Bioregioning: Sounds Nice, but I Need a Job
On Tuesday 20 May I’m hosting a session (with [continue …]
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Bioregional Conversations
We ask real-world practitioners: What does bioregioning mean to you ? How does it catalyse/amplifiy your work? Which relationships are most important in your work?
John Thackara News: Designing for life – from microbes to bioregions
CONTENTS: Website upgrade | Where to meet post-Twitter? | Meetups & Residences | Designing for Life Case Studies | Edible Food Forests | Bioregioning in India | Nature Reconnection Podcast | Moth-friendly Fashion | Designing for Interdependence | Chinese ‘In The Bubble’ |
Bioregions by design, South Devon, England
A bioregion re-connects us with living systems, and each other, [continue …]
Bioregioning: Pathways to Urban-Rural Reconnection
My 6k words paper for She Ji. Keywords: Bioregion | Urban-rural reconnection | Civic ecology | Social infrastructure | Smart villages | System change | Knowledge ecologies
From Neighbourhood To Bioregion: The City as a Living System
The Greek physician Hippocrates described the effects of “airs, waters, and places” on the health of individuals and communities. The industrial age distracted us from this whole-systems understanding of the world - but we are now learning again to think of cities as habitats, and as ecosystems, that co-exist on a single living planet. (Chapter for a new Cite du Design book)
Back To The Land: Design Agenda For Bioregions
To effect the system change we yearn for, we need a shared purpose that diverse groups people can relate to, and support, whatever their other differences. My candidate for that connective idea is the bioregion. A bioregion re-connects us with living systems, and each other, through the places where we live. It acknowledges that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, fibersheds, and food systems – not just in cities, towns, or ‘the countryside’.
Earth Repair In Your Bioregion: Short Course at @SchumacherColl
Ecological restoration adds new kinds of value to planning and design. On this short course, I introduce you to projects, framed by their bioregion, in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts: regenerative agriculture; civic ecology; green infrastructure; river recovery; wetlands restoration; blue-green corridors; pollinator pathways; urban forests; and the use of plants to restore polluted soil
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Bioregions: Notes On A Design Agenda
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Venice: from Gated Lagoon to Bioregion
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From Autobahn to Bioregion
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Newsletter & 2025 Thackara Meetup Dates
Thackara Meetups In France
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Can AI enable new ways of knowing – and being?
If sustainability describes a system whose health (or otherwise) is determined by the quality of its social and ecological relationships, in what ways might AI contribute to the health of those relationships?
Introduction (and postscript) to ‘Care, Value, Place’ in Mumbai
The presentations were organised into five threads: regenerative water systems; the social life of mobility; community-based recycling ; success factors in social design; and Community Managed Natural Farming
Design for Multi-Species Cities
Background reading for a workshop: "Design an urban ecology tool, equipment, place, or experience, that will enhance the interdependence of all life in practical ways".
Design for multi-species cities
There is often more biodiversity in a city’s neglected spaces than in well-maintained parks and gardens - and at multiple scales, from microbiome, to bioregion. But these lifeworlds have been hidden from us during the urban age
7-Day-Sabbaticals, the ecological turn in design, and other news
The ecological turn is about reconnection with living systems, and each other, through the unique places where we live. For design, signals of this transformation take many forms - as I learned last month in Shanghai.
What are design institutes actually for?
The role of design institutions, in today's context, is a practical one. It’s to enable reconnection with nature, and designing for life. That's it.
Lifeworlds: Nature as urban infrastructure
Plans are being made to plant billions of trees – but who will care for them, and how? One answer: Green infrastructure is as much social, as it technical. That lesson informed the design of these urban ecology tools, equipment, and experiences.