How we see design, what we see when we look, and what it means to us is not universal, and that is the point. Design is not data, not facts, not fixed narrative. Design has embedded meaning(s) but not all of them are visible, to all of us, all the time.

A few years ago we were working with the NYC Department of Probation to redesign the abysmal waiting rooms (more like prison holding rooms) that adults and juveniles were forced to wait in (sometimes for hours) for their regular appointment with a probation officer.

Some of these waiting rooms, inside NYC buildings, were so decrepit they seemed more like dystopian movie sets than actual municipal agency offices, but without any of the dystopian charm. More Piranesi than ‘Playtime’, one waiting room we visited had a glass case built into a wall at eye level for notices and announcements. The manager explained that they had misplaced the key and couldn’t change the notices, so we looked at the case trying to carbon date it; the newest item in the case (and I swear this is true) was from 1984. They had not been able to open the case for nearly 30 years, and no one thought that it might be sending the wrong message.

That message was, of course, ‘fuck you’.

The probation officers had glass fronted offices that they made private by taping up old newspapers. Well, they were new when they put them up there, and I was really hoping to scare up a vintage copy of the Daily News “Ford to City: Drop Dead”, or at least a “Best Sex I Ever Had” Marla Maples cover.

So it was really a municipal museum of ‘fuck you’s’.

The message was even more layered; declaring that you (the probationer) were just lucky not to be in jail, so lucky you dare not complain about the broken furniture, missing light bulbs, 2 sets of metal detectors you passed through on the way in, not to mention the long wait for your surly P.O…

Sit down, shut up, no eating, no cell phones, no talking, no noise, no, no, no, no. This is the architecture of intimidation, making clear, if it wasn’t already, the agencies view of the probationers complete lack of worth.

#university-of-virginia #trump-tweets #nazi-symbols #visual-design #hidden-meaning