While it
is still only very crudely that I can define this- I'm still going to give it a
try. Its been almost two months since my last post and exactly 3 weeks since
I've quit my job. The only reason I wasn't able to pen this down earlier was
because I did not feel I had done enough research on it and I did not have
the words that would do the concept justice. And also because I had taken
time out for 10 days to get a fresh perspective on things- I'm happy to return
and say it worked :)
The Chikitsa Behind the
Design
The Literal Meaning of
Chikitsa is Therapy. Therapy, according to the Oxford Dictionary means
'Treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder' or 'the treatment of mental
or psychological disorder by psychological means' while Wikipedia states 'It is
the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a diagnosis.'
Therapies can be categorized in multiple ways, the easiest way
to categorize it would be according to the the ultimate aim of the
therapy, which could be either 'Preventive Therapy' or 'Supportive Therapy'.
Design Chikitsa or
Design Therapy is intended to be a kind of Supportive Therapy. A Supportive
Therapy is the kinds which does not treat or improve the underlying condition,
but instead increases the patient's comfort.
The Design In the Chikitsa
Design Chikitsa is
actually a solution with multiple dimensions to it. It may include forms of
therapies that have already been explored in the past as an individual subject
such as Color Therapy or Art Therapy as well as subjects which are not
considered a form of therapy at all but purely sciences such
as Ergonomics or new advances in Technology or Material Sciences.
A third aspect that I
would like to add here would be the Concept of Space as a form of Therapy. When
I look at Design Solutions around me I do feel that it has been explored by
Designers subconsciously without really realizing it. But I am yet to stumble
across substantial text which proves that Space has been explored as a 3
Dimensional form of Therapy or maybe I haven’t been using the right keywords-
if you have any data which you might think is relevant to the above, please do
share it with me. Please note I believe that Color Therapy and Art Therapy
are purely 2 Dimensional.
Now when we talk of
Space Therapy it can be divided into Positive Space Therapy which deals with
the actual shape of the product being designed and Negative Space Therapy
which deals with the space around the products, which can be used predominately
in Interior Designing/Decoration.
My next blog shall be
about Space Therapy in detail. :)
Coming back to the point
being discussed,
Design Chikitsa actually aims to be an amalgamation of all of
the above but Individually Tailored for each of its Subjects.
While there are three
examples that struck my mind while developing this concept, suddenly it is too
hard to write them down as they seem too personal to be discussed here. Each
of these examples illustrates a distinct aspect of the concept as well as the
different ways in which this concept can be put to use. Maybe if you’re
interested you could get in touch with me and they could be discussed in
detail. :)
