Designers Visionaries and Other Stories
A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays
Edited By Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant
'Books like this one have such an important role to play.'
John Thackara, Director, Doors of Perception
Paperback
Sample Chapter
August 2007 •
144 pages •
246 x 189mm •
ISBN 9781844074129
Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories unpacks the complex and crucial debates surrounding sustainable design to deliver a compelling manifesto for change, at a time of looming ecological crisis, mounting environmental legislation and limited progress. This is a book about sustainable design, by the leading sustainable design thinkers, for creative practitioners, professionals, students and academics. This challenging work provides the reader with a rich resource of future visions, critical propositions, creative ideas and design strategies for working towards a sustainable tomorrow, today.
The authors boldly present alternative understandings of sustainable design, to curate a challenging, sometimes uncomfortable and always provocative, collection of essays by some of the world’s leading sustainable design thinkers. The result is an impacting and polemical anthology that reinvigorates the culture of critique that, in previous years, has empowered design with the qualities of social, environmental and economic revolution.
'These essays, by the most experienced design thinkers, help readers keep track of changes and hone their ability to prevent mankind from overheating.'
Ed Van Hinte, author
'A rich and powerful collection of essays.'
Aidan Rowe, University of Alberta, Canada
' ... these discussions will assist expert and novice alike to reposition themselves for the future in a relatively new and developing discipline.'
Joan Farrer, Senior Research Tutor at the Royal College of Art, School of Fashion and Textiles, UK
CONTENTS (Expand Contents)
Foreword - John Thackara
Introduction - Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant
Re-defining the Purpose of [Sustainable] Design - Alastair Fuad-Luke
Design Redux - Stuart Walker
The Scenario of a Multi-Local Society: Creative Communities, Active Networks and Enabling Solutions - Ezio Manzini
Relative Abundance: Fuller’s Discovery That the Glass Is Always Half Full - John Wood
Clothes that Connect - Kate Fletcher
(in)conclusion - Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant
Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant are co-directors of the Inheritable Futures Laboratory (IF:Laboratory) - a sustainable design research group at the University of Brighton, which generates practice-based research initiatives that aim to nurture greater flow of information between academia and industry. Jonathan is a senior lecturer in three dimensional design at the University of Brighton and founder of sustainable design and research company Safehouse Creative. Nick is the subject leader of the three dimensional design programme at the University of Brighton and director of award-winning design practice BoBo Design.