Under what circumstances would we become mindful stewards of living systems, not just their expoiters? The Dutch artist Annechien Meier re-connects us – viscerally, and emotionally – with our social and ecological surroundings. [Above: De-paving begins in Arnhem. Photo: Laboratory for Microclimates] Human beings are clever in many ways, but our attention is easily distracted from the support systems that […]
Socially Smart Sanitation
Ugly Indians don’t blame their fellow citizens, or politicians, or ‘the system’: They act first, and then they talk. They make it “our” problem, not “your” problem.
How to be a rock
(Above: A forest skills workshop in Big Tree Country) Last month I spent a day in a small town of 2,000 people in Perthshire, Scotland, with the following group of people: a blacksmith; a book maker; a soldier turned master mead maker; an artist whose work explores how we interact with the ecology of the […]
Posted in city & bioregion
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Leathershed lab
On Saturday 12 December, together with Mansi Gupta, I’m running a workshop at the UnBox Festival in Delhi. We will develop the programme of a Lab, to be situated at the heart of India’s largest leather-producing region, that will develop products and services that combine clean forms of leather making with direct connections between between producers and customers.
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Shelter Without A Concrete Roof
Public performance in Kisangani. Image © Studios Kabako Studios Kabako, a dance company from Africa, is the winner of this year’s 2014 Curry Stone Design Prize, an important international award. Using dance, theater, and music, Studios Kabako help local communities envision positive alternatives in a city that has known devastating armed conflict over many years. […]
Posted in perception
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Housing Without Building
The family of swallows that spent the summer in the eaves behind my office here in France have headed south for the winter. Soon, as Christmas beckons, they’ll reach their destinations: Botswana, Namibia or South Africa. After just two months gorging on insects, they’ll begin the epic journey back. The strongest among them will make […]
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How Does This Forest Think?
AUTUMN NEWSLETTER Xskool on Grinda UnBox in India Forthcoming events XSKOOL ON GRINDA Fifty designers, artists and architects spent a week at our Xskool on Grinda last month to explore two questions: What does this food system taste like? and, How does this forest think? One team staged the Soil Tasting Ceremony shown above. They made infusions […]
Posted in transition & design
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Wild Learning: 96 Ecological Learning Resources
Although we’ve allowed the metabolic interaction between man and the earth to wither, educators are working on a cure.
Posted in Handouts & Lists, learning & design
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Bioregions: Notes On A Design Agenda
In myriad projects around the world, a new economy is emerging whose core value is stewardship, not extraction. Growth, in this new story, means soils, biodiversity and watersheds getting healthier, and communities more resilient. These seedlings are cheering, but when it comes to binding diverse groups together around a common agenda, something more is needed. We need a compelling […]