David Lee
History of Industrial Design
Mara Holt Skov
10/29/13

DUNNE AND RABY

Left: Fig 1 – Fiona Raby
Right: Fig 2 – Anthony Dunne

Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby are a design team based in London, England since 1994. Additionally they are both professors at the Royal College of Art in the Design Interaction Program. Their practice has focused on a type of design called Critical Design, coined by Dunne in their 2001 book, Hertzian Tales. The focus of their practice is to utilize design to create dialogue and debate within the design world and the public about the broader implications of emerging technologies. Most unusual is their method of not creating anything to be produced. Rather they illustrate their ideas through the creation of photographs, video and artifacts to effect change. Historically, Radical Architecture, particularly Superstudio and Archigram, are inspirations from which they draw their ideas and methods.

Both Dunne and Raby were born and raised in England and trained as an industrial designer and as an architect respectively. After working in Japan for a time, they studied Computer Related Design at the RCA and became fellows at the CRD Studio. Within this program they began to explore the interactions between humans and computers.

Throughout his education, the influence of architecture (Raby, his time at an architecture firm and his professors) helped Dunne realize that the role of the designer was more than just as a form giver and extended to writing and teaching as well. Writing would help them to transform their scope of design from user-centric to a broader scope of trying to determine designs impact on society and culture as a whole. To achieve this they borrow methodology from the past.

Building their ideas upon the ideas of Radical Architecture of the 1960’s, they realized that the method of doing this