Alastair Fuad-Luke: Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World (2009)

Design academics and practitioners are facing a multiplicity of challenges in a dynamic, complex, world moving faster than the current design paradigm which is largely tied to the values and imperatives of commercial enterprise. Current education and practice need to evolve to ensure that the discipline of design meets sustainability drivers and equips students, teachers and professionals for the near-future. New approaches, methods and tools are urgently required as sustainability expands the context for design and what it means to be a ‘designer’. Design activists, who comprise a diverse range of designers, teachers and other actors, are setting new ambitions for design. They seek to fundamentally challenge how, where and when design can catalyse positive impacts to address sustainability. They are also challenging who can utilise the power of the design process. To date, examination of contemporary and emergent design activism is poorly represented in the literature. This book will provide a rigorous exploration of design activism that will re-vitalise the design debate and provide a solid platform for students, teachers, design professionals and other disciplines interested in transformative (design) activism. Design Activism provides a comprehensive study of contemporary and emergent design activism. This activism has a dual aim – to make positive impacts towards more sustainable ways of living and working; and to challenge and reinvigorate design praxis,. It will collate, synthesise and analyse design activist approaches, processes, methods, tools and inspirational examples/outcomes from disparate sources and, in doing so, will create a specific canon of work to illuminate contemporary design discourse. Design Activism reveals the power of design for positive social and environmental change, design with a central activist role in the sustainability challenge. Inspired by past design activists and set against the context of global-local tensions, expressions of design activism are mapped. The nature of contemporary design activism is explored, from individual/collective action to the infrastructure that supports it generating powerful participatory design approaches, a diverse toolbox and inspirational outcomes. This is design as a political and social act, design to enable adaptive societal capacity for co-futuring.

Publisher Earthscan, 2009
ISBN 1844076458, 9781844076451
244 pages

interview with the author (Juha Huuskonen, April 2012)

author
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-10-30)

N55 Book (2004)

N55 is a Copenhagen-based art collective which was founded in 1994. The name refers to an address in the Danish capital, Nørre Farimagsgade 55. Over the years, N55 have achieved international recognition for their projects. They have exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Tramway and Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Camden Roundhouse, Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, in New York, and at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

All of N55’s work product is freely accessible; their books, manuals, manifestos and images can be seen online and are not copyrighted. N55 BOOK is an accumulation of manuals for different things made by N55. Most of the manuals have been published separately between 1996 and 2003 as periodicals and on the N55 website.

Contents:
Manual for N55 BOOK
Manual for N55
Manual for DYNAMIC CHAIR
Manual for TABLE
Manual for BED MODULES
Manual for HYGIENE SYSTEM
Manual for HOME HYDROPONIC UNIT
Manual for SOIL FACTORY
Manual for CLEAN AIR MACHINE
Manual for N55 SPACEFRAME
Manual for FLOATING PLATFORM
Manual for MODULAR BOAT
Manual for SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM
Manual for SUSPENDED PLATFORM
Manual for PUBLIC THINGS
Manual for CITY FARMING PLANT MODULES
Manual for SMALL FISHFARM
Manual for BARMOBILE
Manual for MOVEMENT
Manual for SHOP
Manual for FACTORY
Manual for ROOMS
Manual for LAND
Manual for DISCUSSIONS

Published by Pork Salad Press and N55, Copenhagen
ISBN: 87-91409-05-5
Pages: 400

The texts and images in N55 BOOK may be copied, reproduced and distributed freely.

More info (authors)

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Stephanie Smith, Victor Margolin (eds.): Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art (2006)

Balancing environmental, ethical, economic, and aesthetic concerns, sustainable design has the potential to transform everyday life and has already dramatically reshaped the practice of architecture. “Beyond Green” introduces a new generation of international artists who work at the intersection of sustainable design and contemporary art.

The book explores the ways that this design strategy is being used-and sometimes intentionally misused-by an emerging group of artists who combine fresh aesthetic sensibilities with constructively critical approaches to the production, dissemination, and display of their art. Lavishly illustrated, the book also includes texts by and interviews with individual artists, along with substantial essays by exhibition curator Stephanie Smith and design historian Victor Margolin. What results is a bracing volume that will be of interest to practitioners and aficionados of design and art alike, as well as to environmentalists.

Publisher Independent Curators International, 2006
ISBN 0935573429, 9780935573428

More info (exhibition)
More info (google books)

PDF (updated 2011-11-3)