Design
Nadia Sorel
The case for designing things that are allowed to age.
We have built a culture that treats ageing as failure. Design is one of the places this shows most clearly.
The problem with newness
We have built a culture with a complicated relationship with newness. Newness is desirable. It signals currency, relevance, the absence of wear. But newness is also the condition that every made thing moves away from the moment it is made. The question of what a thing becomes after it is new is one that most design does not ask. The question of whether it should age well or simply not age is one that most design has already answered, usually in the wrong direction.
What patina actually means
Patina is the word used to describe the way certain materials change with use and time. Leather darkens. Brass oxidises. Wood develops a surface that reflects the light differently than it did when it was new. These changes are not damage. They are a record of use. They make the thing more itself rather than less. An object with patina has been somewhere. It has done something. This is visible. This is, if you are paying attention, considerably more interesting than newness.
The materials that earn it
Not all materials age well and the difference is instructive. Materials that age well tend to be natural or close to natural. They have a cellular structure that responds to use in ways that are honest about what the material is. Materials that age badly tend to be synthetic approximations of something else. They do not develop patina. They develop degradation. The distinction matters because it is visible over time and because it tells you something true about the intentions of the person who chose the material.
What we have built instead
Much of what has been designed and built in the last fifty years was not made to age well. It was made to look good when new and to be replaced when it no longer did. This is not a failure of design so much as a success of a particular economic model. The model requires replacement. Replacement requires objects that do not last. Objects that last are a problem for the model. The result is an environment full of things that degrade rather than develop, that become less themselves over time rather than more.
The buildings that teach you something
The buildings worth studying are almost always the ones that have been somewhere for a long time. Not because age is a guarantee of quality but because the ones that have lasted have usually lasted for a reason. They were built with materials that could absorb time. They were designed with proportions that do not date. They have accumulated a presence that new buildings cannot manufacture. You can feel the difference before you can name it.
The things worth making are the ones that get better as they age, not the ones that resist it.
The argument for slowness
Designing for age requires slowing down at the point of decision. Asking not just what this will look like when it is finished but what it will look like in ten years, in twenty, in a hundred. This is an unusual question to ask in a culture that is oriented primarily toward the present. It is also one of the most useful ones. The answers tend to push you toward materials that are more honest, proportions that are more considered, and decisions that are less about the moment and more about the thing itself.
What you can do with this
You do not need to be a designer to apply this thinking. You can apply it to the objects you choose to live with. The question of whether something will age well is a question about the integrity of the thing. It is a question about whether the person who made it was thinking about the object or the sale. Learning to ask it is learning to pay attention in a way that makes the world you move through considerably better. One object at a time, over a long time, this adds up to something.
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About the author
Nadia Sorel
Covers food, ideas, and the stories that sit just underneath the surface of both. Interested in where things come from and what gets lost in the telling. Has strong opinions about markets and no opinions she is willing to keep to herself. Based in Paris, reluctantly.
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