Sandquery is a new method for design-led research.  Sandquery is adapted from "Sandplay", which is currently used in psychotherapy for the purpose of healing patients.  Because is a kinesthetic way of expression, it is often used as a method of therapy for people with PTSD and in abuse cases.  When Sandplay is adapted for the purpose of design-led research, its name changes to "Sandquery", because as design researchers we can pose a question to a person or group and probe for and co-create ideas that we can apply to enhance design by better understanding the link between design and emotion.  

The data that results from Sandquery is fascinating because we have the ability to triangulate the data and compare and contrast what people "do, say and make".  This is a new form of qualitative data that allows people to express their emotions with kinesthetic ease.

For more...stay tuned...

All 13 sessions, A – M, I asked designers about what design will be 20 years from now. 

ME: "In the year 2030...What to designers do?  How will they improve the world?  What's their role?  What's the world like?"

Individuals and groups were allowed anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to build their "world" according to the above questions.  Then I asked them to share their ideas while recording their responses with video.  The following data documentation includes: number of people per session, gender of person/people, composition notes, object tally, occasional written notes, overhead photographs of completed scene, perspective screen capture shots from video recordings, and the audio from each video has been carefully transcribed for the curious. 

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SESSION A: 1 Person/Male 

Objects used:  Embroidered pocket mirror, blue and clear marbles, seashells

Composition:  Center-balanced, concentric and inter-locking circles.

P1/Male: "Basically I just want to say that I'm thinking  the beauty, in the center of everything.

And you know, there are some waves out of this beauty and it effects everything around it.  So, I'm thinking that a designer should look for some smaller beauties, you know, which are hidden maybe in some kind of shells like this.

So they should try to look for it, explore those beauties, those other beauties everywhere, and those beauties effect each other they're interacting with each other so there are some waves out of each beauties."

ME:  "What kind of beauty…?"

P1: "I mean…not…on some deep, deep, deep senses of things or needs, or activities, something like that.  Not just some superficial kinds of things, material, or just making money…or just running some business or something like that.

People could try…I mean, the beauty could be something that someone has in mind, just discover those kinds of things."

ME:  "Are the shells significant at all?" 

P1: "The shells…these are like pearls in the shells. (POINTS TO A MARBLE.)  So this is why, I just want to say that there are some hidden beauties to be discovered…I mean, I use the shells for that sense."

ME:  "Okay.  What about the shape?"  (IT LOOKS LIKE A CONCENTRIC CIRCLE MANDALA, WITH THE BIG BEAUTY IN THE CENTER…THE SELF…)

P1: "The shape of the waves?  (A POINTS TO CENTER OBJECT, FLOWER/MIRROR OBJECT.)  I wanted to…I used this as a symbol for beauty.  The more important beauty.  That could be the world, the cosmos.  Great, great beauty, and it effects everything, some kind of spiritual kind of thinking about design.  But if you wanted to lower it down to some daily life that we have…some simpler, much more easier beauties that are missing when you are designing something."

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SESSION B: 1 Person/Male

Objects used:  Green deciduous plant, stones, triangle blocks, cube blocks, wooden train, wooden horse

Composition:  Upper-left, upper-middle design.

P1/Male: "Alright, so, this is utopia, because I'm going to take the positive look so it's either going to be this or the exact opposite, which I don't really want to think about…so…basically what I'm trying to show here is that natural systems and man-made systems are living in harmony with each other…okay, which is what we don't have currently.  Obviously we have a lot of problems in that regard which we're just now, as a society figuring out that they're significant and we have to do something about them.  

So the idea is housing, work, nature, transportation, all those things actually work together, as opposed to putting stresses on systems, like they do now and not working together.

Really pretty straightforward…"

ME:  "What are these here?  (I GESTURE AT THE TALLER BLOCK OF BLOCKS IN THE TRAY.)

P1: "That would be your work, you work over there and live over there.  Notice that they're close to each other."

ME:  "And what are the stones?"

P1: "That's the water…"

ME: "And the blue beads?" 

P1: "Oh that's what I meant, the blue beads are the water, the rest is just sorta natural landscape, whatever you want to call it."

ME:  "And then we got a plant here…"

P1: "Forests, you know, whatever."

ME: "And then we got a little choo-choo, and a horseman…"

P1: "Yup, your transportation.  Right?"

ME:  "So do you think we should go back to horses, maybe?"

P1: "No, that's not what I'm saying.  It's the only transportation thing you have…but that could be a bike…let's say."

ME:  "And that's more of a sustainable choice…"

P1: "Exactly."

ME:  "Than this…(I GRAB THE SUV FIGURE AND PUT IT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA.)

P1: "That's why that's not in there, exactly.  Right, exactly.

You know, I'm an advocate for trains.  I think trains are actually really smart if they're done correctly.  And of course living in the US, have decided that we have to have cars for everything."

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SESSION C: 1 Person/Female

Objects used: Compass, green flashlight, blue and clear marbles, solar panel, green evergreen plant

Composition: Note-worthy ideas arerevolving around the center of the sandtray.  The compass is in the very center of the sandtray.

Written notes from C:

Marble = points of learning, awareness and enlightenment, some are hidden

landscape = changing environments, cultures, time

compass = designer, also orientation, gives direction and responds to the environmental, being able to read the environment

environmental = physical and nature, whatever surrounds us

green flashlight = streams of light, enlightens something

P1/Female: "I was looking at some of your people, and they are too specific…This one, I looked at this one for a moment, see, he gives a direction, but he also has a whistle, and that is not so ideal. 

And the other ones are too specific…and if I used something like this it would be a joke…because the reference is too clear for Disney world which is for a fake environment, an illusionary environment, of a replica of some kind.  So that will not work because our environment as much as they are…illusionary, but they are visionary, they are not fake, they are not a replicaa of something.  They are actually improving…Or the ability to improve existing situations.  That's why I cannot use this.

There's something I was drawn to, if this is a…solar cell, it could also be a symbol for also looking at environmental issues and looking for good solutions."

ME: "All of this stuff is from thrift stores or dollar stores, so it can be whatever you want it to be.  So, that is a solar cell?"

P1: "Yeah.  Actually no.  It doesn't sit right.  I'm sorry.  It cannot sit here in this…it needs to be..."  (WHOA!  THE WORLD THAT C CREATED IS REAL TO HER; SHE CHANGES THE PLACEMENT OF THE SOLAR CELL TO BETTER MATCH THE EXISTING SUNLIGHT WITHIN THE SAND TRAY.)

ME: "And how do designers work within the environment?  Is this the environment?   Is this the world they're looking at?

This is symbolic for, as I was describing, the landscape, and ups and downs are representing situations, changes, opportunities that need to be identified which means you...

This is the designer, (POINTS TO COMPASS, IN THE DEAD CENTER OF THE TRAY…THE "SELF"…AGAIN.)  He or she or they need to be able to operate in that field."
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SESSION D: 1 Person/Male 

This side of the sandbox is supposed to represent the actual world, and this is supposed to be the digital world, and that can be filled with anything.  As far as like the physical conditions I've put a lot of people, kind of cramped into a tiny space to show population growth and what living conditions might be like. And all these plastic toys aren't supposed to represent firemen police men or army men, they're just supposed to be people.  

And then as far as what I see designers doing, it's a degree you can do a lot with, I don't see just because you're in ID, I don't see every person in my class working in a consultancy or firm and designing products.  And I think some people will do that, and that's something I might interested.  But you can do a lot with the degree.

This…I guess I'll call it a dribble castle, is made out of sand and water, and I probably just would have done the whole thing like that if I would have had time.  I guess it represents being able to be creative, and it's spilling over into the digital side of the sandbox because as a designer you have the opportunity to be creative in the actual world and create products in the market, like physical things, tangible objects, buy you can also work in digital media, if you want to do concept art, like vehicle design, things like that, so that's kind of what that's supposed to represent."

ME: "What's up with the windows there, on the edge?"  

P1: "I put those in to kinda like…obviously there's no physical barrier in real life between…you don't see like, a wall in between you and getting on the internet so this is just supposed to be a window, it's something you can see though, there's not an actual wall, like this whole realm is intangible.  So, I don't know exactly know an explanation for the window."

ME: "What's up with this structure?  This structure is just built up, buildings keep getting taller…What do you see…physical world, digital world, as designers we can impact both?..."

P1: "I guess…those things are the primarily the things I'm interested in as a designer, but obviously there are plenty of other things subjects too…Interior space, architecture…"

ME: "How designers make things better, is that element?"  

P1: "Um, it's…"

ME: "And who's this guy?"  (The toy is in the CENTER of the sandplay, which is traditional, the self is often represented in the center.  This was before I knew this from a book…but it's been happening a lot.  The self is represented in the center with characters, shapes, etc.)

P1: "That's me.  i just picked that guy because I thought he was cool."  

ME: "How do we make things better in terms of environment, like product safety, and things like that?"

P1: "I don't know, just generally…if there isn't that, that's okay.  It doesn't matter."

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SESSION E: 1 Person/Female

Objects used:  Brown leaves, cockroach, organic potpourri objects: brown and yellow, popsicle sticks as fence, green and blue men, knex : white, green, blue, orange, giant strawberry, brown construction man figure, ceramic houses: green, pink and blue, green leaves, organic potpourri objects: green, green evergreen, green leaves, donkey, blue and clear marbles

Composition:  Upper-right 6^th of tray has: “life”. 5/6 of the santray world is spoiled.

P1/Female: "I'm gonna sound like a crazy hippie."

ME:  "I'm a crazy hippie too.  That's alright."  

P1: "So I just sorta set it up, because…where we're heading right now…a lot of our problems are about resources and sort of protecting those resources and optimizing the use of those resources.

And I think that as we're doing that, we're sort of putting ourselves into this smaller area (GESTURES TO SMALL QUADRANT OF TRAY WITH "LIFE") as things around us get destroyed.

So, we have to sort of protect that and so I have the military guys around the edge, and the fence made out of popsicle sticks as a way to sort of represent that, sort of, military protection of basically, resources.

And so I put the brown, dead leaves, and obviously a cockroach because can live through anything and the area's sort of been destroyed and outside of our usefulness anymore.  So we're protecting ourselves against whatever happens to be out there still.

And inside this is sort of like a living space where things are still green…the blue marbles are water.  There's water, and so there's resources and houses.  All the people are protecting the fence or they're working…this is a worker.  (POINTS TO TAN CONSTRUCTION WORKER FIGURE.)  Working at the…He's a designer, i guess, because that's the working place."

ME: "Cool.  What's all this stuff here?"  (I GESTURE TO THE "WORKING PLACE" AREA IN TRAY.)

P1: "It's sort of just, in terms of this, it's more representative, than anything meaningful.  And obviously I piked the K'Nex because they are sort of solutions: small parts put together to solve problems, and that's sort of what they're doing to do that.

And I put the strawberry in there because it looks sorta science-y when it's flipped upside-down.  And this guy is a worker, as you can see, he's a little construction worker and he's working in the little problem solving area.

And these are the homes, but no one's in the homes, they're all either working or protecting their resources."

ME: "Great.  Very interesting.  Thanks."

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SESSION F: 8 People/2 Male & 6 Females

Objects used:  Pink ceramic house, gold chains and religious pendants, plastic fish & tail moves, blue and clear marbles, blue beads, green evergreen, brown evergreen, eraser fish, brown and black stones, native baby in basket, popsicle sticks, star eraser, plastic fish, pink bed, wooden blocks, blue ceramic houses, plastic tree stump, purple airplane, seeded dandelions, blue plastic whale, gold leaf pin, sea shells, pop-it beads of all colors, green men, blue men, red cones, red men, black cage with animal, square wooden blocks, triangle wooden blocks, wooden blue and red cylinders with beads, plastic house, solar panel, compass, green fences, yellow squiggle, transformer robot, broken ceramic farmer man, green snake, orange and black snake, large wooden red rectangle, wooden train, nutcracker musician, pink windows, green scorpion, alphabet block, yellow block, white pipe cleaner, pink candy machine, pink cosmetic stand, baby in blue cradle, pink sea lion, multi-colored popsicle sticks, yellow pipe cleaner, ceramic white water dish, green ceramic house, plastic duck and alligator, ceramic woman with hat, multi-colored blocks, SUV, wooden clown, striped wooden blue and white object

Composition:  Circular center structure in the center of the sandtray, and 4 corners with different functions.

P1/Male: "So then we started creating things, like a bridge and we sort of fed off one another. So we have a bridge, and then we put a car on there."

P2/Female: "And see this is the capital island, and there's people guarding all the bridges."

P3/Female: "We have a problem: everything's water.  And then we found a solution."

P1: "We thought about this as a community…The pharmacy, the barber shop…"

P2: "And here's the church and the park…and the military."

ME: "There's a military?…interesting…" (MY BROTHER OVERHEARD THIS & TOLD ME THIS WAS ME BEING A BAD RESEARCHER...HE TOOK AT ME SAYING THIS AS JUDGING THEM...HMMMM...JUST OBSERVING OUT LOUD...PROF.BUTTER ALSO WATCHED THE WHOLE THING...HE MAKES A COMMENT LATER...)

P4/Female: "And here are some houses…"

Several: "Oh, and the airport…the zoo..."(LOTS OF PEOPLE TALK AT ONCE.)

ME: "Slowly.  More slowly.  What's what?"

Several: "The pharmacy, and then we have a barber shop.  We have some houses, on stilts, the jacuzzi, and we have a zoo here…"

P1 & Several:  "Since it's 2033, we feel like Optimis Prime will be here…to guard us, he's a worker and he is working for the military."

Several: "This is the church.  This is the airport.  The airport has to be on stilts, obviously.  And then it's like a little park here.  A little park area."

ME: "So, are you guys all designers?"

P?: "Yes." 

ME: "What do designers do in this world?"

P1: "We solve problems."

Several: "Yes.  We solve problems.  We solve all these problems."

ME: "Do you work with other people when you solve the problems?"  

Several: "Yes."

ME: "What kinds of people do you work with?"

Several: "The government, because they control the military.  The pharmacists, because they're having an issue with theft."  

P5/Male:  "They had an issue with theft, so we researched that issue…and put in the military…"

P2: "I think in this kind of a water-world, since there's less land and more ocean…"

Several: "It's very crowded…we can't really live…you have to work together because you're in such tight quarters."  

P6/Female: "And we have to work with all different facets, even religious.  And figure-out how to get everything organized."

ME: "Interesting.  Who hasn't talked?  Talk more…What do you feel like talking about?"

P6: "Talk about your green energy…"

P7/Female: "Oh yeah, I feel like in the future, there's going to be a lot of solar panels and we'll have nature create our energy for us."

ME: "As designers, what skills do you do have?  What do you bring to the table?  What do you do?"

P3: "We have to know a little about everything."

ME: "Okay, what's everything?"

P3: "All different professions..."

P2: "Military, church, the private sector…and the park, just about everything."

P8/Female: "I mean, I kinda just see us designing how society functions.  And all of the facets of society we have to be involved in."

P2 & Several: "We're catering to your need for nature, transportation, protection, religious answers, housing, sickness, and happiness." 

ME: "What skills do you guys have?"

P8: "You probably still need to sketch, otherwise…because how would we communicate this otherwise?"

Several: "Be creative, open-minded…I think you have to be very flexible, because the problem with so much water is that you can't control it, and water's going to be unpredictable, so you have to be very flexible.  Creative problem-solving."  

P1: "Communication skills are definitely far more advanced.  Advanced communication skills, given the specific scenario of this struggling society."

P2 & Several: "I think communication skills will be different too, I mean, right now, we have a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds..but if we're all squished onto one island…then we're forced…everyone has to adjust.  So I think it's a different dynamic."

ME: "Well, I love your world.  Good job.  Does anyone have any things they wanna throw in there?…What's up with the cage?  The zoo?"

Several: "It's the prison…It's for the military."

ME: "Is it a prison, is it a zoo?  It can be both…" 

P?:  "It's both."

ME: "So who's in the cage?"

Several: "A prisoner slash zoo animal…it's a tiger..."

WATCHER (Male from session L & M): "The prison seems to be the center."

Several: (Laughing) "So you learn your lesson…You're on display for the public.  There's no escape.  We throw prisoners in with the lions…and the giant cockroach…which still exist in the future.' 

ME: "Is this utopian?  Is this your ideal future?  Or have you guys been given a problem and this is the best you can do with it?"

Several & P2: "This is reality.  I think this is just one possible scenario.  This isn't utopian, I don't think."

P8 & Several: "And we have guards because we have enemies i guess…the border…attacking the pharmacy…and mutated animals…and this is our dangerous waterway…we put a baby on this, because it's the safest place."

ME: "Great!  What's up with the dead plant?  Any other final thoughts?" 

Several: "It's a different color plant, it's not dead, this is the park area.  It's a new exotic plant…because we've decided to do genetic engineering…"

ME: "Great, you guys are so creative.  Thank you so much."

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SESSION G: 1 Person/Male 

Objects used: finger drawings and imprints only.  Left 1/3: dots halfway through, center 1/3: continuing dots from left 1/3, zig-zag underneath, right 1/3: continuing dots with another row of dots underneath. 

Composition: Sandtray is split vertically into thirds.

“It starts with hand-set type.  (Gestures to left 1/3 of tray.)  And hand-set type continues, but the printing press also exists. (Gestures to center 1/3 of tray.)  Now everything is digital.” (Gestures to right 1/3 of tray.)

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SESSION H: 2 People/1 Male & 1 Female 

Objects used: Pipe cleaners  / compass / wooden cross / finger drawn spirals / finger dots

Composition: Vertical symmetry.  Compass and wooden cross are near the center of the sandtray.  Bottom right and left circular shapes.  Path coming from center top of tray down to center.

P1/Male: "…man for 100's and 100's of years…"

P2/Female: "I know we would like to be able to go back to that...but better."

P1: "It's so that we have this topic that what we do is product design without responsibility and accountability.  We are destroying the world."

P2: "Exactly, yeah, I guess, I mean, that's one of the things we do feel responsible for is all the junk, and hopefully, you know because it is going to get more complicated, more complex, the problems will be different than maybe we won't be producing junk and then also the system in place would not allow junk to happen or just happening is contained so it is not affecting people…"

ME: "How do we not produce junk?"

P1: "Well, the thing that I...that helps me deal with what I'm doing now…"

P2: "Is lying to yourself!" (Laughter.)

P1: "Lying to yourself?  Well, if nothing else, we can create things that people really need, but not create stuff that people don't really need."

P2: "Or do them in a way that are not good so they have to replace it.  You know that's the other thing.  They have to be done so that they actually meet a need well.  That's more sustainable than making it out of plastic so when something like biodegradable plastic or something like that." 

P2: "So as things move forward, hopefully as things are contained, I think that whoever is producing a lot then that same person has to dispose of it so eventually you're going to have to produce less because, to answer you question about junk, right now, we produce way too much junk because we are not accountable to where it's going, we don't even see where it goes."

P1: "Yes!  I think we should become physicians of consumption and production, like a doctor can prescribe, like when somebody has a lifestyle say a doctor can prescribe a good life style for somebody of…help take corrective action on a kind of destructive life style, or prescribe medicine, or prescribe treatments that can help improve somebody's health.  So, in a similar way, designers could prescribe good healthy behaviors when it comes to things around us.  Right?"

P2: "Yeah.  'Healthy behaviors' is a good one.  It's the red cross...It's not red, but it is a cross.  (P2 places wooden cross in sandtray.)  I'm looking for a doctor.  I need a doctor (talking about the miniatures).  Alright, I think that kinda describes consumption a little bit of our mind set about production and consumption then complexity and the catalyst to simplifying things and to remove or deal with complexity."

P1: "We really are like synthesizers.  We understand certain things that engineering-types aren't really good at or understand.  Or I guess we think that we are better anyway.  We're better at understanding the cultural issues and psychological factors and ergonomics and understanding wants and needs and then kind of wrapping something up, a constant, into a package that people can enjoy; benefit from."

P1: "We just need stuff based on people's...the reason why I think this idea is because if we are amoral about our product design and we're appealing to people's sense of vanity we are primarily concluding that people's desires is to...doing better than the Jones' down the street and you know that is really shallow!"

P2: "And you know there is no end to it because there is always somebody who has more!  There is no end to it!"

P1: "And that is definitely the way a lot of companies operate.  They come out with this year's latest and greatest model.  And there is really no added benefit other than a style change.  Hey, look what I got, I'm going to throw it away in two years and get another one."

ME: "We're physicians, right?"  

P2: "And translators. I think that primarily we want to change the context in which industrial design has operated.  It is not about meeting ridiculous needs...like just changing the style of the car every year so people...a never ending thing, the same row, the same mindset, the same skills and ability apply to more productive and meaningful things."

ME: "Nice work!"

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SESSION I: 4 People/2 Male & 2 Female

Objects used:  Green evergreen plant / blue and clear marbles / ceramic green house / knife / purple plane / ceramic African angel / ceramic farmer man / abstract man / music notes / bumpy beads / popsicle sticks / solar panel / plastic house / plastic pink windows / green deciduous plant / hammer / saw / pliers / screwdriver / compass / gold vessel / compass / blue basin / gold chains / red firemen / bumpy beads / wooden blocks / green evergreen / seashells / stones / blue and clear marbles / blue man / green ivy / brown evergreen

Composition:  4 equal quadrants based-off center of tray, lower-right quadrant has a dug-out that represents water.

P1/Male: “Hopefully in the future, design will not be centered towards fancy material possessions, but focused towards things that people look at and enjoy.  But more so, creating systems…and possibly better ways to already solve the problems we’re having now, but just better.   The problems that we have now are always going to exist.  If we’re lucky, they won’t, but they probably will exist for a long time.  And I feel like the problems we have now could be better solved, and I hope that in the future, not just designers, but society will be more apt to make things better vs. making a quota or a paycheck or something like that.  I guess I would put them in the category of way-finders, to guide people to a better ideal, and a better idea to how they live their lives and not do it though fancy products.  Designing systems, you know, less tangible things that would create a bigger impact than just a product itself."

P2/Female: “Have you ever heard of project M?  The pie lab...it's a very creative program, you basically make something out of nothing, and they give you a prompt...to how to make the community a better place...We talked about how designers can be more than just...you know, let's make things look pretty...and this is why the future is going to be about communication, and that's why I have the people...music notes, I wanted actual sounds, so that represents that (communication).   So I feel like everyone has the potential to be a designer.  This person has his skill set and tools, and this person has his skills to build stuff...nature, and he knows about that stuff.  And then this little kid is more in the abstract field.  I feel like design can only be accomplished when everyone collaborates together.  So more and more design is about...I feel like it's going to go into every kind of field.  Design is more a way of life, more a way of thinking.  When you think like a designer, you're more open-minded.  You try to approach a problem way different than anybody else.  Design is really going to invade everybody's life, and design is going to be a lot more than, 'let's just draw'.  The focus wouldn't be, 'draw, draw, draw, draw, draw', it'll be more, 'how do we communicate?'"

ME: "What's this guy do again?"

P2: "He's knowledgeable about tools, like engineering.  Each one represents a different mindset.  This guys about nature, he knows about building things.  And this guy is more abstract."

P3/Female: "My view of design is where I want to go, and where I think it's going to go, and I think people want to be more green.  And they're getting back to nature.  We're so immersed in our TV's and our electronics and stuff, that I think people are slowly coming out of that haze.  I think design is sorta guiding the way because we keep capitalizing on people's material dependencies and creating cool stuff for outdoors to get people involved...so I drew a symbiotic relationship of a life...near the water, using the wind, planting a garden, using the materials that are around you instead of shipping stuff.  But I agree with some of their ideas about design...I think design is now less about sketching all day for pretty things to sell...there are plenty of people who have good ideas who can't sketch it out, and we can help there.  I also think we're getting a degree in creativity.  It's less and less 'industrial' or 'VC', it's a way of thinking.  I feel like I could go into pretty much any job field, because we have an attention to detail, we can see problems and fine-tune them.  I think it's just going to keep getting broader, and less narrow.  Widen..."

P1: "People that guide a way of thinking.'  

P3: "My friend just went to build a library in Belize, and she said I should have been there.  I said I didn't know how to do that, and she said, 'you would know though, we ran into so many little things we did wrong, and you're so visual'...and maybe I could actually help with stuff like that."

P4/Male: "I'm going to start with the last prompt, about the role of designers in the future.  I think that we will be inspiring change, more than things we've already mentioned.  Going back to the cradle-to-cradle perspective.  These are supposed to be all natural materials, and this is a ladder, that's kind of commercial because I don't think we need to necessarily get away from material things, but the materials we use to make them they need to not end-up in a landfill.  And that might mean spending more time, or more money or more research and maybe not make as big of a profit, but I think you have to think about that kind of stuff, even if it costs more."

ME: "Cool.  What's up with your mountain and your valley and your rocks?"

P4: "The rocks, I just connected everyone's paths because I think somehow, I'm not sure how, but I think designers can help make a stronger sense of community through design.  And then this mound, I didn't know what he was going for originally, I thought his was more of a materialistic deal, so I was just kinda separating myself from him.  But I found out that wasn't exactly what he was going for."

P2: "Just to tack onto what they're all saying, in Greensburo they found a bunch of scrap wood and trash and painted it all different colors and it looks really beautiful.  Re-purposing would be a great way to go."

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SESSION J: 1 Person/Male 

Objects used:  2 plastic houses, 3 ceramic houses, pink, blue, green, golden urn, roman plate black with gold, pink stove, pink tv, wooden blocks as fences, grey fences, red, blue and green men, compass, broken ceramic man, fake flowers, black angel, plastic tree stump, ceramic woman with hat, SUC, plastic whale, silver chain, black snake, black stones, animal in black cage, green scorpion, black bat, stick, brown evergreen, green evergreens, blue and clear marbles, plastic fish, green lizard,

Composition: diagonal lines, parallel, compass is at the crossing of the composition, it is protected/guarded by green men, many green men are flat in the sand.

P1/Male: "This isn't the future.  This is right now and basically we kinda have two sides to everything.  There is nature right here and there is human development and technology over here.  And you've got the red team and the blue team both have fancy houses with all sorts of good stuff and they also have red and blue houses that are the same and there is the green team and they're in the middle of everything and they are just more or less regular people and they're killing each other.  The red people and the blue people are not telling anyone what to do but enjoying their luxurious lives.  And nature is outside of a fence.  You and I are not really allowed to interact with nature unless you are killing each other.  And there's the sea.  You can see a hummer is harvesting a whale for pleasure.  You are not allowed to go there and everything is pretty much blocked off.  And then there is some people who enjoy music and nature and the green people can see this but they are still on the other side of the fence."

ME:  "Who are the designers?  Are they around?"

P1: "Everybody's a designer."

ME: "Okay.  What's this compass here?"

P1: "That's just eh general direction that we're going in here."

ME: "So as designers, how do we fix our present situation?  How do we fix this, is this how you want to live in the future?"

P1: "No.  I don't know what to do about it.  I think it's more...I think there are good ideas, but whether or not people act on these ideas, I think it is completely up to people.  It's not up to one person."

ME:  Interesting.  What's up with the cage here?

P1: "It's a zoo.  It's like a transition between nature and civilization.  That's all you're really allowed to see.  Um...I should put...I'm out of green men…" (P1 has been cutting the feet stands off of blue, green and red men, with his pocket knife.  I told people they could do whatever they wanted with the figures if it helps them express their ideas better.)

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SESSION K: 1 Person/Male 

Objects used:  Green leaves, brown leaves, green evergreen, brown evergreen, green and yellow organic potpourri objects, sticks, blue knex, green lizards, sea shells, black and brown stones, red lizards, blue and clear marbles, red knex, green knex, yellow knex, orange knex, grey knex, imprints of crosses made with wooden blocks

Composition:   Split vertically into 3 parts, left 1/3: man + nature, center 1/3: nature-made, right 1/3: man-made objects.

P1/Male: "I come from, but I also believe, that we come from a very formalistic understanding of design and the world and product and problem solving since WWI and industrialization and even more recently modernism that really began to try to clean and machine things-up.  

We've continued to beat and pound in heat, and solve our problems through those extreme conditions, with regard not just to materials, but our thinking processes have been geared toward aggressive control.  I'm a real advocate of what we're beginning to understand through issues such as biomimicry.  And also with regards to our awareness of natural systems and ways in which problems have been solved through nature's struggle and sorta through nature's economics.  The capitalism that exists in survival is the just like our capitalism in a lot of ways but it seems to have found ways to balance itself out.

What this is representing, that if this is like Peter's, a timeline to 2030, looking at how we started with man-made objects, this sand becomes this glass, this glass we've made into something absolutely, we'll call it geometrically perfect, because we've created something that we think the end-result of this sand should be.  And then it's laid up and gridded in sorta this modernistic fashion of how we solve our problems; rigorously and with intention.  Nature has also been solving very hard problems through rigor and through intention.  Intention of evolving.  Surfaces like this shell is just as hard as this glass, it's made out of exactly the same material, and there's no heat involved.  In fact there are only microbes involved, an animal that only has one cell for it's brain.  So for all the energy it takes for us to make one of these is ten-fold to what it takes this animal to make this and there's no materials wasted in this process.  And it lives among all these other elements that are also carved-up from the planet and other forces that are natural without any of our help whatsoever.

And it exists, at times, in a pattern condition which can be seen, or at least if we look hard enough, can be seen, in a way that is collective and somewhat organized.  The reality of the future though is that our systems have to begin to look more like this...(gestures to green 1/3 of sandtray.).  Where it's hard, at times, to tell where the man-made objects are and where the natural-made objects are, and it's up to us to learn about how to exist in socially, environmentally, economically conscious co-existence with not with just our materials and the planet, where we live, but also other individuals.  So that this can also represent for me the culture in which design has to happen also, where it's a multi-cultured condition, if we want to think of the man-made objects...people like scientists versus people like sociologists, or from one part of the country or another, that's it's culturally diverse but it works in co-habitation.  There's both recycling involved, and things die, in a sense, erode, become the sand and then emerge up back out of the sand again in order to evolve.  In that natural condition it would be nice if we could figure out how to have our own play on that and learn about what it is doing.  Because if we don't, we end-up like that anyways and we aren't involved in it anymore."

ME:  "Are the marbles the same marbles that are over here?" (I gesture from left to right, right-side is the green side.)

P1: "They sure are.  Yup, they're still man-made.  But they're made by microbes now.  We didn't have to heat anything to do it."

ME:  "So we as designer's, is it our job to facilitate, or to study how this one-celled organism pulls this off, and wastes less energy."

P1: "Right, but through learning about this, we soon begin to evolve because we're beginning to understand it in its complete system rather than in isolation.  This is understanding it in isolation, (gestures to left-side of sandtray).  This is understanding it in the way it exists now, (gestures to right-side of sandtray) which is not isolated, but actually it's a system.  And it's when we can understand and create systems rather than isolated events.  We're working cohesively, we're working interdisciplinary and we're working in a social, economic, and environmentally conscious way."

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SESSIONS L & M: 1 Person/Male

SESSION L:

Objects used:  Blue and clear marbles, wooden blocks, red string, orange cylindrical wooden block   

Composition:  Linear timeline begins from bottom-left to top-right.  Bottom left is ~1930, and top-right ~1970.  The red string represents communism.

P1/Male: "Some kind of a...it's a little bit of...a depiction of my life.  It could have gone very differently.  This is that (red string) because there was a big, important barrier in my development because I'm from East Germany, and I could have stayed there, but circumstances allowed me...forced me, to make a very quick decision, which I was able to turn into a great opportunity.  So I made it though this line and I was greeted, accepted, (orange cylindrical block in center) and then went from there and the whole thing is much to small show!...the entire career, as it developed.  This was an important point...I was 20 years old here (lower-left of tray).  It goes this way…" (he gestures from lower-left of tray upward to upper-right corner.)

ME: "So is this 2030 up here?"  (I gesture to upper right-side.)

P1: "This could still be...the 70's, there would need to be another box...I started too detailed in the beginning.  But there's also a meaning behind the grid, because I'm such a grid person, I think.  That's what I think."  

ME:  "It looks really pretty with the marbles.  But I wanted your ideas about the future...What's your dream and hope and fear for design in the future?  But yeah, in this box…" 

SESSION M:

Objects used:  Blue and clear marbles, blue men, gold leaf pin, silver angel, red-headed woman doll, green scorpion, SUV, seashells, wooden blocks

Composition:  Linear timeline begins from bottom-left to top-right.  Present (now) is based in the center of the sandtray.

P1/Male: "Wait, wait, wait, wait...put some hope...at the end.  (Places three clear marbles in the top right corner.) Design may or may not be able to find solid ground – spread out – I think you may have to spread out some how.  That I do."

ME: "I know where to start because it's logical..." (I'm talking about the grid he made in the sand.)

P1: "In this corner.  There was a time when things went along and were interesting and in retrospect quite happily and I think we are now at a point where we have to break through some chaos, that is material, and that is environmental, and that is spiritual and that is profane and that is, what should I call this?  Authoritarian.  And if we find our way around we have to find that very small eureka opening, if we're very lucky, and find that solid ground again and if we do we have a chance to leave a mark but that's not a given, that's just an opportunity we have to pursue."

ME: "Where's the designer in this map?"

P1: "Well you know, I am sort of using my own past as the designer's opportunity.  I think I've had lots of opportunities as a designer.  That's me and they's everybody in design, I think."

ME: "Okay.  So if I'm understanding this correctly, the role of the designer is to circumnavigate all of this crap that makes our world sort of complicated?"

P1: "Well, look at all we have.  We have all these nature catastrophes.  Have we ever had that many or is it the media sort of making things our of it.  It's frightening.  Some of it is man made, some of it is not.  You've go all these hurricanes and tornadoes, and floods ad oil spills and explosions and volcanos..."

ME: "So is it the role of the designer to help with these things?"

P1: "Yeah.  Well it brings me back 50 years or so when we thought w could provide order in the chaos because we are, we have, we had the means, the intellectual means to provide guidance, but not everybody who calls himself a designer possess these means, and there are a lot of charlatans in this world.  Too many."

ME: "What do you mean by charlatans?"

P1: "Charlatans are pretenders.  People that bullshit a lot and are admired for that.  All these so called design stars today, if you compare them with true stars when there was the opportunity to be a start it is more difficult so unless you provide some chaos.  Basically something very negative...of no interest.  Wait, wait, wait a minute.  Design may not find solid ground and spread out.  It think it will have to spread-out somehow."