Design: User-Friendly Winners

“Good design” used to mean “modern” design: simple form derived from a direct accommodation of function. Never mind that this style tended to frustrate the human craving for ornament and historical continuity, or that it often clashed with its surroundings. Orthodoxy decreed that modern, $ functional form was the only valid expression of our time.

The antimodern, or “postmodern,” movement of the past decade has shaken this complacency. Postmodernism is just as abstract, arrogant and alienated from popular culture as “less-is-more” modernism ever was. Worse, it has abandoned all the social aspirations of the early modern movement. Yet antimodernism has demonstrated one important lesson: the absurdity of seeking a universal style. Designers talk increasingly about “pluralism,” and they even picked up computer-advertising jargon about “user friendliness.”

This is good news. It suggests that they no longer see their foremost task as aiding and abetting the wearisome sameness of mechanization. Whether they design office buildings or chairs, suburban homes or personal computers, their aim seems to be to play down the technical aspects and emphasize “the human factor.” The most notable design achievements of 1984 imply, in fact, that good design has little to do with style. Instead, it has to do with improving our living spaces, making them interesting yet harmonious, cheerful yet dignified, efficient yet relaxing.

The Galaxy Theater, a four-screen moviehouse in San Francisco, meets most of these prescriptions with panache. Designed by Kaplan/McLaughlin/D iaz Architects, it is a flashy tower of glass boxes, which at night reveal the multihued interior while reflecting the city lights outside.

Flashiness would only intimidate the clients of the Chatham County Social Services Building in Pittsboro, N.C. This structure was designed by Architect Norma DeCamp Burns of Burnstudio, Raleigh, N.C., to look like a house and convey a homey atmosphere for the staff as well as citizens who come for assistance with Medicare, food stamps and other public welfare programs.

If not exactly homey, the mood that Architect Edward Larrabee Barnes has created in the interiors and the charming sculpture garden of the Dallas Museum of Art is certainly inviting, festive and duly dignified all at once.

What may be the year’s most attractive new suburban campus serves students of hamburger merchandising. It is McDonald’s training school and lodge at Oak Brook, Ill. The low-slung, palatial brick-concrete-and -limestone structures were designed by FCL Associates, the successor firm of Modern Master Mies van der Rohe.

The so-called Classic Country Cottage in Reston, Va., is indeed a small (1,500 sq. ft.), compact cottage. Clever manipulation of the two-level interior spaces, however, makes it look and feel much larger. Designed by Woodstock, N.Y., Architect Lester Walker, the house is made entirely of wood, with cedar bevel siding and bright blue trim. This model home was sponsored by the American Wood Council and House Beautiful magazine.

Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, by Martin/Soderstrom/Matteson Architects, manages to be formal and dignified, and yet lively. It accommodates crowds but also yields intimate spaces with the help of different levels, a colonnade and a fountain to splash in.

The Nike Airborne shoe, developed for runners aged eight to twelve, features the same ergonomic principles as professional running footwear. But the distinctive design feature is the use of a special material in the toe tips and heel that reflects automobile lights at night for safety.

Kids, along with most everyone else, will love the clean design of the Apple IIc personal computer. A team from the frogdesign firm in Campbell, Calif., softened the high-tech computer image, used the air vents in a decorative pattern and gave the machine surprising elegance.

None of the year’s graphics are fresher or more appealing than a poster for the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) show on The Magic of Neon. Designed by Jannes Art Publishing and Beda Ross Design Ltd., it is based on an original neon artwork by Lili Lakich.

Not just the year’s, but surely the decade’s most glittering and effective demonstration of the power of creative design was the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. With only temporary materials, Graphic Designers Sussman/Prejza & Co. and the architects, the Jerde Partnership, gave 28 dowdy and scattered sports facilities identity and colorful vibrancy.