Before Design, More-than-Design: Elucidating “Ontological Design”

Abstract In their new book, Graeber and Wengrow (2021) document the myriad societies and the amount of experimentation and change in social organization that is evident in the archaeological record. Although this controversial macrohistory does not directly speak to non-architectural design studies, I argue that the book should be read by designers, because it poses several challenges to fundamental assumptions about designing: the Eurocentrism of much design theory and education; the location of design solely in late capitalist societies; the distinction of craft from design as a pre-modern non-deliberative material practice; and the focus on user-as-owner-centered design. Instead, Graeber and Wengrow suggest that designers have been – and so can and should be – sources of more ambitious social experimentation.