Hasta La Ideas

pIf you weren’t lucky enough to be there in person to listen to John Thackara’s a href=”http://dcrit.sva.edu/conference2010/”DCrit Symposium/a Keynote, you can now read the whole thing on John’s a href=”http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2010/05/post_54.ph”Doors of Perception Blog/a. Here’s a sweet spot:/p

blockquoteI’m describing a way of looking at the world through a fresh lens. Rather than look at the world and think about extraction and consumption, it’s about looking for ways to preserve, steward and restore assets – human and natural ones, or so-called net present assets, that already exist.

pDesigners have an important contribution to make. Not much, any more, as the creators of new products, buildings, and communications. New is an old paradigm./p

pWhat designers can do is cast fresh and respectful eyes on a situation to reveal material and cultural qualities that might not be obvious to those who live them./p

pThis kind of regenerative design re-imagines the built world not as a landscape of frozen objects, but as a complex of interacting, co-dependent ecologies: energy, water, food./p

pNabeel Hamdi points out that “design disturbs that which it touches…we need to give priority to the existing life and intelligence of place. There are vast latent resources in existing situations.”/p

pHamdi, the author of “Small Change” and “Housing without Houses” is working with Habitat for Humanity on a “mind shift” – from “building shelters” to a greater appreciation for existing social and ecological assets./p

pWhat I experience, in muntiple contexts, is the re-emergence of a ethical framework. /blockquote/p

pRead the entire talk a href=”http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2010/05/post_54.php”here/a./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/great_for_a_sunday_read_john_thackara_on_crossing_the_line_16491.asp”(more…)/a
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