NID marks 40 years of ‘Ahmedabad Declaration’

AHMEDABAD: The year was 1979 when National Institute of Design (NID), in collaboration with United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), hosted an international event in the city to talk about design for development.
Some of the major takeaways of the conference, which culminated in ‘Ahmedabad Declaration,’ included a firm conviction that design can be a powerful force for the improvement of the quality of life in developing world, designers must have a clear understanding of the values of their own societies and design committed to a search for the local answers to local needs by utilizing indigenous skills, materials and traditions.
It mentioned that the new value system should dissolve the disastrous division between the worlds of waste and want.
“The declaration not only impacted design pedagogy at NID but India as a whole. Today we are talking about sustainable development goals (SDG) and what design can do about it. But the very city propagated that thought four decades ago,” said Prof Pradyumna Vyas, ex-director of NID. Vyas, now principal designer at the institute, is chair for the conference on February 14 and 15 titled ‘Design for Social Development’ to commemorate the declaration.
Eminent design-thinker Don Norman, director of the Design Lab at University of California, will be keynote speaker at the event that would take place at NID’s Gandhinagar campus. Other eminent participants include R Srinivasan, president-elect of World Design Organization (WDO), formerly known as ICSID, Mugendi M'Rithaa, WDO senator and Alpay Er, WDO board member, among others.
“The plenary sessions would focus on issues such as design for economic development, skill development, MSME, resource and energy efficiency, sustainable consumption and lifestyle, sustainable cities and settlements and so on,” said an organizer.