Design for Micro-Utopias: Making the Unthinkable Possible (Design for Social Responsibility) - Hardcover

Wood, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0754646084 ISBN 13: 9780754646082

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

Everyone is already painfully aware of our predicament - ecological extinctions, dwindling fossil fuel reserves and economic chaos. The solutions are less obvious, despite the many opportunities that surround us. We have never had more access to resources, knowledge and technology but this is not the problem. What we lack most is creative thinking, fuelled by collective optimism. In a pragmatic world run by careerist experts this is hardly surprising. As voters and consumers we are trained to choose and complain, but not how to envisage what we really, really want. How can we design a better world unless we revive the art of dreaming? For without dreams we are lost. Perhaps it should be the duty of all citizens to imagine alternative futures; in effect, to think more like designers. After all, designers have always been dreamers, and have often found ways to realize their dreams. Design for Micro-Utopias does not advocate a single, monolithic Utopia. Rather, it invites readers to embrace a more pluralized and mercurial version of Thomas More's famous 1516 novel of the same name. It therefore encourages the proliferation of many 'micro-utopias' rather than one 'Utopia'. This requires a less negative, critical and rational approach. Referencing a wide range of philosophical thinking from Aristotle to the present day, western and eastern spiritual ideals, and scientific, biological and systems theory, John Wood offers remedies for our excessively individualistic, mechanistic and disconnected thinking, and asks whether a metadesign approach might bring about a new mode of governance. This is a daring idea. Ultimately, he reminds us that if we believe that we will never be able to design miracles we make it more likely that this is so. The first step is to turn the 'impossible' into the 'thinkable'.

About this title

Review:

'Wood's timely intervention into the politics of sustainability is a breath of fresh air in the current rhetoric of fundamentalist cliches. His personal vision for long-term solutions to the pressing need for action, that centuries of opportunism and expediency now present us with, are original and insightful. This book's great virtue is that it is driven by an idealist passion that remains grounded in Wood's reflections on his experience of the 'every day'...Its final call for new categories and ideas, rather than reactive prohibitions, offers one of the few books on sustainability that does not leave the reader in a slough of dispair.' Michael Punt, Editor-In-Chief, Leonardo Reviews. 'That rare and invaluable commodity, a book that spells out the reality of our current global predicaments but gives room for optimism and a design plan for delivery. As a natural polymath, Professor Wood is one of the only people who could write such a visionary yet practical book.' Professor Martin Woolly, Director of Research, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London.

Synopsis:

How can we design a better world? As voters and consumers we have become experts at choosing and complaining but have forgotten how to envisage what we really want. We have forgotten how to dream and without dreams humanity will become extinct.Designers have always found ways to realize dreams. At a time when we face so many dangers - both natural and self-imposed - it is vital to dream of alternative futures. This is why this book proudly explores utopianism, but a more tentative, temporary, pluralized and truncated version of the Utopia described by Sir Thomas More's famous novel of 1516 - 'micro-utopias' rather than one 'Utopia'.Referencing a wide range of philosophical thinking from Aristotle to the present day, western and eastern spiritual ideals, and scientific, biological and systems theory, John Wood argues for a metadesign approach that can bring about the realization of individual and social aspirations. "The Design of Micro-Utopias" offers remedies for our excessively individualistic, mechanistic and disconnected thinking.

It reminds us that miracles are not unthinkable but that to achieve them - to build foundations for micro-utopias - requires synergistic 'design-thinking' to offer new modes of governance based on the positive rather than the negatives associated with legal deterrent and financial penalties.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0754646084
• ISBN 13: 9780754646082
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 226