In his new show at the German Architecture Center (DAZ) Matthias Megyeri has developed a design language for the artefacts of protection and security in public space.
Megyeri poses the question: does protection have to be inconsistent with harmony and beauty? His answer is a family of padlocks, chains, fences, and razor wire that he describes as ‘lovable objects’. Read More
The UK government’s digital services platform, gov.uk, has won the Design of the Year award – and if I were running a big IT consulting firm grown fat on big government contracts, I’d be worried.
Gov.uk is a revolutionary web operation that governments around the world are beginning to notice. Twenty four UK government departments will be on the site by the end of the month – and Government Digital Services (GDS) plans to bring 300 adjacent agencies on board in a next phase. In all, the programme will replace 2,000 websites.
In the UK, more than a billion transactions per year take Read More
Over the ages we’ve invested huge amounts of effort and energy to keep cities and nature separate. What would it mean if that were about to change?
The writer Thomas Berry described as the ecozoic the “reintegration of human endeavours into a larger ecological consciousness”. The ecozoic, Berry believed, would supplant the Anthropocene age, that we live in now, in which human needs take precedence over the health of the earth’s forests, oceans, and other living systems. Our species will only begin to make true progress, Berry believed, when
(Photo: Mapping a bioregion with plants – Joachim Robert Cyanotype workshop at FuturePerfect 2012)
In what ways can design help people interact with living systems in ways that help both of them thrive? And, what small practical steps might one take to test the effect of small actions on the system as a whole? Read More
[The chart above is from the online catalogue of cargo bikes at Nutzrad]
India’s many millions of bicycle and rickshaw vendors embody the entrepreneurship, sustainable mobility, social innovation, and thriving local economies, that a sustainable city needs.
As an ecosystem, they’re also part of the metabolism that makes a city smart.
That said, cycle commerce is a challenge for a city’s managers. Many different actors are involved in bicycle commerce – often with differing or downright conflicting agendas. Managing this kind of urban constellation is Read More
(Image from http://openwear.org/)
In recent months a working party in India, chaired by Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovation, has been developing the plan for a nationwide network of 20 Design Innovation Centres, an Open Design School, and a National Design Innovation Network. The latest public version of the plan is here: Download pdf
During this process, I was invited by Abhimanyu Nohwar to make a short statement to the group by way of a ‘useful provocation’. Here, below, is what I said:
Sixteen years ago, when Sam Pitroda spoke at our Doors of Perception conference, whose theme was “speed”, he told us that connectivity is as much about the design of clever business models, as it is about Read More
The term metabolic rift describes the alienation between humans and nature that opened up with the growth of the the modern economy. Could the growth of bioregionalism, and research into ‘social-ecological systems’, be signs that the rift may be healing? And if so, what are the opportunities for design to contribute?
[Picture: The Stockholm Resilience Centre investigates the governance of social-ecological systems. Shown here is a rural agricultural system in Madagascar]
Spare a thought for global business leaders as they prepare for this year’s World Economic Forum, in Switzerland. Instead of a guide to apres-ski eateries, their host has sent them Read More
Good news from Germany: A ‘global transformation of values has already begun’. It’s proving tough to leverage changing attitudes into sustainable behaviour – but a transition to a more sustainable society ‘would be welcomed by a significant part of world society’.
In a 400-page report called World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability, the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WGBU), the heavyweight scientific body that advises the German Federal Government on ‘Earth System Megatrends’, reviewed a wide-range of values surveys. A significant majority of the German population, it found, views growth and capitalism with scepticism and ‘does not believe in the resilience of Read More
Cycle Commerce As An Ecosystem
(Illustration: Sameer Kulavoor Ghoda Bicycle Project)
At a workshop in Delhi a few weeks back, during the UnBox Festival, Arjun Mehta and myself posed the following question to a group of 20 professionals from diverse backgrounds: What new products, services or ingredients are needed to help a cycle commerce ecosystem flourish in India’s cities, towns and villages? Read More »