Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World Book

Figures and Tables xi

Acronyms and Abbreviations xv

Acknowledgements xvii

Preface xix

1 Scoping the Territory: Design, Activism and Sustainability 1

Defining 'design' today 1

Defining 'activism' today 5

Activism and the Five Capitals Framework 6

The Activism landscape 10

Activism in architecture, design and art 17

Motivation and intention 18

Issue-led design and the sustainability challenge 20

Defining the design activism space 24

Drawing lines between 'avant-garde' and 'activism' 26

A preliminary definition of 'design activism' 27

Notes 27

2 Past Lessons: A Short History of Design in Activist Mode, 1750-2000 33

Design as 'giving form to culture' 33

1750-1960: Mass production and (sporadic) modernity 37

Existenzminimum and other socially orientated housing projects by the Deutscher Werkbund 38

Bauhaus myths and realities 39

1960-2000: From Pop and Postmodernism to Postmodern ecology and beyond 41

The Postmodern ecologists 42

The alternative designers 43

The eco-efficiency activists 47

What are the lessons learnt? 48

Notes 50

3 Global-Local Tensions: Key Issues for Design in an Unsustainable World 55

A precarious balance in a changing climate 56

Resource depletion 60

Oil and peak oil 61

Essential minerals 62

Land for food production 62

Water for humans and agriculture 62

Ecological capacity and biodiversity 63

Unsustainable consumption and production 67

Social inequity, poverty and migration 67

Economic inequity and new visions of enterprise 69

Other significant issues 71

Notes 72

4 Contemporary Expressions: Design Activism, 2000 Onwards 77

Thinking about design activism 78

'Sociallyactive design': some emergent studies 78

An emergent typology of contemporary design activism? 79

Another approach to contextualizing design activism 81

The critical role of artefacts in design activism 85

Activism targeting the over-consumers 86

Raising awareness, changing perceptions, changing behaviour 86

Ways of making and producing 95

Eco-efficiency improvements 107

Contesting meaning and consumption 113

Social cohesion and community building 121

Miscellaneous activism 123

Activism targeting the under-consumers 123

Shelter, water, food 126

Raising awareness by education 129

Tackling health issues 132

Miscellaneous activism 133

Notes 134

5 Designing Together: The Power of 'We Think', 'We Design', 'We Make' 141

Dealing with 'wicked problems' 142

The rise of co-creation, co-innovation and co-design 143

The open source and open design movements 144

The intellectual commons 145

Design approaches that encourage participation 146

Co-design 147

Notes 160

6 Activist Frameworks and Tools: Nodes, Networks and Technology 167

People, people, people 167

Toolbox for online world 169

Existing design activism networks 169

Distributed collaboration 169

Ways of sharing visualizations 173

Ways of making 174

Toolbox for real world 175

Selecting the right kind of co-design event 177

Notes 183

7 Adaptive Capacity: Design as a Societal Strategy for Designing 'Now' and 'Co-futuring' 187

Design for a better future 190

The happy sustainable planet? 190

Bio-local and bio-regional 191

Emerging enterprise models 193

New ways of making and building 194

Eco-efficient futures (slowing and powering down) 194

Regeneration and renewal 194

Maverick, solo designer or co-designer? 195

Anticipatory democracy and the 'MootSpace' 196

Notes 200

Appendices

Appendix 1 Key Design Movements and Groups, 1850-2000: Activist, but Where, and for Whom or What? 203

Appendix 2 The Millennium Development Goals, published by the United Nations (2000): Goals, Targets and Indicators 214

Appendix 3 Metadesign Tools Emerging from the Attainable Utopias Project 219

Appendix 4 Slow Design Principles, Philosophy, Process and Outcomes 224

Appendix 5 The DEEDS Core Principles 225

Appendix 6 Nodes of Design Activism 230

Illustration credits 233

Index 235