Three Eras of Design
Discussion
John Thackara:
"During the Industrial Era, design was powerful driver in the rise of mass consumer societies. Design made short-life products desirable to millions of people.
This era saw extraordinary economic growth in money terms.
But on the negative side, as we now know to our cost, this energy-intense and extractive economy depleted non-renewable resources. It also caused a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.
In the last 30 years, motivated by a desire to “do less harm”, a growing number of designers have supported the cause of Sustainable Development. The idea of a “circular economy” is a more recent addition to the cause of “do less harm”.
But Sustainable Development, it turns out, has modified – but not transformed – a global economic system that has to grow in order to survive.
Despite three decades of SD, we are experiencing more extraction today, more destruction of biodiversity, than ever before.
A more transformative vision is needed. The concept of an Ecological Civilization (EC) provides us with such a vision. For the first time, it describes a path that transforms the economy and society for good – rather than just tinker at the edges, with symptoms.
For the world of design, EC is transformative In three profound ways:
1 In an EC, care for place takes priority over ever-growing production and communication;
2 EC defines value creation in terms of healthy soils, and ecological restoration;
3 EC gives priority to social relationships, and institutional innovation.
For design, an EC means that urban and rural are no longer separate domains.
Cities, in fact, have much to gain from village revitalization.
Some critics complain that Ecological Civilisation has produced far more research, than practical action. And it’s true, that the growth of EC research has been impressive!
But in design, the key principles of EC are evident in many thousands of practical grassroots projects around the world – even if the language used to describe them is diverse." (http://thackara.com/notopic/in-an-ecological-civilization-place-is-our-professor/2/)