Today, Plymouth University very generously awarded me an honorary doctorate. Here is my short statement to this year’s graduating class in Design, Architecture and Environment. I nearly failed to get here yesterday, and I want to tell you why. The road from my house to the city passes through a spectacular gorge. Several weeks ago, after some especially violent rainstorms, […]
Cateran’s Common Wealth
Clare Cooper interview with John Thackara, 08 August 2014 John, why do you think so much attention is being paid to the ideas around the notion of ’the commons’ right now? The commons is an idea, and a practice, that generates meaning and hope. Millions of people are busy in projects to meet practical needs […]
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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 […]
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Laboratory for Microclimates
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 […]
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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 […]
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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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From Bike Chain to Blockchain: Three Questions About Cooperation Platforms and Mobility
Should transport systems be designed to save time – or calories? Who should own mobility sharing platforms: private companies? cities? us? What kind of ecosystem is needed to support the sharing platforms we want? These three questions are the focus of a workshop in London on 25 November. I’ve asked a three friends to join me on a panel: Tessy Britton, Co-founder of Civic […]