Qassim Saad
Qassim Saad knows that one size does not fit all when it comes to product design – he has worked in Iraq, Jordan, New Zealand and South Africa and he says that his job description is constantly changing along with his environment.
Saad is a Senior Product Design Lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, and is also completing a PhD in Design Studies, aimed at locating design practice within specific cultural contexts and looking in particular at how to address the needs of developing countries.
He presented a paper based on his doctoral research at the April ANZAAE conference, exploring ways in which design educators can enhance their students' awareness of the socio-cultural contexts in which they work.
"The key point I am trying to express is that design and technology should be focused on human needs," Saad says. "There is a real movement within design that is trying to look not only at the aesthetic and functional aspects of a product, but also where it fits into the culture."
Saad recently finished work on an international project that put this theory into action, designing sustainable means of transport for rural South Africans living in isolated villages. He says that the solutions they came up with, such as bicycles capable of carrying water, babies and groceries, are an example of the difference design can make when it is properly targeted. "Once again, it is about utilising design strategy to improve people's quality of life."
Saad's students have been getting in on the action too, attacking tasks such as designing water purification systems based on solar-powered energy in the paper he teaches on the social applications of product design.
Much of Saad's current research is based on looking for creative solutions to problems in a country with more than its fair share of them – Iraq. Iraq is his home country, and he is passionate about the role that could be played by design in its reconstruction. He quotes H.A. Simon's definition of design's raison d'etre: "changing existing situations into preferred ones".