Relational Intelligence

Chapter 1 Why are we still debating form versus function?

Architects, artists and designers have been arguing about it for more than a century.

One side says beauty follows function.

Build the best chair.

Beauty will emerge.

It’s an elegant idea.

But it also made me wonder…

Why are we still having this argument?

If one side had won, we’d have stopped talking about it decades ago.

Maybe the debate has survived because we’ve been arguing over a word we never properly defined.

Function.

A chair’s primary function feels relatively easy to agree on.

It supports a body.

A bridge helps us cross a river.

A kettle boils water.

People might design them differently.

But we broadly agree what they’re for.

Art is different.

What’s its function?

Beauty? Expression? Storytelling? Documentation? Political critique? Historical record?

None of those felt complete.

Then another possibility emerged.

What if art is functional too?

Not mechanically.

Humanly.

I found myself saying something I hadn’t quite thought before.

I think the function of art is to make someone feel something.

Not everyone.

Someone.

If a painting changes another person’s experience of the world, even for a moment…

Hasn’t it fulfilled its function?

If nobody is changed…

Has it failed?

Surely all responses to art are feeling?

That question completely changed the direction of my thinking.

I’d been trying to separate emotional art from intellectual art.

But can we?

Take Duchamp’s urinal.

It wasn’t trying to make us cry.

It was asking a philosophical question.

Fair.

But what actually happens when someone encounters it?

They laugh. They’re annoyed. They’re curious. They’re confused. They argue.

Even an intellectual puzzle creates a feeling.

Maybe curiosity isn’t separate from emotion.

Maybe it’s one of its forms.

Perhaps every successful artwork changes feeling.

Joy. Wonder. Confusion. Recognition. Curiosity. Belonging.

The artist’s intention might not have been emotional.

But perhaps the work is only completed through human feeling.

Then the same question appeared somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

Ritual.

A wedding makes almost no sense if efficiency is the goal.

A signature creates a legal marriage.

A wedding takes months to organise.

Costs a fortune.

Consumes an entire day.

So why do we still do it?

Because perhaps its function was never legal.

Its function is transformation.

Yesterday two people understood themselves one way.

Today they understand themselves another.

The ceremony doesn’t record the transition.

It creates it.

The same is true of funerals.

An email would communicate the facts much faster.

Instead we gather.

We tell stories. We cry. We hug. We sing. We eat. We stand together.

Objectively…

It’s inefficient.

Humanly…

It might be one of the greatest technologies we’ve ever invented.

The feeling isn’t a by-product. The feeling is the function.

At this point I realised something.

Maybe Adolf Loos wasn’t wrong.

Maybe he’d simply inherited a definition of function that was too narrow.

We’ve largely treated function as utility.

But what if function includes transformation?

Not just:

What does this do?

But:

What changes because this exists?

That question has been quietly following me ever since.

Because if function includes transformation…

Then another question immediately follows.

Transformation into what?

Chapter 2 Transformation into what?

If art transforms…

If ritual transforms…

If education transforms…

If AI transforms…

Then another question becomes unavoidable.

Transformation into what?

Better?

According to who?

The designer? The artist? The teacher? The company? The government? The AI?

As soon as we say design should help people become something…

We inherit an enormous responsibility.

Because every design already carries an answer.

Most of the time, it just isn’t spoken aloud.

A social media platform might optimise for attention.

A school might optimise for examination results.

A workplace might optimise for productivity.

A meditation app might optimise for calm.

An AI assistant might optimise for speed.

Each one quietly answers the same question.

What kind of human being should emerge from this interaction?

Whether intentionally or not, every design carries a theory of the human being it is trying to produce.

My instinct is to answer that question.

Personally, I suspect the direction is towards greater awareness.

Towards higher consciousness.

Towards becoming more fully human.

But whose definition is that?

Mine? Yours? A Buddhist’s? A neuroscientist’s? A government minister’s? A Silicon Valley founder’s? An AI company?

The more I thought about it…

The less comfortable I became with giving the manifesto an answer.

Perhaps Relational Intelligence shouldn’t tell people who they ought to become.

Perhaps that’s the point.

A teacher doesn’t decide who a student becomes.

They create conditions in which learning becomes possible.

An artist doesn’t decide what someone feels.

They create conditions in which feeling becomes possible.

A therapist doesn’t prescribe an identity.

They create conditions in which change becomes possible.

A wedding doesn’t force commitment.

It creates conditions in which two people willingly step into a new identity.

Even a chair creates conditions.

It invites rest.

Every design creates conditions.

Some conditions narrow people.

Others expand them.

Perhaps designers have misunderstood their role.

We’re not designing people. We’re not designing behaviour. We’re designing the conditions in which behaviour, relationships and identities emerge.

That’s a very different responsibility.

At first, I wondered whether this was simply another paradox.

Beauty and function. Efficiency and meaning. Truth and empathy. Reason and emotion.

Two opposing ideas that somehow both have to coexist.

But that didn’t feel quite right.

A paradox suggests contradiction.

This felt more like navigation.

I came across the idea of Polarity Management.

The insight is simple.

Some tensions aren’t problems to solve.

They’re conditions to steward.

Stability and innovation. Short term and long term. Centralisation and decentralisation.

The work isn’t choosing one.

It’s learning when each serves the purpose.

That felt much closer.

But something still bothered me.

The work is managing the tension…

Towards what?

Imagine an orchestra.

The violin doesn’t win.

The cello doesn’t lose.

Sometimes one leads.

Sometimes another supports.

Sometimes silence carries the melody.

The purpose isn’t balance.

The purpose is the music.

Or imagine steering a sailing boat.

You never find perfect balance and hold it.

The wind changes. The tide changes. The weather changes.

You make thousands of tiny adjustments.

Not because balance is the destination.

Because you’re trying to reach one.

Maybe that’s what good design requires.

Not optimisation. Not compromise. Not balance.

Discernment.

The continual practice of sensing what this moment needs.

Responding. Adjusting. Attuning.

Always in service of something larger than the design itself.

And perhaps that’s where I finally landed.

The purpose of design isn’t simply to help people do more.

It’s to create the conditions in which people can become.

Not become what I think they should become.

Not become what a product team wants them to become.

But to expand their capacity to choose.

Perhaps that’s the quiet ethical responsibility hiding underneath every design decision.

Not…

What am I building?

Not even…

What does this help people do?

But…

Who might this help people become?

2.1 What isn’t design?

We’ve spent a century arguing about what good design looks like.

Perhaps we’ve asked another question too rarely.

What isn’t design?

Gravity isn’t design.

The weather isn’t design.

Death isn’t design.

Evolution isn’t design.

They exist whether we like them or not.

We inherit them.

Neither is language.

Or culture.

Or trust.

At least, not entirely.

Nobody designed English.

Nobody designed friendship.

Nobody designed money.

These things emerged.

They continue to evolve.

Sometimes intentionally.

Mostly not.

That made me wonder if I’d been giving design too much credit.

Perhaps design doesn’t create worlds.

Perhaps it intervenes within them.

It never starts with a blank page.

It starts with reality.

Biology. History. Culture. Relationships.

Every design is an intervention into something that already exists.

That feels strangely comforting.

Design isn’t everything.

Nor is it nothing.

It’s one of the uniquely human ways we participate in the ongoing evolution of the world.

Then another thought appeared.

Birds build nests. Beavers build dams. Termites build cities.

None of those are designed in quite the way human artefacts are.

Humans do something different.

We can pause.

Imagine an alternative future.

Choose between possibilities.

And intentionally reshape the conditions that might bring one of those futures into existence.

Perhaps that is design.

Not making things.

Not solving problems.

Intentionally participating in the future.

That sentence…

I think that’s a keeper.

Not because it’s poetic.

Because it gives design a boundary.

It says:

Nature evolves. Culture emerges. Humans intentionally participate.

But then…

Why?

Why do humans intentionally participate?

And why does AI make that question suddenly feel urgent again?

Chapter 3 Relational Intelligence

Up until this point I’d been thinking about art.

And ritual.

And AI.

They all seemed like different conversations.

I’m no longer sure they are.

I think they’re all asking the same question.

Not:

What are we making?

But:

What are we making possible?

A chair creates the possibility of rest.

A bridge creates the possibility of crossing.

A school creates the possibility of learning.

A wedding creates the possibility of a new identity.

A memorial creates the possibility of shared remembrance.

An AI assistant creates the possibility of thinking, deciding and relating differently.

Every design creates possibilities.

Every design closes others.

Perhaps that’s what designers have always done.

Not create objects.

Create conditions.

The more I sat with this, the more another question emerged.

If we’re designing conditions…

What are those conditions made of?

Relationships.

The relationship between a student and a teacher.

Between a patient and a doctor.

Between a parent and a child.

Between a citizen and a government.

Between a person and an AI.

Between a person and themselves.

The object is rarely the point. The relationship is.

That made me realise something else.

We often talk about “the user.”

As though design happens between one person and one product.

But that’s almost never true.

Take a wedding ring.

Its value isn’t in the metal.

It’s in the relationship it symbolises.

Take a passport.

Its value isn’t the paper.

It’s the relationship between a citizen and a nation.

Take money.

Its value isn’t the note.

It’s the relationship of trust between strangers.

Take language.

Words aren’t valuable because of ink or sound.

They’re valuable because they allow minds to meet.

Again and again, the thing isn’t the thing.

The relationship is.

Maybe that’s why AI feels different from previous technologies.

A hammer doesn’t remember me.

A book doesn’t adapt to me.

A bridge doesn’t negotiate with me.

AI increasingly does.

We’re no longer interacting with static tools.

We’re entering ongoing relationships.

Some helpful. Some manipulative. Some dependent. Some liberating. Some we don’t yet have words for.

That changes the responsibility of design.

If AI is relational…

Then success can’t be measured only by usability.

Or accuracy.

Or engagement.

We have to ask different questions.

Does this relationship leave people with more agency?

More awareness? More confidence? More curiosity? More capacity?

Or does it slowly make them smaller?

More dependent. More distracted. More passive. More anxious.

Notice something.

None of those questions can be answered by the interface alone.

They’re answered over time.

Through repeated interactions.

Relationships aren’t judged in moments.

They’re judged in trajectories.

Perhaps products should be too.

That’s why I’m beginning to think we’ve been measuring the wrong things.

We measure clicks. Completion rates. Retention. Revenue. Latency. Accuracy.

Those matter.

They always will.

But they’re measures of performance.

Not of relationship.

Imagine judging a marriage by response time.

Or a friendship by efficiency.

Or a parent by task completion.

The metrics aren’t wrong.

They’re simply incomplete.

Perhaps AI needs a new question.

Not:

Can it complete the task?

But:

Who does this relationship help me become after a thousand interactions?

Because that’s when design reveals its true function.

Not in a single use.

In the person left behind.

Maybe that’s what I mean by Relational Intelligence.

Not another design process.

Not another framework.

A shift in attention.

From objects… to relationships.

From outputs… to trajectories.

From optimisation… to stewardship.

From transactions… to transformation.

From what something does… to who someone is becoming because it exists.

At this point, I no longer think design is primarily the craft of making products.

I think it’s the craft of shaping the conditions in which human relationships evolve.

That includes our relationship with each other.

Our relationship with institutions.

Our relationship with technology.

And perhaps the most important relationship of all.

Our relationship with ourselves.

At first I thought the deeper question was becoming.

Humans are always becoming.

Learning. Changing. Growing. Grieving. Loving. Creating.

But becoming doesn’t happen in isolation.

It happens through relationship.

A child becomes through relationship with a parent.

A student through a teacher.

An artist through an audience.

A friend through another friend.

Perhaps this isn’t just something humans do.

Perhaps it’s what humans are.

We are biological beings.

We are also relational beings.

And if that’s true, then the question isn’t only:

What are we making possible?

But also:

What kind of human being does this make possible?

A classroom doesn’t simply deliver knowledge.

It shapes our relationship with learning.

A hospital doesn’t simply deliver healthcare.

It shapes our relationship with vulnerability, trust and hope.

A social network doesn’t simply connect people.

It reshapes friendship. Attention. Identity. Belonging.

An AI assistant doesn’t simply answer questions.

It reshapes how we think. How we remember. How we decide. How we relate to ourselves.

Relationship is the medium.

Becoming is the process.

And that, perhaps, is what Relational Intelligence is.

Not another design methodology.

Not another framework.

A different way of seeing.

One that begins with a simple observation:

We become through relationship. Therefore every design intervention is, whether intentionally or not, an intervention into the conditions of becoming.

Chapter 4 What remains uniquely human when intelligence is abundant?

This question has been sitting quietly underneath everything.

AI can already write. Translate. Code. Compose music. Generate images. Reason. Teach. Coach.

Soon it will negotiate. Discover. Invent.

Intelligence is becoming abundant.

So what becomes scarce?

At first I thought the answer might be creativity.

I’m no longer convinced.

AI is remarkably creative.

Then perhaps empathy.

But AI is becoming increasingly capable of simulating empathy too.

So what remains?

I found myself saying something to a friend recently.

I’m no longer sure what it means to be human.

Then, almost without thinking, another sentence followed.

The one thing I can always contribute is my presence.

Not my productivity.

Not my knowledge.

Not even my creativity.

My presence.

My witnessing.

My participation.

Think about a funeral.

Nobody attends because they’re the smartest person in the room.

They attend because they knew the person.

Because they bear witness.

Because their presence matters.

Think about sitting beside someone in hospital.

Sometimes nothing needs solving.

Sometimes the greatest contribution is simply:

I’m here.

That made me wonder whether we’ve been asking the wrong question.

Perhaps AI isn’t primarily challenging intelligence.

Perhaps it’s challenging participation.

If machines increasingly think, write, remember and decide…

Where does human participation still matter?

Not because humans are more efficient.

But because some forms of participation cannot be delegated.

Watching a wedding is not the same as getting married.

Watching someone dance is not the same as dancing.

Watching a child grow is not the same as raising them.

Participation changes the participant.

Presence changes the moment.

Perhaps that’s why ritual has survived every technological revolution.

Ritual requires participation.

Not observation. Not optimisation.

Participation.

As AI makes intelligence abundant, the scarce resource may no longer be knowledge, productivity or even creativity.

It may be meaningful human participation.

That feels less like a design challenge and more like a human one.

What remains uniquely ours?

Not because machines cannot imitate it.

But because we choose to continue showing up for one another.

Perhaps the future of design isn’t simply making intelligence more powerful.

Perhaps it’s helping human participation become more intentional, more meaningful and more deeply relational.

If that’s true, then the question isn’t whether AI will replace us.

It’s where our presence still matters.

And how we design a future that never forgets why it does.

Chapter 5 Where I’ve landed

So where does all this questioning land?

Not in a method. In a few convictions.

I believe function was never only utility. It is transformation — the measure of a thing is what changes because it exists.

I believe we don’t design people, or behaviour, or even relationships. We design the conditions in which they emerge.

I believe the object is rarely the point. The relationship is.

I believe we become through relationship — so every design, intended or not, is an intervention in who we become.

And I believe that as intelligence becomes abundant, the scarce and human thing is presence: our willingness to participate, to witness, to show up for one another.

That is what I mean by Relational Intelligence. Not a framework. A commitment — to design for who we help each other become.