design activism

Making potential climate change flooding visible and enabling us to discuss adaptation. The Watermarks Project of Bristol, all images courtesy of Chris Bodle and the Watermarks Project As a U.S. citizen I’m trying to decide my own position on climate legislation “The American Clean Energy and Security Act,” aka the Waxman-Markey bill (pros/cons via Worldchanging), [...]

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 [...]

Today is Ada Lovelace day and I’m reporting to you from Iceland, where I’ve come to give a talk on “Clothing and Conscience” at the Nordic Fashion biennale and to talk about design activism at the Iceland Academy of the Arts. I have signed on to a pledge, through pledge bank, to write a blog [...]

Like other reviewers, I really enjoyed Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford, Metropolis Books, 2008), and for many of the same reasons. It presents a wide range of informative, thought-provoking cases. However, unlike Fred Bernstein who reviewed the book in Architectural Record, I don’t believe that design activism is [...]

[addendum to this post: there was further discussion of this issue on a  discussion list focused on design research. I was prompted to write more about the national design policy in response to that discussion, from my social movement/activism perspective. The archive of the whole discussion is here. ] On January 5th a group called [...]

Greetings for 2009, For those of you engaged in teaching various aspects of sustainable design, I want to let you to know about a new discussion list I’ve set up, SUSDESIGNTEACH (very elegant name, I know). The list is open to anyone who is interested in discussing the challenges of teaching sustainable design. You can [...]

design as a way to “see” sustainability Change.org has initiated “Ideas for Change in America” to generate great ideas for the incoming Obama Administration. Organized into a range of categories, the ideas cover a wide range of causes from government reform to fair trade and humanitarian aid. I’ve submitted an idea to use great design, [...]

Two (make that three, see update, below) “activist” design competition have hit the press recently, both with money attached. Metropolis Magazine Metropolis’s annual Next Generation competition has a theme this year of “fixing our energy addiction.” The deadline is 30 January 09 and the prize is $10,000. They say, “Rising energy costs are the focus [...]

Osocio (“Social advertising and non-profit campaigns from around the globe”) reports that they’ve made it onto a list of top 10 blogs about the intersection of design and activism. The list, compiled by Noah Scalin of the design group Another Limited Rebellion, appears to focus primarily on graphic design and includes some foreign language blogs [...]

Several organizations are attempting to help designers find activist opportunities — although none of the organizations call their opportunities “activist.” Sounds too political? There are a few different models, from online, searchable databases of designers and organizations in need, to organizations that themselves do the work and take on volunteers to help them. Below are [...]