We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World. These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives. Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how?
 In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now -- not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology -- ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles -- above all, lightness -- inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.

In The Bubble: Designing In A Complex World

Business & Money

Thackara, John

Business Development & Entrepreneurship

Mit Pr

How to design a world in which we rely less on stuff, and more on people.
We're filling up the world with technology and devices, but we've lost sight of an important question: What is this stuff for? What value does it add to our lives? So asks author John Thackara in his new book, In the Bubble: Designing for a Complex World. These are tough questions for the pushers of technology to answer. Our economic system is centered on technology, so it would be no small matter if "tech" ceased to be an end-in-itself in our daily lives. Technology is not going to go away, but the time to discuss the end it will serve is before we deploy it, not after. We need to ask what purpose will be served by the broadband communications, smart materials, wearable computing, and connected appliances that we're unleashing upon the world. We need to ask what impact all this stuff will have on our daily lives. Who will look after it, and how?
In the Bubble is about a world based less on stuff and more on people. Thackara describes a transformation that is taking place now―not in a remote science fiction future; it's not about, as he puts it, "the schlock of the new" but about radical innovation already emerging in daily life. We are regaining respect for what people can do that technology can't. In the Bubble describes services designed to help people carry out daily activities in new ways. Many of these services involve technology―ranging from body implants to wide-bodied jets. But objects and systems play a supporting role in a people-centered world. The design focus is on services, not things. And new principles―above all, lightness―inform the way these services are designed and used. At the heart of In the Bubble is a belief, informed by a wealth of real-world examples, that ethics and responsibility can inform design decisions without impeding social and technical innovation.

In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World (Mit Press)

Finance

MIT Press]

Architects' Data

Arts & Photography

Neufert, Ernst

Architecture

John Wiley&Sons, Inc.

“Enlightening… In thoughtful vignettes, Thackara examines numerous grassroots initiatives around the world [and] proposes ‘an economy based on social energy,’ that uses a very small percentage of the resources presently used… Recommended.”―Choice
Are there practical solutions to the many global challenges―climate change, poverty, insufficient healthcare―that threaten our way of life? Author John Thackara has spent a lifetime roving the globe in search of design that serves human needs. In this clear-eyed but ultimately optimistic book, he argues that, in our eagerness to find big technological solutions, we have all too often ignored the astonishing creativity generated when people work together and in harmony with the world around them.
Drawing on an inspiring range of examples, from a temple-led water management system in Bali that dates back hundreds of years to an innovative e-bike collective in Vienna, Thackara shows that below the radar of the mainstream media there are global communities creating a replacement economy―one that nurtures the earth and its inhabitants rather than jeopardizing its future―from the ground up. Each chapter is devoted to a concern all humans share―land and water management, housing, what we eat, what we wear, our health, how and why we travel―and demonstrates that it is possible to live a rich and fulfilling life based on stewardship rather than exploitation of the natural environment.

How to Thrive in the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow's World Today

Economics

Thames&Hudson

A visionary yet practical guide to building a more sustainable future, by one of the most important voices in environmentally aware design Are there practical solutions to the many global challenges―climate change, poverty, insufficient healthcare―that threaten our way of life? Author John Thackara has spent a lifetime roving the globe in search of design that serves human needs. In this clear-eyed but ultimately optimistic book, he argues that, in our eagerness to find big technological solutions, we have all too often ignored the astonishing creativity generated when people work together and in harmony with the world around them. Drawing on an inspiring range of examples, from a temple-led water management system in Bali that dates back hundreds of years to an innovative e-bike collective in Vienna, Thackara shows that below the radar of the mainstream media there are global communities creating a replacement economy―one that nurtures the earth and its inhabitants rather than jeopardizing its future―from the ground up. Each chapter is devoted to a concern all humans share―land and water management, housing, what we eat, what we wear, our health, how and why we travel―and demonstrates that it is possible to live a rich and fulfilling life based on stewardship rather than exploitation of the natural environment.

European Design Prize Winners: How Today's Companies Innovate by Design

Winners!: How Today's Successful Companies Innovate by Design

Marketing & Sales

Gower Pub.Co.

This idea book for designers, photographers, architects, artists and others approaches the art and craft of graphic design from a unique perspective. It examines how the context in which designers work affects the designs they create. In this case, the "context" is Barcelona, Spain, with its distinct and beguiling combination of geography, history and colorful culture. A variety of designs - graphic design to fashion, architecture to interiors - are showcased inside, from works-in-progress to finished pieces. Each illustrates how Barcelona's unique attributes provide inspiration to designers as they work, and affect the outcome of the finished product. This approach to design makes Barcelona + an idea book unlike any other, one that breaks from tradition, surpasses expectations and propels designers' imaginations to the cutting edge and beyond.

Barcelona+

Graphic Design

Five Degrees Below Zero Pr

Wouldn't It Be Great If We Could Live Sustainably By Design?

Design Council

Green Dream investigates what "green" means in practical terms for design, architecture and urbanism. Led by The Why Factory, the global urbanist thinktank headed by Winy Maas, experts in the field debate what is currently considered green and how the term ought to be defined going forward, challenging architectural conventions and looking into the potential of new green architecture. Recognizing that green buildings alone do not make a green city, Green Dream also looks at broader green solutions for cities and how they might be implemented. Most importantly of all, the book dares to ask "Is a green city actually feasible?" and attempts to answer this question through the help of case studies. Drawing on 36 illustrated green projects, and with essays by John Thackara and Winy Maas, this volume outlines future goals for architectural and urban projects, and draws on research by The Why Factory, MVRDV and Delft University of Technology.

Green Dream: How Future Cities Can Outsmart Nature

Maas, Winy

NAi Publishers

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