creative one
of writing a meaningful letter to someone across the planet.

When communication technologies are more highly organized,
the interfaces might abstract to a single touchscreen.

In that case, when you tap the send button, your thoughts
are organized in the chip in your device, sent across
some cable and up through another person's
interface where they're notified that
you have something to say.

A designer may create a technology itself or
they may create the interfaces to a technology.

In this regard, the designer is
society's interface to technology.

With this framing, let's consider a thought experiment:

Imagine a spectrum representing two extremes.

On the left you have a "Zero Technology" scenario—
one where everything created intentionally
is shaped solely by human energy.

No hammers.
No sticks.
No stones.

Just bare hands, fingernails, teeth, and muscle.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, into infinity,
we approach a "Perfect Technology" scenario—
one where no human effort is needed to
organize any energy at any speed.

The rocks break themselves;
no hammer needed.

Software is written as soon as you ask for it.

A room is decorated when you blink.

A bridge is built all at once.

We are moving along this technology spectrum,
somewhere between Zero and Perfect.

Any new technology pushes society toward Perfect,
for better or worse, as productive problems are automated
away through the intentional organization of energy.

In agriculture, for example, all farming was manual,
until the inventions of the yoke, the plough, and
the tractor continued to automate this work.

At Perfect Technology, food renders automatically,
and agriculture may become a quaint nostalgia.

One effect of Perfect Technology is called post-scarcity,
where all physical constraints disappear in
environments where form is free and infinite.

We can transport ourselves anywhere at any speed.

We can heal our bodies for indefinite life.

We can generate any house, bridge, or software application.

We can render infinite form.

Of course, this possibility is purely philosophical,
but it drives us toward meaningful insights
about the nature of design.

As we approach Perfect,
we begin to ask ourselves
new and different questions.

If we can have anything...what do we want?

What do we need?

We once needed hammers to pound nails, for instance,
and a hammer's form is fit for that specific problem.

In the Perfect Technology scenario, we can
organize the energy immediately.

The nails drive themselves in.

Do we still need the hammer?
What about the nail?

Instead of organizing our energy onto the
hammer's face as it swings toward another nail,
we instead consider what we're nailing and why.

We need to fasten this board to that board,
in order to build a wall in a house.

Which house?
For whom?
Where?
Why?

These remain important questions.
But some others no longer apply, such as:

At what cost?
In how long?
With which tools?

Many of these practical considerations become less relevant.

Put another way, what we consider practical
will change as our technologies abstract
us from the productive effort.

The walls we used to build manually
can now be organized instantly.

In Perfect Technology, a house's form can simply appear
so we are free to move to new and different problems.

The energy that was spent on the productive problems, like
swinging the hammer to hit nails might suddenly go to zero.

What's left are mostly creative problems, or
intentionally shaping form for a new context.

Put another way, in a Perfect Technology scenario, many
of our unsolved problems require the discipline of design.

By freeing up our time and energy for creative problems,
Perfect Technology changes our relationship to context,
which also affects the process of synthesis.

If form is the ultimate object of design,
and we're approaching infinite form, then
our understanding of design must be redefined.

III.

Let's call any environment that can meaningfully
render form on demand a "Hyperdesign context."

The most obvious Hyperdesign context is
the digital space, where computers can
increasingly render nearly any form of
media at increasing speed and fidelity.

Our physical context remains closer to
the Zero Technology scenario, but mechanical
automation is also moving towards Perfect.

And while many disciplines in design are
ultimately creating physical form, much of the
design process happens in digital environments.

What is Hyperdesign?

We know that design is "the intentional shaping of form."

The prefix "hyper" has three important meanings:

Hyper may mean "excessive" form,
or shaping more form than you need.

In this case, we leverage a Hyperdesign context
to render as much form as our process demands.

Consider an architect who is designing a
home in the Perfect Technology scenario:

Could they render a complete building every day?

How about one building per hour?

One building per second?

What would it mean to live in a new home every day?

To walk through it, to experience sunrise through to sunset,
to wake up in one room and cook in another?

Hyperdesign maximizes form in order to profoundly
understand the nature of a given design problem.

You might render 1,000 buildings against
a specific context to understand
which building will really fit and why.

1,000 buildings may not be the
solution to a design problem, but
they can all help identify the solution.

Hyper can also mean "above" form, or when we
consider what remains true regardless of form.

Let’s say we’re designing seating for a public park.

As we experiment with endless variations of seating—
concrete, sculptural, plant-covered, interactive, et cetera—
we use each expression as a conduit to
meaningfully understand the context.

What does "sitting" mean in this particular park,
for this particular community,
at this particular location,
in this particular era?

After 1,000 iterations on seating design, what
remains true among all of our experiments?

Is our park's seating meant to promote social connection?
To promote rest?
To promote play?
Something completely unexpected?

Across infinite experiences of form,
the qualities which rarely change, often conceptual,
may carry more meaning than any one specific form.

Hyperdesign makes use of excessive form to effectively
engage the conceptual context of a design problem.

The final meaning of the word hyper is "beyond" form,
or the idea that form may be irrelevant.

This is Hyperdesign's most esoteric framing.

The field of design is generally organized by the
particular form that a practitioner may create.

Architects, for example, create buildings.
Interaction designers create interactions.
Game designers create games.
Clothing designers create clothes.
Brand designers create brands.

And so on.

But, some problems have no defined solution,
and therefore, no defined form.

The question is:
if we can create anything,
what's the actual problem?

Let's imagine that a small town has an empty lot
that they want to cultivate for the community.

There's no mandate on form, just the single constraint
of the literal space available for the specific lot.

In the Perfect Technology scenario,
we don't have any required form to design.

Instead, we focus on the nature of the problem.

What lot?
For which community?
For how long?
Why?

As we explore the context, we experiment
with form to know the problem more intimately.

And, if the solution exists in a Hyperdesign context,
then the form may never be completely fixed—
it may continue to adapt to meet its evolving context.

The form rendered on the lot might change
based on the community's immediate input.

The lot might host a farmers’ market one day
and a theme park the next, fitting itself to the context
in a neverending evolution tuned to the people’s needs.

Hyperdesign promotes maintaining an
active relationship with the context which
happens to reveal form in the process.

It may also reveal that there is no ultimate form;
that form itself is never fixed.

From these three definitions of the term hyper—
excessive, above, and beyond—
we can define what makes this discipline distinct:

Hyperdesign is the intentional shaping of form
while imposing as much form as needed to
understand the nature of a given context.

IV.

So far, we've discussed the possibility of
infinite form as a useful thought experiment,
one that can guide our approach to design problems.

And while we'll never practically experience
the Perfect Technology scenario, there is another
environment which can also approach Perfect.

The human imagination is a Hyperdesign context, and
a capable mind can explore wild possibilities with few limitations.

Our imaginations developed partly to manage
the scarcity of our physical constraints.

We can anticipate the potential of a given design solution
before expending the physical resources required to act on it.

Consider these two cases, and decide which one
may be the more effective use of time and materials:
building a dozen chairs before settling on one,
or imagining a dozen chairs before building one?

In the Zero Technology scenario, where only human effort
drives all shaping of form, the imagination focuses our
resources in order to make the most of them.

In the Perfect Technology scenario, we are no longer
bound by the limitations of our immediate resources.

If our imaginations were borne out of scarcity, then
how might they adapt to post-scarcity environments?

As we approach Perfect Technology,
the value of our imaginations changes from
something that helps us deal with scarcity to
an important ability to manage abundance.

Infinite form, counterintuitively, does not
generally solve a person's problems.

In post-scarcity, more is generally not better.

Better is better.

And what makes something better is
completely bound to context.

For instance,
you can't reasonably read a thousand books at any given time.

You want the single book that will be fit for your
immediate context, one that delivers the insights or
narratives that might resonate with you as much as possible.

Regardless of infinite form,
we must always consider what we need, which
includes both our immediate context and
our evolving context over time.

Exercising intention is a designer's most important ability
and its power springs from a cultivated capacity to
imagine what could, should, or must be...and then
acting on it by shaping that possibility into form.

Does infinite form mean that synthesis—
the act of shaping form—is irrelevant?

Absolutely not.

In the same way that our understanding of form is
evolving, so too is our understanding of synthesis.

Synthesis is exercised through a designer's craft.

A woodworker, say, shapes the
medium of wood through their tools.

Their ability to exercise this craft comes from
the accumulated skill of interfacing with
chisels, saws, sandpaper, and clamps combined with
their understanding of the material they are shaping.

Remember, technology is an intentional organization of energy,
and interfaces allow users of a given technology
some control over that organization.

The amount of control is a function of a both
the craftsperson's abilities and the fitness
of the technology to its context.

This is true regardless of the medium.

The written word must somehow be written.
An illustration must somehow be illustrated.
A blueprint must somehow be printed.
A sculpture must somehow be sculpted.
A built environment must somehow be built.

A master craftsperson learns their chosen medium
through a lifetime of experience in both the
advantages and disadvantages it may bring to form.

A designer must know a medium intimately
in order to understand how it can be
shaped to fit some particular context.

Without such an understanding, how will they know
if some form effectively solves their design problem?

In Hyperdesign contexts, we experience rapid
exposure to form which accelerates our understanding
of any relevant medium as we render infinite artifacts.

The critical limitation becomes the
experience of the form itself.

We can render a million chairs, but
which chair is the most comfortable?

We can render a million buildings, but
which building is the most tranquil?

We can render a million applications, but
which application inspires the most action?

Form must be experienced to be considered fit.

Let's push our Perfect Technology
thought experiment into new territory.

Consider the Perfect Chair:
a form that is perfectly fitted to your
evolving personal context of sitting.

With infinite form, the Perfect Chair
adapts to you, whether you're:

sitting upright to eat,
leaning back to relax,
lounging to nap,
or hunched over to read.

The Perfect Chair is Hyperdesigned every
millisecond to meet your needs; the form
changing as your body updates its context.

The Chair can infer from your body position
and movement what form it should morph into
next, but how can it know all of your needs?

Should the Chair become softer or more stiff?
Smoother or increasingly textured?
Plain or ornate?
Shiny or dull?
Green or purple?

We must still somehow communicate
context in order to fully respond to it.

Even with the perfect organization of technology,
we have to express how it should be organized.

That is to say, shaping form is a creative act,
no matter how abstracted the medium is from the
interface, because it relies on individual expression.

In Hyperdesign contexts,
communication is the primary interface.

And, because some context must be intentionally
communicated, not simply inferred, we cannot
completely automate our design problems.

What if instead of the Perfect Chair,
we have the Perfect Building?

A building, which is part of the lived environment,
is designed for many people,
who perform a variety of activities,
across a long span of time.

A building is rarely designed for an individual context.

So too, our Hyperdesigned Perfect Building must adapt
to multiple contexts to meet the needs of the people
who are currently engaged within the space.

All of a sudden, we demand that this Perfect Building
integrates the needs of all these people, all at once,
while maintaining structural integrity, and all the
other functional needs of the environment.

The people inside can only experience
one building at any given time.

The lot that the building rests on also has limited space.

Infinite form is bound by scarcity of output.

If our Hyperdesigned form constantly adapts to
meet the changing context, then our actual form
is the system of constraints which control the
form, not the form itself.

We have gone above the literal form into conceptual space.

While we may be able to render infinite form,
Hyperdesign imposes as little form as
possible in the completed form.

This principle leads to more adaptive fitness across contexts.

What will always be true about this one, Perfect Building?
And what about it could or should change?

The Perfect Building, for some specific context, may
not be a building at all, but a series of constraints which
define what the building cannot be.

While this sounds incredible in the physical space,
is it very possible with digital forms like software or media.

The complexity of these problems increases as
more people participate in the design process.

We can render any building we want, but
which building do all of us want?

Even after considering the complex
functional systems of a building—

the ventilation,
plumbing,
electrical,
structural,
security,
or drainage systems—

we still must express our more personal contexts.

Our aesthetic values.

Our cultural expectations.

Our understanding of the
building's purpose over time.

Our understanding of the
people who will inhabit the space.

Our understanding of the
environment it exists within.

And so on.

Few individuals can fully describe a building
because of the complexity of the entire form.

And no one can fully describe the Perfect Building because
the context is bound to individual subjective experience.

V.

Design is primarily a collaborative process.

Designers collaborate with peers to
solve problems which are too complex
for any single individual's perspective.

Designers collaborate with the users
of their designs, the people who are often
the most critical to the context of the problem.

And designers collaborate with the patrons
of the discipline, the people who commission
some solution to a design problem.

How will collaboration change as we approach Perfect?

Well…how have other human activities
changed during rapid technological shifts?

Let's look at transportation technologies, such as
the wheel, boat, bicycle, train, plane, and automobile.

Each of these organizes energy in a particular way, which
solve what I've been calling productive problems.

At Perfect Technology, transportation is generally
no longer a productive problem to be solved.

We can be anywhere.

But, importantly, solving a problem doesn't mean
that it's no longer a meaningful activity.

We continue to transport ourselves more
and more as it becomes easier to do so.

The question becomes not how do we get somewhere,
but why we choose to be there.

Collaboration, like transportation, isn't going anywhere.

They are both universal human activities.

And as the complexity of our unsolved problems increases,
we will find the need to collaborate more and more.

In Hyperdesign contexts, the ways that
we work together will need to adjust to
the possibility of infinite form.

Hyperdesign does not impose any
particular form as the output of design.

Instead, it recognizes that collaboratively shaping
multiple forms over time is fundamental to the design process.

When creating a building, say, a team will
render blueprints, models, timelines, schedules,
simulations, budgets, transcripts, proposals,
surveys, conversations, and many other forms.

The combination of all these artifacts is needed in order to
responsibly, creatively, and practically design a building,
though some may be automated away as we approach Perfect.

All complex collaboration follows the basic
design process of synthesizing form from context.

But with disparate disciplines, approaches, domains, interests,
philosophies, perspectives, personalities, and expectations,
we begin to see why these are such complex design problems.

Yes, we can render any form in a Hyperdesign context,
but getting to our design solution requires alignment,
mutual understanding, and a structured process.

Hyperdesign does not replace any other discipline;
rather, it seeks to organize any discipline,
regardless of the forms it may shape.

Let's push the Perfect Technology
scenario to its conceptual limit:

Somehow, civilization reaches Perfect Technology
and designs the Perfect Everything.

The Perfect Home meets every need of
all the people living inside it.

Same for the Perfect City.

Perfect Agriculture feeds us all.

Perfect Transportation takes us anywhere that we need to be.

With all of these technologies combined,
we'll end up with a final form that is something like an
adaptive civilizational ecosystem which organizes itself
to fit the synthesized context of all life.

In this scenario, we have solved every productive problem—
all collective needs can be met.

What’s left then?

Hyperdesign asks, if everything might change,
what will never change?

If design is the intentional shaping of form,
and we have access to infinite form,
do we still need design?

Because there will always be new context,
there will always be a need for designers and
their ability to shape some new form to fit it.

Perfect Technology also leads us to the idea of
Perfect Problems: the kinds of problems that
cannot be solved, by automation or other means.

Even with infinite form, we will continue
to have other types of scarcity—

of natural resources,
of lived experience,
of intention and attention,
of collective insight,
and of social harmony.

Which forms will be best organized to
cultivate and sustain these limited resources?

And how can we shape these forms together?

Perfect Problems don’t have a fixed solution,
and therefore don’t have a fitted form.

Because we can’t solve Perfect Problems, we must
find meaning in collaboratively attending to them.

We no longer ask ourselves if
we have solved every problem.

We ask instead, which problems
require our intention?