april 2022 140 : , of design decision-making well in mind. Because we now operate in a globalized state of culture, design needs to seek new territories to off- set the relentless uniformity derived from our current cycle of mass culture/consumption. As defined here, care cannot follow trends that become out-dated after a short time, and therefore reflects a profound evolution in our vision and perception of the world and our way of inhabiting it. Because our universe has become a territo- ry, all dimensions of which may be traveled both in time and space, it is only with care that design can make contributions towards the maintenance of a stable environment and sensible material situation worldwide. Further, design needs to take as much care as possible as it evolves its educational and professional practices because it can now only try to make sense from journeying through a chaotic and undisciplined ecology layered with non-essentials. It must be stressed that care is not a service product designed primarily to be served. Like design, the purpose of care is to affect the way we live. In our increas- ingly population-aging world, within which we are about to cross a demographic landmark of huge social and economic importance—the proportion of the global population aged 65 years and over is set to outnumber the population of children under five years of age for the first time—how we design and care for unprecedented numbers of pensioners and retirees will bring with it huge challenges for policy- makers, designers, healthcare providers, and families. ³⁴ There will be more than 1 billion people living in the world who will have effectively aged out of its workforce by 2040. With care, however, design can play a major role in transforming how health and social care looks and feels for many of these people. Working collaboratively, designers, to- 34 National Institute on Aging. Global Health and Aging, Washington D.C., USA: National Institute on Aging and National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011. 29 projects of the user and designer. The phenomenon of fashion points to new possibilities for the notion of usability, wherein people might now have to craft their own personalized and customized world. ³³ 08 Design with Care With the failure of the structural mega-programs of the twentieth century, there is a need to transgress frigid technological perfection into genial ecological possibilities, and this has to be done with care. In this context, care refers to designing with the macro and micro social, technological, economic, environmental and political effects 32 Bateson, G. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York, NY, USA: Ballantine Books, 1972. 33 Bremner, C. “Usability.” In Design Dictionary: Perspectives on Design Terminology, edited by T. Marshall & M. Erlhoff, pgs. 425-428. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhauser, 2008. Dialectic Volume I, Issue I: Theoretical Speculation The Concept Of The Design Discipline . ¹ ² 1. Imagination, Lancaster University, 2. Charles Sturt University, School of Creative Industries, Australia : Rodgers, P.A., & Bremner, C. “The Concept of the Design Discipline.” Dialectic, 1.1 (2016): pgs. 19-38. : http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/dialectic.14932326.0001.104 Abstract In their previous work, the authors have demonstrated that the discipline of design has been su- perseded by a condition where conventionally set design disciplines have dissolved. ¹²³ In this age where design is typified by fluid, evolving patterns of practice that regularly traverse, transcend and transfigure historical disciplinary and conceptual boundaries, the authors have argued that globalization and the proliferation of the digital has resulted in connections that are no longer ‘amid,’ cannot be measured ‘across,’ nor encompass a ‘whole’ system. In short, this ‘disciplinary turn’ has generated an ‘other’ dimension—an alternative disciplinarity. ⁴ Moreover, this reliance on the ‘exhausted’ historic disciplines has become obsolete as the boundaries of our understand- ing have been superseded by a boundless space/time that we call ‘alterplinarity.’ ⁵ The fragmenta- tion of distinct disciplines has shifted creative practice from being ‘discipline-based’ to ‘issue- or project-based.’ ⁶ Consequently, this paper presents a manifesto for the future design discipline that emphasizes disposing carefully of what you know, teaching what you do not know whilst al- ways taking design seriously, protecting us from what we want, objecting to sustaining everything, designing without reproach, ensuring that objects are invisible but designed with care and within history whilst exploring design as an idea rather than an ideal. 1 Rodgers, P.A. & Bremner, C. “Alterplinarity—‘Alternative Disciplinarity,’ in Future Art and Design Research Pur- suits.” Studies in Material Thinking, 6 (2011). 2 Rodgers, P.A. & Bremner, C. “Exhausting Discipline: Undisciplined and Irresponsible Design.” Architecture and Culture, 1.1 (2013): pgs. 138-158. 3 Ibid. 4 Rodgers, P.A. & Bremner, C. “Alterplinarity—‘Alternative Disciplinarity,’ in Future Art and Design Research Pur- suits.” Studies in Material Thinking, 6 (2011). 5 Rodgers, P.A. & Bremner, C. “Exhausting Discipline: Undisciplined and Irresponsible Design.” Architecture and Culture, 1.1 (2013): pgs. 138-158. 6 Heppell, S. “RSA Lectures: Stephen Heppell: Learning 2016,”RSA Lectures, 30 June, 2006. Online. Available at: http://www.teachers.tv/video/4957 (Accessed December 22, 2010). Copyright © 2016, Dialectic and the Design Educators Community ( ).All rights reserved. Rodgers, P.A., & Bremner, C. “The Concept of the Design Discipline.” Dialectic, 1.1 (2016): pgs. 19-38. “ Care refers to designing with the macro and micro social, technological, economic, environmental and political effects of design decision-making well in mind.” — Rodgers and Bremner