So what would it mean to not design? Could it be a task for designers not to design? Could it be design itself? There are many ways to say no, and even a 'no' could be a problematic 'yes'. Swiss design and urban theorist Lucius Burckhardt shows this complexity when he describes design as Invisible. By naming the hidden and invisible dimension of design - its institutional and organisational components beyond the objects and surfaces, in which the designer constantly participates - he points to the affirmative character of not designing. 'By dividing the world according to objects, and letting the invisible play a role as a boundary condition, the world is being designed, too: Not changing the institutions, while the world of technical objects develops at the same time, is indeed also a way of designing.' Burckhardt points more to the (limitations of the) brief - to the things and structures that are meant to design - than to the client or the consumer. To radically rethink the brief - how the design task is named, structured and limited - is another important field of critical design practices. If we consider design as a socially relevant practice, the brief itself is also designed, and therefore has to be rejected or redesigned.
In architecture, there is a marginal tradition of this negative design practice. For example, Austrian architect and participatory design pioneer Ottokar Uhl, who had been asked in 1971 to produce a study on integrating a bypass highway in Vienna, came to the conclusion that the proposed solution through the Vienna valley and out through Naschmarkt was in fact untenable. What a scandal! An expert report that proposed not to build a road! After public debate, the plans were soon aborted. It is also said that British architect Cedric Price, when approached by a married couple to design a house, advised them to hire a divorce lawyer rather than an architect. How unusual, how scurrilous! An architect who is willing to forfeit a commission for the well being of the users! In 1996, French architects Lacaton and Vassal were requested to submit plans for the beautification of a town square in Bordeaux, and deduced that significant architectural problems didn't really exist at all, and that the money would be better spent on long-term maintenance, traffic management projects, and the resurrection of a traditional local festival. How absurd, no building at all! Alas, the city's authorities rejected the proposals and found another planner. The Advocacy Planning Movement of the late 1960s in the U.S.