People come to reflect on what designing for life might mean for them. Some are working on a live project, thesis, course, or book. Others want to transform their professional situation, and only do good work. They use a time-out here to figure out how to do that. Whether you come as an individual, or in a team, your stay here combines me-time, you-time, and we-time. Our meetups are for designers of all kinds, ecologists, curators, team leaders, managers, professors, researchers, artists, and writers.

In previous meetups people came projects to do with:

• agtech for agroecology (Sweden);
• wearable tech for the fragrance industry (UK);
• method cards for sustainable design (Spain);
• design for soil care (France);
• urban ecology dashboard (China);
• school for village hosts (Italy);
• watershed restoration (Scotland);
• starter course on bioregioning (England);
• a national digital archive (Netherlands);
• social-ecological atlas for a province (Belgium);
• post-tourism hospitality (France)

see more at the MeetUp page

The core of my work is to seek out inspiring people who are designing for life, for real, in diverse contexts. I write about their work in books (12) and online (900+ blog posts). In keynote talks, I explain what you can do, with others, to help them thrive. I help universities develop innovation and design projects. I curate festivals and biennials which bring these project leaders together. Between times, together with my partner Kristi van Riet, I host Retreat-MeetUps at our house in France.

From 2026, I am Senior Advisor to Prof. Lou Yongqi at Shanghai University of Engineering Science, where he is president. We will focus on the Design Harvest 3.0 programme. (This builds on my work as a professor at Tongji University since 2019. There, I curated the Urban-Rural Reconnection expo in Shanghai, in 2019, and co-wrote the DesignS Manifesto). I continue to serve on the editorial board of She Ji; advise PhD students in the SustainX Lab; and work with the Ecology & Cultures Lab of Prof Valsecchi.
thackara.com/urbanrural/research-statement-for-tongji-university/

Care, Value, Place is a two-day annual event that I have co-curated since 2024 with BITSdesign. We invite grassroots project leaders to discuss how design might serve their real-world, place-based projects. (In 2026, I continue to serve on the Advisory Group of BITS Design, the new design school in Mumbai founded by Kumar Mangalam Birla, and led by its Dean, Nandita Abraham)
bitsdesign.edu.in/news/care-value-place-conference-mumbai

How best can design serve bioregions, and urban-rural relationships? At the invitation of Professor Irene McAra-McWilliam, OBE, I’m visiting professor at Rural Lab on the Altyre Estate, in Scotland, site of the Glasgow School of Art’s Highlands & Islands Campus. In 2026, I will be also a guest critic for a fifth year at the GSA’s Winter school convened by Professor Gordon Hush and led by Professor Albert Fuster.
gsainnovationschool.com/winter-school

Bioregioning reminds us that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, and fibersheds – not just in cities, towns, or ‘the countryside’. In 2026, I will continue to help Isabel Carlisle, founder of the Bioregional Learning Alliance, develop design courses for early and mid- career professionals.
https://bioregion.org.uk/meet-the-team/

Many small villages in Europe have been suffering from depopulation – but the tide is turning. In 2020, together with Andrea Paoletti and the Casa Netural Foundation, I helped found the Open School for Village Hosts, a community of practice for mid-career professionals. In 2o26, OSVH is repositioned as a movement that helps local leaders enhance and expand activities that create positive ecological and social impact.
villagehosts.eu/future-villages-lies-hands-rural-activators/

A small number (4-10 people) come to explore what designing for life might mean, for them, In practice. Some are already working on a live project. Other groups are exploring alternative new pathways. Starting in 2026, our offsites are hosted by the not-for-profit Doors of Perception Association.
thackara.com/meetinfrance/offsite/

The words ‘Dancing With Life’ were coined by the scientist Donella Meadows to describe healthy ways to connect with, and live among, living systems.
Her words are the working title of my next book which will be co-published by Thames & Hudson and Lilliput Press.

John Thackara Newsletter August 2025

“Balancing proximity and modernity” is the informal theme for our last MeetUp of the year which starts on 28 August (until 4 September).

I’m borrowing the words from Frédéric Bosqué who’s developing a rural transition neighborhood called Tera in the Aquitaine region of France. https://www.tera.coop/ Bosqué reckons regions like his, and Les Cévennes, where we live, are examples of what he calls Rurality 2.0 – a way of life in which nature, culture, and technology are combined in new ways.

linkedin.com/in/fredericbosque

Is Rurality 2.0 a viable thing? Demand for new ways of living is certainly strong among privileged Europeans. Fifty seven per cent of city dwellers in France, for example, say they would like to live closer to nature. Among them, a significant minority would like to live in some kind of ecological settlement in which housing is shared, and healthy vegetables are produced on cooperative farms, and so on.

Despite this strong interest mass resettlement in ecovillages is not happening. “The reality is brutal” Bosqué observes; “80 per cent of planned eco-places never come to fruition. They flourish in people’s minds, and then whither on the ground”.

The short life-expectancy of ecovillages is not a new phenomenon. California’s Utopian Colonies: 1850-1950 – published in 1953 – chronicles a steady stream of projects which failed due to the same political, economic and cultural conflicts that Bosqué identifies, today.

Are there other ways than ecovillages to balance proximity and modernity in practice? We like to think our MeetUps have those qualities – but we don’t live in a designed community. On the contrary, we arrived in this small market town pretty much by accident. But we’re almost local, by now, in a town that’s been adapting to change for more than 1,000 years. We’ll be happy to share what we’ve learned in the last 24 of those.

Frédéric Bosqué runs immersive weekends for anyone wishing to experience Tera close up. The next two are 6/7 September and 25/26 October.

wiki.tera.coop/doku

New urban-rural economies are the main focus of my work In Shanghai, where I’m a visiting prof at Tongji University. I help senior leadership, and faculty, develop real-world research projects, and I also contribute to events. One of these is the World Design Cities Conference (WDCC), in September, which is shifting the focus of design toward a “web of life” framework. I’ll be doing a follow-up to the AgTech for Agroecology lecture I gave on my on my last visit. I posted a transcript, summary, and takeaways, here:

thackara.com/biodiversity/agtech-for-agroecology

System transformations are happening all over – so how can design help? In October, I’m co-curating a second Care, Value, Place (CVP) event at BITS Design school in Mumbai. I say ‘event’ – rather than conference – because CVP is but one element in a knowledge ecosystem that includes grassroots project leaders, student projects, faculty. The library team play a pivotal role as stewards of this emerging knowledge ecosystem. Keynote videos from the first Care Value Place, last September, have been posted on You Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKb-m7MDDLrVkoQ1KJHgBtQ


And here are my reflections on that event.

https://thackara.com/care/introduction-to-care-value-place-mumbai/

My most popular format on Zoom is a 30 minute talk followed by the same time again for discussion. My conversation-starting topics this year are: Designing For Life; Rewilding AI; Oil Age to Soil Age.

https://thackara.com/about/talks/