care

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Infrastructures of care

Most of these projects that are heavy, expensive and ecologically damaging. But in the absence of practical alternatives, simply saying "Stop!" is hopeless advice for the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on hard infra, now. Alternatives to concrete - infrastructures of care - are proliferating, and design can play a key role in moving these alternatives into the mainstream.

2023-08-26T12:34:27+00:00August 22nd, 2023|biodiversity, care, development, earth repair|

Ethics, Design, Care

This short talk is about an economy with caring for life as its centre, rather than extraction and production. I compare earth care to modern medical care, and suggest that looking is not the same as caring. I ask what design can learn from Care Ethics – and find inspiration [continue …]

2023-03-13T09:13:02+00:00March 3rd, 2023|biodiversity, care, development, most read, nature-connection, urban-rural|

Ideas for the City That Cares: Ezio Manzini’s new book, Livable Proximity

(This my review of Ezio Manzini's new book). You and I use more energy & resources in single month than our great-grandparents used during their whole lifetime. The science says we can only thrive in future by meeting our everyday needs using five percent of the energy and material throughputs we’re using now. That’s a Factor 20 reduction. What is anyone supposed to do with that information?

2022-10-10T13:32:36+00:00April 28th, 2022|care, urban-rural|

Tools for Changemakers: Conversation with David Bollier

Mutual aid. Local money. Collaborative care. Alternative futures are being created around the world -. but not, for the most part, in plain sight. David Bollier’s new book – Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking: Tools for the Transitions Ahead – brings dozens of social projects like these to [continue …]

2023-03-06T09:54:56+00:00March 19th, 2022|care, civic ecology, commoning, green finance, most read|

Beyond Calculation: AI and Sustainability

(Keynote talk in China): Even before AI came along, “what’s good for humans” helped shape an economy that extracts vitality, as well as resources, from the planet’s living systems. This cultural disconnection – between the living world, and the economic one – explains why we either don’t think about rivers, soils, and biodiversity at all – or we treat them as natural ‘resources’ whose only purpose is to feed “the economy.”

2022-10-07T11:41:03+00:00December 9th, 2021|care, development, most read|

The relationship of my texts to a dead fish

(A conversation with John Wood, professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, and joint editor (with Julia Lockheart) of the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice). I question why artists and designers should be encouraged to write in an intellectual way. After all these years, I still don’t understand the need to converse in abstruse language.

2022-10-04T14:10:53+00:00March 4th, 2021|care|

Arborists Arising: From Tree Care to Tree Camping

Hundreds of cities around the world are planting trees. But planting trees is just the start. A wide variety of activities and equipment - and a lot of knowledge-sharing - are involved in the management of tree popultions. Trees have to be climbed, pruned, inspected, and surveyed. All this involves equipment and services - most of which still need to be designed.

2023-04-28T10:53:37+00:00May 7th, 2018|care, nature-connection|

Wellness In A Regional Context: New Masters Course

Wellbeing is intimately linked to connection - to other people, but also to place, and the living systems that inhabit it. Relational design creates those connections (I helped design this Masters in Relational Design course for Bangor University; at this time - September 2022 - it has not been re-started since Covid).

2023-04-18T07:32:22+00:00April 28th, 2018|care|

When Tech In Care Is Evil

I spent the last two weeks in-and-around a care home in England that looks after people with dementia and terminal illness, and their families – including, this time, mine.

In four wings, each with 12 residents, 24/7 care is provided by teams of trained professionals who work [continue …]

2022-10-04T10:14:53+00:00June 20th, 2014|care|

The Dementia Care Economy

Yesterday’s G8 Dementia Summit made much of the fact that millions will now be spent in a race to identify a cure or a ‘disease-modifying therapy’ for dementia.  The likely outcome will be the creation of a Dementia Industrial Complex – and the mass production of un-met expectations.A better way for [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:23:49+00:00December 19th, 2013|care, most read|

5% health: The risk of catabolic collapse and peak fat in modern health systems, what to do about them, and how design can help

This text touches on: 'energy intensity in health systems' , 'peak fat' , '5% health in Cuba', 'the Quantified Self' , 'Design grammars for health and care' , 'doing what we know we need to do'.

2023-09-01T17:02:55+00:00September 21st, 2011|care, most read|

Doctors with iPhones

I’ve been back from New York a week and I’m still mesmerised by the story of Hello Health. Tamara Giltsoff, a service designer, introduced me to this wondrous new outfit who are making it easy again to see the doctor.
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The [continue …]

2015-06-20T20:44:12+00:00May 8th, 2009|care, commoning|

Call from system: Chill !

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Mobile phones tend to be personal devices and Intel plans to take that further – a lot further.
Researchers Margaret Morris and Farzin Guilak are developing “mobile therapy” – a system of just-in-time personal coaching, by the system, that is triggered [continue …]

2022-09-28T15:16:54+00:00May 2nd, 2009|care|

Work/Life balance

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In January, as I do every year, I resolved to balance work and life in a more mature way. It’s now September 16th, and….well, we’re not quite there yet.

2022-08-28T20:20:26+00:00September 16th, 2008|care|

Dog days for the health service

After this I promise to stop obsessing about mad people running the world. But really. Today’s Guardian reports that Richard Granger, architect of the world’s biggest imploding IT project, compared the NHS project to a sled being pulled by huskies. “When one of the dogs goes lame, and [continue …]

2022-10-07T19:17:25+00:00August 26th, 2006|care|

Design and elders: The Presence project

Imagine a world where every second European adult is over fifty years old. And where two-thirds of disposable consumer income is held by this age-group. By 2020 this will be a reality. There will be huge demand for services that enable older people to live independently in their own communities [continue …]

2015-06-20T20:06:12+00:00January 22nd, 2000|care, commoning|
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