For Gunter Pauli it’s the sight of electronic devices that need batteries or electric wires in order to function. For me it’s hard or paved surfaces. For Usman Haque, it’s these pigs in a poke. These curious obsessions reflect new questions being raised about the design of things. My obsession first. After being mesmerised by […]
[no topic]
DOORS OF PERCEPTION PORTFOLIO
Below you will find short descriptions of the main projects we have produced since 2000. We also publish Doors of Perception Report, a free monthly email newsletter here. Four Days Halifax (week of sustainability events, Halifax Nova Scotia, 2009)
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
Four Days Halifax (week of sustainability events, Halifax Nova Scotia, 2009)
Doors of Perception helped to organize Four Days Halifax – a time-compressed mini-festival whose aim was to help the city get its hands muddy in a green economy Our starting point in Four Days was that many elements of a resilient Halifax already exist in embryonic form – but not all of them are visible […]
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
2012 Imperative Teach-In (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2009)
Designers have an important role to play as enablers of the a transition to a sustainable system. As a society, we have the capacity to create systems that will allow us to live within the limits of the earth’s ecosystem. But the necessary changes are not being made – or not fast enough. How might […]
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
Do we need any more things?
Well, it’s a question. All objects use resources, and have consequences. It’s one of the topics i touched on during my lecture at the LIFT conference in Marseille last week.
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
Hackers help government to open up
Paul Jongsma draws my attention to an intriguing event on 13 June called HackdeOverheid (Hack the government). HackdeOverheid will focus on building prototypes or web platforms that demonstrate in practise how government services can be improved when they are based on open-ness. The idea is to harness the passion of eager developers, who already know […]
Posted in [no topic]
2 Responses
The Landfill Designers (Programme for BBC Radio 4, 2009)
The term ‘planned obsolescence’ was coined in the 1950s but has never been more relevant. Our desire to possess the latest style can mean more in landfill, and more children in China and India sifting through toxic waste. But some argue that a fast turnover in products stimulates innovation in new technologies and reusable materials. […]
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
After the High life?
I was taken on a sneak preview visit to The High Line in New York. It’s an elevated public park on a 1.5 mile elevated railway that runs along the West Side of Manhattan. Everyone is rightly proud that this historic rail structure has been saved from being razed by developers. 150 million dollars have […]
Posted in [no topic]
Leave a comment
Metrics and Aesthetics (cont.)
I can understand why Enrico Giovannini, Chief Statistician of the OECD, is so pleased with with his new visualzation tool, the OECD Factbook Explorer. Few people on the planet can be responsible for a larger volume of statistics than he is – or so aware that the more data proliferate, the harder it is to […]