Design
The Dreyfuss Case
By KENNETH J. ROBINSON Mr. Dreyfuss, who is a very different speaker from some of his inarticulate American colleagues (he frequently paused to ask if we in England knew the meaning of words like `meter'), said that people he worked for often objected to the 'newness' of his designs. What did he do? He simply asked them why they had bothered to call in a professional designer. That, of course, is the sort of snappy answer Mr. Dreyfuss can now afford to give. But naturally enough design students in his audience wanted to know how his organisa- tion had reached a stage at which it can employ medical helpers, ear specialists or psychiatrists if a job seems to need their advice, and arrange for the measurement of 20,000 faces and the photographing of 2,000 children before designing telephones and bicycles. (Apparently the pictures taken of children from all over the country showed that it was dangerous to standardise a bicycle that had to be used by riders wearing such different clothing as bathing suits, jeans or snow-suits).
Mr. Dreyfuss did not satisfactorily explain how he had convinced so many people of their need for an expensive top designer. He was modest enough to suggest that he got off to a good start because he began in the great slump at a time when you might just as well be in business because 'you hadn't anything to lose'. But he told one or two stories which showed that a few qualities like ingenuity of thought and confidence in doing the job his own way have something to do with his status today. I particularly liked the story about his de- termination to put a swimming pool on the top deck of a ship (he wanted to do this because the ship was to spend most of its time under the hot sun). He was told that the water for such a pool would make the vessel top- heavy, so he looked around to find a way of saving the necessary amount of weight. This looking around cost 5,000 dollars, but it resulted in his decision to halve the weight of all steamer chairs by making them of alumini
and webbing. And so he got his swimming poo above sea level. The moral for designers is that if they approach any design problem front scratch, forgetting entirely the 'what war-}y done before' approach they will probably do stl better job. tt
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The most ingenious design I have heard about recently which avoids doing what will, ti done before is the American architect Saarinen't b contribution to the new all jet airport ai t( Chantilly, near Washington. Until now it had n been thought that jet airports would have to be A sprawling buildings—'finger' design with corridors and ramps extending out towards the a runways. But Chantilly is to have something p quite new, a series of lounges on wheels. The C designer gave fresh thought to the majot p problems of jet airport design—the difficult v of manoeuvring large planes, the necessity fot keeping passengers away from jet exhaust and c noise and so on—and hit on the idea of t making parts of the airport building move. 1, about under their own steam. The mobile c lounges, which will be about 60 ft. long and' is 15 ft. wide and will seat 80 passengers, will' N, fasten pneumatically to the sides of the a terminal. This neat solution to a new probled y is based on an obvious idea—like so many s
other revolutionary designs.
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