Architect Michael Herrman’s Nomadic Prayer Space,
one of the projects he uses to explore “the architecture
of displacement” in his new book, Hypercontextuality
(Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche, 2008)
This month I’ve published a feature article on Core77 (the industrial design online magazine), on the topic of sustainable consumption. The article has lots of images and starts like this…
“Will “no product” become the new brand? John Hockenberry provocatively suggests that given the global economic crisis, “no product” is now plausible. But how plausible given our society organized around economic growth? I’m talking here about consumerism as both the primary purpose of growth, and its principal driver–the high product context.
Reliance on continuous growth makes the economy unstable (it must grow or it collapses) as well as unsustainable (it strives for infinite growth on finite planetary resources). Tim Jackson provides a very accessible overview of this situation in his great new report, “Prosperity without Growth?,” in which he also proposes an alternative–a steady state economy. Enter the “low product” context. Enter the Nomadic Prayer Space, knitfitti and the floating swimming pool. Before getting to the examples and the implications for design of a steady state economy, let’s explore “growth” a bit more.”
read the full article on Core77. I know you readers here aren’t big into commenting, but if you have an opinion please leave a comment there.
New post here next week.
Hi there,
Totally loved the article. I’m a fan of sustainable design myself; recently read through Nathan Shedroff’s book “Design is the Problem”, put your book on my Amazon wishlist, and added you on Twitter. ~pleasant day 🙂