"Design for the Other 90%," on view at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan through Sept. 23, seems born directly from this big idea. As the title implies, the exhibition is meant to persuade designers and design aficionados to turn away in embarrassment from our usual preoccupations: namely, expensive vanity projects, including $599 cellphones (are you still in that iPhone line?), $4,500 sofas and $3-million second homes. In place of those designs, it gives us a range of projects aimed at increasing, in the words of the museum, "access to food and water, energy, education, healthcare, revenue-generating activities, and affordable transportation for those who most need them."