Design for Utopia


Book Description




Design for Micro-Utopias


Book Description

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'.




Designing Utopia


Book Description

This is the first detailed account of the remarkable British writer and artist John Hargrave (1894-1982) and his three creations: The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, The Green Shirt Movement for Social Credit and The Social Credit Party of Great Britain. Combining art, politics and design to visually stunning effect, Hargrave and his followers created a maverick but uniquely English form of modernism, one which harked back to a mythical past but also looked forward to a futuristic Utopia when mankind would be freed from the tyranny of work and war. A product of his turbulent times, Hargrave believed in ritual, ceremony, symbology and the 'resolute imagination' of the creative individual as the keys to a better world.The book draws on the extensive visual archive of the Kibbo Kift, held at the Museum of London, comprising graphic designs, photographs, ceremonial objects, banners, costume, regalia, log books and archive material, much of which has not been seen in public since the 1920s and 1930s. The collection includes many striking photographs by Angus McBean, official 'Kin Photographer' in the late 1920s. Designing Utopia also touches on Hargrave's career as a writer. In his novels, as with his graphics, Hargrave's imagination drew from the fragmented modern world of mass culture, advertising and film he saw around him and re-cast its elements in ways that suited his convictions about social order.Hargrave and the Kibbo Kift have been under-explored by cultural historians. But their time has come. The story of the Kibbo Kift has strong resonances with twenty-first century debates about art, politics, individualism, anti-capitalism, nature and the environment. It is also a story about English youth adapting to a new century, new ideologies and a new sense of possibilities in a global world.




Architecture and Utopia


Book Description

There are more than 450 Moshavim settlements and about 270 kibbutzim in Israel. While there is a range of communal and cooperative kibbutz movements, all with slight ideological differences, they are all collective rural communities, based on an ideal to create a social utopian settlement. Placing the kibbutz within the wider context of utopian social ideals and how they have historically been physically and architecturally constructed, this book discusses the form of the 'ideal settlement' as an integral part and means for realizing a utopian doctrine. It presents an analysis of physical planning in the kibbutz through the past eight decades and how changes in ideology are reflected in changes in layout and aesthetics. In doing so, this book shows how a utopian settlement organization behaves over time, from their first appearance in 1920 on, to an examination of the current spatial layouts and the directions of their expected future development.




Architecture and Utopia


Book Description

Architecture and Utopia leads the reader beyond architectural form into a broader understanding of the relation of architecture to society and the architect to the workforce and the marketplace. Written from a neo-Marxist point of view by a prominent Italian architectural historian, Architecture and Utopia leads the reader beyond architectural form into a broader understanding of the relation of architecture to society and the architect to the workforce and the marketplace. It discusses the Garden Cities movement and the suburban developments it generated, the German-Russian architectural experiments of the 1920s, the place of the avant-garde in the plastic arts, and the uses and pitfalls of seismological approaches to architecture, and assesses the prospects of socialist alternatives.




Architecture and Utopia in the Temple Era


Book Description

Proposes a reconstruction of the Temple, which differs from conventional descriptions in Jewish literary sources during the First and Second Temple eras. This book examines the individual descriptions of the Temple and considers the influence of the descriptions on subsequent ones.




Designing Utopia


Book Description

The influence of John Ruskin's vision of the "Garden City"--small, beautiful communities set in green open spaces.




Design


Book Description

For students of design, professional product designers, and anyone interested in design equally indispensable: the fully revised and updated edition of the reference work on product design. The book traces the history of product design and its current developments, and presents the most important principles of design theory and methodology, looking in particular at the communicative function of products and highlighting aspects such as corporate and service design, design management, strategic design, interface/interaction design and human design.. From the content: Design and history: The Bauhaus; The Ulm School of Design; The Example of Braun; The Art of Design Design and Globalization Design and Methodology: Epistemological Methods in Design Design and Theory: Aspects of the Disciplinary Design Theory Design and its Context: From Corporate Design to Service Design Product Language and Product Semiotics Architecture and Design Design and Society Design and Technological Progress




The Politics of Utopia


Book Description

This book provides both an introduction to utopianism and a general perspective on radical political thought. Vigorously disputing the widespread conviction that utopianism is a fantasy with no relevance to modern political life and thought, the authors argue that it is a concept whose special virtue lies in its capacity to transcend the limitations of present circumstances, to inspire alternative thinking and to open up new directions for political action. This book develops an approach which relates social causes to political theory and practice. The first part discusses utopianism as a form of political theory with unique characteristics and the ability to transcend the present. The second part considers utopianism as an expression of fundamental social impulses and as an ingredient of modern political movements. The third part offers a defence of utopianism as both theory and practice, and argues for its use to counteract the pragmatism and narrow empiricism which often passes for political «realism» in modern societies. This reissue of a popular and well-received landmark text contains a new preface.




Utopian Designing - Developing a Community Strategic Plan for You and Future Generations


Book Description

Utopian Designing is a complete guide to planning and implementing a development or redevelopment project, and includes templates, forms, and resources to help planners and others effectively and efficiently move through the process for the best "utopian" result. Sustainability consists of three different key concepts to be addressed: social equity, economics, and ecological/environmental health. It encompasses a wide variety of disciplines and ideas to reshape our actions and our way of thinking. It's important to understand these concepts, so decisions can be made outside the vacuum of city planners. Utopian Designing focuses on the strategic process, from design through implementation for development and redevelopment of an area. It also looks at sustainable principles to help a community thrive into the future; spur the public input process and information gathering options; obtain data evaluation to select the best project options; secure partnerships, resources, and funding options; and determine implementation strategies to bring a project to fruition. Strategies beyond implementation will ensure your development stays sustainable and meets your needs well into the future. Appendices provide resources and helpful templates to help move through your project's planning and implementation phases.




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