Cycle Commerce As An Ecosystem

By John Thackara | Published: May 24, 2013

(Illustration: Sameer Kulavoor Ghoda Bicycle Project)

At a workshop in Delhi a few weeks back, during the UnBox Festival, Arjun Mehta and myself posed the following question to a group of 20 professionals from diverse backgrounds: What new products, services or ingredients are needed to help a cycle commerce ecosystem flourish in India’s cities, towns and villages? Read More »

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Paranoid But Pretty

By John Thackara | Published: May 10, 2013

In his new show at the German Architecture Center (DAZ) Matthias Megyeri has developed a design language for the artefacts of protection and security in public space.

Megyeri poses the question: does protection have to be inconsistent with harmony and beauty? His answer is a family of padlocks, chains, fences, and razor wire that he describes as ‘lovable objects’. Read More »

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A Roof, A Skill, A Market: The Multiple Dimensions of Scale

By John Thackara | Published: April 29, 2013


[ Photograph: http://www.arquiteturadeterra.com ]

“Beware the scale trap”.  In a recent Letter To Philanthropists Parker Mitchell,  a former CEO of Engineers Without Borders in Canada, advises potential donors that “scale is important, but don’t rush it. Most good ideas take time – to iron out the details, to bring down the costs, to be tested in different environments”. It takes time to focus on the little, programatic details, adds Mitchell. “Organic demand-driven scale will happen in time  - – if you have the patience to find the right elements of a solution”. These lessons are exemplified by the 14-year story – so far – of The Nubian Vault Association. The writer spoke with is co-founder, Thomas Granier. 

One hundred million people living in the Sahel region of West Africa are either homeless, or live precariously in short-life structures. Because deserts are spreading, the bush timber they once used to build homes is no longer available; as a result, Read More »

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Big, Hairy, and Agile

By John Thackara | Published: April 17, 2013

The UK government’s digital services platform, gov.uk, has won the Design of the Year award – and if I were running a big IT consulting firm grown fat on big government contracts, I’d be worried.

Gov.uk is a revolutionary web operation that governments around the world are beginning to notice. Twenty four UK government departments will be on the site by the end of the month –  and Government Digital Services (GDS) plans to bring 300 adjacent agencies on board in a next phase. In all, the programme will replace 2,000 websites.

In the UK, more than a billion transactions per year take Read More »

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Design At The Service of Living Systems: Lecture in Milan

By John Thackara | Published: April 4, 2013

For those readers heading for the annual Salone in Milano next week, here follows a summary of my talk next Tuesday at a conference organised by Interni and the Be Open Foundation. 

The ecologist Thomas Berry described as the ecozoic the “reintegration of human endeavours into a larger ecological consciousness”. Our species will only make true progress, Berry believed, when we learn to cherish the vitality of all life-forms and living systems equally – not just our own.

An ecozoic economy, of the kind that Berry hoped for, is now emerging. Thousands of communities are looking for Read More »

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The Ecozoic City

By John Thackara | Published: March 19, 2013

This story is available in Japanese and in Spanish.

For an exhibition that has opened in The Hague called Yes Naturally  I was asked to contribute a text for the book about what nature might mean for cities, and vice versa, in the near future. Here is an extract. 

The writer Thomas Berry described as the ecozoic the “reintegration of human endeavours into a larger ecological consciousness”. The ecozoic, Berry believed, would supplant the Anthropocene age, that we live in now, in which human needs take precedence over the health of the earth’s forests, oceans, and other living systems. Our species will only begin to make true progress, Berry believed, when Read More »

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Artefact as Campfire: Where People and Living Systems Meet

By John Thackara | Published: March 9, 2013

(Photo: Mapping a bioregion with plants – Joachim Robert Cyanotype workshop at FuturePerfect 2012)

In what ways can design help people interact with living systems in ways that help both of them thrive? And, what small practical steps might one take to test the effect of small actions on the system as a whole? Read More »

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Cycle Commerce: The Red Blood Cells of a Smart City

By John Thackara | Published: February 3, 2013

[The chart above is from the online catalogue of cargo bikes at Nutzrad]

India’s many millions of bicycle and rickshaw vendors embody the entrepreneurship, sustainable mobility, social innovation, and thriving local economies, that a sustainable city needs.

As an ecosystem, they’re also part of the metabolism that makes a city smart.

That said, cycle commerce is a challenge for a city’s managers. Many different actors are involved in bicycle commerce – often with differing or downright conflicting agendas. Managing this kind of urban constellation is Read More »

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