The Advanced Design Institute:
A Manifesto

The Advanced Design Institute is a network of individuals who are dedicated to advancing new concepts and methods of practice in design. We believe design to be inclusive of the new sciences, systems thinking, and a wholistic perspective. This facilitates intentional change in response to the challenges of an increasingly complex, dynamic, and technologic world. Our purpose is to advance design education and practice, for the benefit of humanity and for the preservation and improvement of the ecosphere.

People have been designing from the beginning of human existence. It has been the essential process by which we have engaged the natural world and one other, in order to both survive and improve the human condition. Originally the process was simple and took place over long periods. As a result, designs were slowly realized and could be gradually assimilated into the ecosystem. As life became more complex and the rhythm of living became more staccato, stress and apprehension were created whenever there was a sudden and dramatic departure from the norm.

The designs and design processes, too, became more complex; and the impact of change more significant, no longer benefiting from slow integration. Technological development, global population growth, and the explosion of knowledge have made life complicated; encouraging specialization and analysis as an apparent necessity.

Many problems today are ethically and aesthetically complex, not lending themselves to analytical solutions. Specialization makes it more difficult to integrate complicated elements into comprehensive wholes. When the pace of innovation was slower, there was more opportunity to understand and deal with change, giving us a perception of greater control. Mistakes were easier to discover and mitigate as well. Now, we must deal with more complexity within shorter, faster time frames. Advanced Design is a strategy for action in this modern environment.

Advanced Design is a distinctive way of thinking creatively, and acting with intention to secure improvement and progress in human enterprises. By utilizing this ability to integrate diversity of every kind into aesthetic, ethical, and reasoned wholes, it becomes an effective process that uses the wisdom of imagination and intentional collective action in achieving purposive goals. Advanced Design does not seek to find the absolute truth in solving a problem as if there is an existing answer awaiting discovery once the problem has been defined and properly analyzed. Design is the deliberate quest to conceive new possibilities and make them actualities. It is a distinct way of thinking, different from either art or science yet incorporating both.

Advanced Design is the way to achieve success in a world of complexity, change, and unpredictability. It is a way of acting out of creative strength and purpose that brings forth entirely new entities and innovative change, by using critical thinking skills and the whole systems approach in design.

The Advanced Design Institute helps people to appreciate design as a way to gain creative insights and use novel approaches that can be employed by people and organizations which must function effectively in an environment of dynamic flux and confounding disorder. The founders of ADI have studied and practiced design for many years, developing ways in which Advanced Design can be used to create entirely new entities or to bring about innovative and significant change within existing systems. These ideas have been employed in large governmental organizations, private enterprise and educational institutions throughout the world. With these successes to reference, the Institute is now engaged in the effort to extend advanced design knowledge to designers and those who are in leadership positions within complex social organizations.