Hasta La Ideas

VDF has teamed up with Terreform One to bring together authors Mitch Joachim, Julia Watson, Eran Chen and Paul Miller in a live discussion about sustainable design in a post-coronavirus world.

The four authors will discuss their work live on VDF today at 5:00pm UK time.

Mitch Joachim, co-founder of New York architecture research platform Terreform One, will discuss his new book Design With Life: Biotech Architecture and Resilient Cities.

Designer and environmentalist Julia Watson will talk about Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism. Eran Chen, founding principal of New York architect ODA, will speak about Unboxing New York.

Paul Miller, AKA DJ Spooky, will discuss Digital Fictions: The Future of Storytelling.

The discussion has been put together as a reflection of Earth Day yesterday. “It’s time to use the power of design to combat planetary extinction,” says Joachim, whose non-profit and research organization Terreform One looks at how design practices can cultivate biological processes and create resilient answers to tomorrow’s most pressing urban challenges.

“We are always looking for new narratives, where nature can provide solutions and connect us to our surroundings,” said Eran Chen of ODA. “It’s time to look at new typologies to reconnect society”.

“We need to learn how to live symbiotically with nature and stop designing it into extinction,” said Julia Watson, whose book explores how technologies developed by indigenous communities could offer solutions to climate change.

“What some see as advanced technology I often see as tone-deaf and two-dimensional. We can’t design around nature, we must learn to design with it.”

“There are so many examples,” Watson told Dezeen in a recent interview about her book Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism. “They have increased biodiversity; they’re producing food; they’re flood-mitigating; they’re resilient in terms of foreshore conditions; they’re cleaning water; they’re carbon sequestering.”

About Virtual Design Festival

Virtual Design Festival, the world’s first digital design festival, runs from 15 April to 30 June 2020. It is a platform that will bring the architecture and design world together to celebrate the culture and commerce of our industry, and explore how it can adapt and respond to extraordinary circumstances.

VDF will host a rolling programme of online talks, lectures, movies, product launches and more, complementing and supporting fairs and festivals around the world that have had to be postponed or cancelled and it will provide a platform for design businesses, so they can, in turn, support their supply chains.

To find out what’s coming up at VDF, check out the schedule. For more information or to join the mailing list, email vdf@dezeen.com.

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