Design expert John Thackara delivers sustainability seminar at University College Dublin

John Thackara, a leading British design expert and a global authority on innovation and sustainability, yesterday delivered a seminar at University College Dublin as part of the Innovation Dublin 2012 festival.

Entitled Thriving in a no Growth Economy,the seminar was organised by UCD Innovation along with the Institute of Designers in Ireland.

 
Pictured at UCD is John Thackara

Click here to a listen to a podcast of John Thackara's seminar.

For thirty years John Thackara has travelled the world in a search for stories about the practical steps taken by communities to realise a sustainable future.

During his seminar John used these stories to start a conversation with the audience during which he outlined opportunities individuals and organisations might take, right now, to get involved with ‘regeneration’ design.

During the seminar he said, “There is a growing worldwide movement which is examining how society can progress in a world with finite natural resources and I believe that ‘regeneration’ rather than ‘consumption’ design can enable society to thrive in a no growth economic setting.”

Practical examples of regeneration design which he outlined during his seminar included computer recyclers, hardware re-mixers, textile upcyclers, local designers, community doctors and ecological teachers.

John is also the author of 12 books including Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object (1987), and Lost in Space: A Traveller’s Tale (1995). His latest book, the best-selling In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World, was published by MIT Press in 2005 and has since been published into nine other languages.

This seminar formed part of a series of master classes being arranged by the Dublin Creative Design Network, which aim to generate debate, discussion and connections between people from various perspectives with an underlying idea that design is what links creativity to innovation.

This seminar took place as part of the Innovation Dublin 2012 festival with support from the Interreg 4B Open Innovation Project. The Innovation Dublin festival took place across Dublin from 15-26 October to demonstrate Dublin’s capacity to inspire, interact and innovate.

ENDS

26 October 2012

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, University College Dublin, Communications Manager (Innovation), t: + 353 1 716 3712, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.

Editor’s Notes

John Thackara studied philosophy and trained as a journalist, before working for ten years as a book and magazine editor including editing the Design magazine for five years, modern culture editor of Harpers & Queen and design correspondent of The Guardian. John was subsequently Director of Research at the Royal College of Art (1989-1992) and was the first director of the Netherlands Design Institute, Amsterdam (1993-1999). John is a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art, in London, and a Fellow of The Young Foundation, the UK’s social enterprise incubator.

Currently as director of Doors of Perception, he organises festivals around the world in which communities imagine a sustainable future, and take practical steps to realise it. He is also a member of the UK Parliament’s Standing Commission on Design. www.doorsofperception.com