About Article

Our world is experiencing ongoing wars causing massive humanitarian desperation and suffering. Design for violence investigates how design is currently used in extremely violent situations of war and mass conflicts. Within the framework of design for violence, the main questions asked are: what are the successful aspects of design thinking in escalating conflicts, war and terrorism? And how can such insights be used to counteract the same entropic elements? The first case investigates the design and production of IED – Improvised Explosive Devices. The lessons and design principles of the IED indicate how recent design thinking renders itself redundant in the extreme situations and scenarios of war. The second case presents the inverse design methodology used in the Preemptive Architecture project as an alternative way to deal with violence. The project proposes design of houses built to be bombed. Rather than opposing destruction, the paper suggests to embrace it as a design principle. Not as self-annihilation, but as a preemptive rule of action that aims at the subversion and undoing of violence through making it futile. That is designing for the violence we know will come, and it is the radical design thinking needed for its undoing.