Design Solutionism is a mode of design that limits the understanding of existing problems to a scope that is always fixable with quick and clean technology-based solutions.
Context
The concept of “Solutionism” was coined by Evgeny Morozov.^[To Save Everything, Click Here, Evgeny Morozov, 2014] In his words, Solutionism is:
“[A] pervasive and dangerous ideology that I call ‘solutionism’: an intellectual pathology that recognizes problems as problems based on just one criterion: whether they are ‘solvable’ with a nice and clean technological solution at our disposal.”^[The Perils of Perfection, Evgeny Morozov, 2019]
“Design Solutionism” refers to the application of Solutionism on design practice. I think this is an interesting area to explore, because Designers are not only affected by this ideology in their thinking, but are (at least sometimes) also shaping the material implementaion of Solutionism in the real world. Out of this interest, I also explored many aspects of Design Solutionism within an essay: 1905 Solutionism and Design
Aspects
Beyond Design Solutionism
A precondition for a post-solutionist Design Practice might be to accept the fact that Design is never happening in a vacuum and Designers are always small wheels in a big system of dependencies, not magically autonomous creatives.^[Silvio Lorusso describes this attitude as “Design compromise”:
“Design compromise is the antithesis of critical autonomy. It is an admission of the fact that the designer is, after all, inevitably a , bricoleur— a person who makes do with what they find, in the conditions in which they find themselves.”
Expectations as Reality, Silvio LoRusso, 2022]