#john thackara

How the regenerative city makes the city socially viable as well as environmentally viable. New post.

Visualising the regenerative city. Source, Herbert Girardet, “Towards the regenerative city”, World Future Council, 2013.

The regenerative city applies ecological principles to urban redevelopment to make the city environmentally viable. It should make the city socially viable as well.

The great urbanist Herbert Girardet introduced the idea of the ecological footprint of the city more than 20…

Manifesto: Utopias are Over: Cities are Living Systems

by John Thackara

the short version:

Change and innovation are no longer about finely crafted ‘visions’ of some future place and time.

The presence of good bread is a reliable indicator that a city’s food system is healthy.

New distribution platforms also have an important role.

A focus on living systems means a new kind of infrastructure.

At the heart of this unfolding transformation is a new story of place. Cities are catalysts of the system change we require.

Full article at DAMn

MEETING JOHN THACKARA 

On the 15th of March, John Thackara was in CIID [Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design] to talk about his latest book, How to thrive in the next economy. And so was I! John Thackara is the one who inspired me back in 2013 to study service design. At that time, I was writing my Bachelor Thesis about Sharing & Design and questioning how could a graphic design practice be more human-centered.

“In the bubble : Designing in a complex world” John Thackara First time I read this book was 4 years ago, a copy in French borrowed from the library of the Art & Design School in Geneva (HEAD). Second time I read this book was 1 year ago, a copy in English borrowed from the library of Design School in Copenhagen (KADK). Now I have my own copy ! So who knows how many times I’m gonna read it again...

Go Green Quotes – John Thackara

“Some people say complexity is ‘out of control’. But not knowing how to reach a destination is one thing — having no destination at all is another, more wretched, thing.”

John Thackara Visit John Thackara’s Design Observer

The Belle – Acrylic Painting by Oliver Ohene-Dokyi

                      One of the major aspects of Design thinking is to change behaviors, the foundation of it being a people-centric process. The most exciting thing about the design thinking is that not only it aims at behavioral changes to develop practical and sustainable scenarios; it is also affected by the nature, intensity and complexity of human behavior. The cognitive science of human behavior almost redefines Design for me.

  “Although many people perceive design to be about appearances, design is not just about the way things look. Design is also about the way things are used; how they are committed to the world, how they are produced.” – John Thackara

    The paradigm shift in the role of designers today makes design as one of the most responsible profession for creating a sustainable future. The role of designers today is to focus on relationships, connections, communications and interactions to develop mental models/metaphors to make sense of the bigger picture. Being empathetic to people and situations they should be able to map present natural, cultural and human resources to co-create new services, design tools for sharing and connect various actors in complex systems with behavior change as both cause and effect of Design.