Building Better Worlds
Presented by Cennydd Bowles at New Adventures, 23rd January 2020, Nottingham, UK.
We can’t go on like this. In the face of climate crisis, deepening inequality, and widespread automation, our infrastructures and imaginations aren’t ready for the changes ahead. But this is no time for mourning. Designers can rebuild our outdated institutions and prototype better futures to come. Along the way, we’ll reimagine design itself. User-centred methods have blinded us to social and ecological harms; we now need speculative and critical approaches to the world’s biggest challenges. Design in a world on the brink means embracing our moral duties, becoming planetary custodians, and giving the many, not just the few, a stake in the future. Better worlds are possible, if we wish them.