Design For A Living World

Ten prominent designers create objects using only sustainably grown and harvested materials Design for a Living World was developed by The Nature Conservancy, one of the world's leading conservation organizations, in order to raise global awareness about the impact and promise of sustainable sourcing. Ten prominent designers, including Kate Spade, Issac Mizrahi, Yves Béhar, Hella Jongerius and Ted Muehling were invited to create objects using only sustainably grown and harvested materials from some of the world's most beautiful and ecologically precarious places. Each of these landscapes supports its own distinct ecosystem and provides crucial livelihoods to local communities; each one is threatened by the effects of climate change and global economics--deforestation, overdevelopment and other destructive forces. Design for a Living World illuminates the complexity and vitality of raw materials at their source, including the people and cultures that actually produce them. The above designers were selected for their willingness to experiment and for their record of active engagement with issues of sustainability and social justice. In addition to presenting the designers' sketches, models and finished objects, Design for a Living World features original photographs by award-winning photojournalist Ami Vitale, who traveled around the world to document the many landscapes explored in this volume.

Today we urgently need to reevaluate the human place in the world in relation to other animals. This book puts Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy into dialogue with literature, evolutionary biology, and animal studies. In a radical departure from most critical animal studies, it argues for evolutionary continuity between human cultural and linguistic behaviors and the semiotic activities of other animals. In his late work, Derrida complained of philosophers who denied that animals possessed such faculties, but he never investigated the wealth of scientific studies of actual animal behavior. Most animal studies theorists still fail to do this. Yet more than fifty years ago, Merleau-Ponty carefully examined the philosophical consequences of scientific animal studies, with profound implications for human language and culture. For him, “animality is the logos of the sensible world: an incorporated meaning.” Human being is inseparable from animality. This book differs from other studies of Merleau-Ponty by emphasizing his lifelong attention to science. It shows how his attention to evolutionary biology and ethology anticipated recent studies of animal cognition, culture, and communication.

In this brief, accessible volume, the authors — an urban philosopher and a mathematician-physicist — explain the surprising new findings from the sciences that are beginning to transform environmental design in the modern era. Authors Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros explore fractals, networks, self-organization, dynamical systems and other revolutionary ideas, describing them to non-science readers in a direct and engaging way. The book also examines fascinating new topics of design, including Agile, Wiki, Design Patterns and other “open-source” approaches from the software world. The authors conclude that a profound transformation is under way in modern design — and today’s students and practitioners will need to be aware of its implications for our future. “Lucidly describes what’s coming in the world of design — and what needs to come.” — Ward Cunningham, Inventor of wiki, and pioneer of Pattern Languages of Programming, Agile, and Scrum “Essential reading for all urban designers.” — Jeff Speck, Author of Walkable City “Brilliant.” — Charles Montgomery, Author of Happy City “Inspired, compelling and fascinating… Recognizes that a true architecture can be dug from the facts, insights, and theories, that occur with a broadening of science to include the human being.” — Christopher Alexander, Author of A Pattern Language and Notes on the Synthesis of Form Some comments on the individual chapters: “Packed with detail and beautiful in presentation.” — Gil Friend “Human society must find a path of retreat. Salingaros and Mehaffy point the way.” — David Brussat, Providence Journal “Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros have written some brilliant articles on how we can co-create cities which are truly resilient, rather than being ‘engineered resilient’.” — Smallworld Urbanism “For me, this essay was like a flash of insight, and I suddenly saw the world in a new light.” — Oeyvind Holmstad, Permaliv “We’ve just come across a very thoughtful article by Michael Mehaffy and Nikos Salingaros… [who] draw a number of lessons from biological systems and use them to draw conclusions about how resilient human systems must be designed.” — Resilient Design Institute “Salingaros and Mehaffy take us from the configuration of city spaces to the order of cells in living beings.” — Jaap Dawson, Delft Institute of Technology “If you wanted to know where the cutting edge was in urban design, it is here.” — Patrick J. Kennedy, CarFreeInBigD “This is the single most intelligent and illuminating article I’ve seen on Archdaily in 3 years.” — Nìming Pínglùn Zhě, China Michael Mehaffy is an urbanist and design theorist, and a periodic visiting professor or adjunct in five graduate universities in four countries and three disciplines (architecture, urban planning and philosophy) including the University of Oregon (US) and the University of Strathclyde (UK). He has been a close associate of the architect and software pioneer Christopher Alexander, and a Research Associate with the Center for Environmental Structure, Alexander’s research center founded in 1967. He is currently executive director of Portland, Oregon based Sustasis Foundation, and editor of Sustasis Press. Nikos A. Salingaros is a mathematician and polymath known for his work on urban theory, architectural theory, complexity theory, and design philosophy. He has been a close collaborator of the architect and computer software pioneer Christopher Alexander. Salingaros published substantive research on Algebras, Mathematical Physics, Electromagnetic Fields, and Thermonuclear Fusion before turning his attention to Architecture and Urbanism. He is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and has been on the Architecture faculties of universities in Italy, Mexico, and The Netherlands.

Nothing lies beyond the scope of your ability. The new design for living you create has no limitations. Literally all the good things that life and the world offer are yours to have and enjoy. But you need to recognize them, accept them, and incorporate them into the new design you are now going to create. In its scope, and in its effect on readers, A New Design for Living is second only to Ernest Holmes's magnum opus, The Science of Mind. In this cherished spiritual classic, Holmes demonstrates that wishes-from health, love, and friendship to the career and home of your dreams-are not only possible to realize but are within each person's very reach. At last available again, this galvanizing book teaches how to turn mind-power into an infinitely positive force-the very force of creation itself. Harmonize with the beauty and intelligence of the universe, watch the magnificence of life transform before you, and awaken to the nature of reality. With this newfound power of transformative thinking, every goal is attainable.

The scale of ecological crises made us realize that every kind of politics has always been cosmopolitics, politics of a cosmos. Cosmos embraces everything, including the multifarious natural and material entities that make humans act. The book examines cosmopolitics in its relation to design practice. Abandoning the modernist idea of nature as being external to the human experience - a nature that can be mastered by engineers and scientists from outside, the cosmpolitical thinking offers designers to embark in an active process of manipulating and reworking nature ’from within.’ To engage in cosmopolitics, this book argues, means to redesign, create, instigate, and compose every single feature of our common experience. In the light of this new understanding of nature, we set the questions: What is the role of design if nature is no longer salient enough to provide a background for human activities? How can we foster designers’ own force and make present what causes designers to think, feel, and act? How do designers make explicit the connection of humans to a variety of entities with different ontology: rivers, species, particles, materials and forces? How do they redefine political order by bringing together stars, prions and people? In effect, how should we understand design practice in its relation to the material and the living world? In this volume, anthropologists, science studies scholars, political scientists and sociologists rethink together the meaning of cosmopolitics for design. At the same time designers, architects and artists engage with the cosmopolitical question in trying to imagine the future of architectural and urban design. The book contains original empirical chapters and a number of revealing interviews with artists and designers whose practices set examples of ’cosmopolitically correct design’.

Jacob Klapwijk considers the stark choice many believers and non-believers face between religious notions concerning the origins of life and the contemporary findings of evolutionary science. He offers an alternative to both and an attempt to bridge the gap between them, via the idea of 'emergent evolution'.

From acclaimed architect and designer Keith Summerour comes an alluring new book of carefully crafted dwellings that redefine the idea of home for today. When we think about what home is, many of us would say a house that is soulful and welcoming, a place with an inviting porch and a lush garden, a welcoming entryway and well-crafted living spaces that will nurture our private moments and expand to welcome guests. In this alluring new book, Keith Summerour shares nine houses, exploring their architecture, interiors, and grounds, to illustrate a new idea of home. Reinterpreting and making new his own Southern legacy that speaks both of aristocratic charm and homespun appeal, these homes range from rustic retreats that draw their power from the land to elegant manor houses, but all share extraordinary character and charm that nod to history while reflecting the way people wish to live in the world today. Enriched by the work of some of the top interior decorators working today, including Beth Webb, Barbara Westbrook, Circa Interiors, and Liza Bryan, as well as world-renowned landscape designers Jeremy Smearman and John Howard, and beautifully illustrated with all-new photography, Creating Home is the ultimate dream book.

This collection of specially commissioned essays puts top scholarshead to head to debate the central issues in the lively and fastgrowing field of philosophy of biology Brings together original essays on ten of the most hotlydebated questions in philosophy of biology Lively head-to-head debate format sharply defines the issuesand paves the way for further discussion Includes coverage of the new and vital area of evolutionarydevelopmental biology, as well as the concept of a unified species,the role of genes in selection, the differences between micro- andmacro-evolution, and much more Each section features an introduction to the topic as well assuggestions for further reading Offers an accessible overview of this fast-growing and dynamicfield, whilst also capturing the imagination of professionalphilosophers and biologists