Category Archives: learning & institutions

Bill Moggridge

By John Thackara | Published: September 9, 2012

Devastating news reaches me that Bill Moggridge has died. Many readers here will know that Bill Moggridge had been director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, since 2010, and this was the latest chapter in an illustrious and history-changing career. The Museum has just posted a fine tribute to Bill’s life and work here. Tweet

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In Praise of the Feral: Update on Xskool

By John Thackara | Published: August 21, 2011

Convention centres are expensive, filled with hard surfaces, and – unless you’re in the convention business – somewhere else than the subjects discussed in them. Being separated from the thing itself, they tend to foster groupthink – and abstract groupthink at that. A feral encounter, in contrast, is one that has changed from being domesticated, [...]

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Ten Ways to Redesign Design Competitions

By John Thackara | Published: July 16, 2011

The image above is a Piezzoelectric skin that could be attached to vertical surfaces on buildings.The skin would generate electricity as wind moved across its tiny hairs. Wind Skin, as the project is called, so enchanted jurors at last week’s EDF Sustainable Design Challenge that it was selected as one of six winners that will [...]

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xskool: breathing the same air

By John Thackara | Published: May 26, 2011

Last weekend the first xskool class took place at West Lexham in England. As previously reported, xskool at this moment is more a question, than a project: Does the world need a professional development program to support designers, architects and their teachers making the transition to a new kind of design? The class of West [...]

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Do eco learning journeys need a travel agent?

By John Thackara | Published: April 29, 2011

I’ve written and spoken quite a lot in recent times about the changes designs institutions need to make. Sometimes, I was even asked to do so. Examples include a talk I did in Delhi earlier this year, What kind Of Design Institutes for India?; and a paper for Cumulus, the design schools network, called ‘Make [...]

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What Kind of Design Institutes for India?

By John Thackara | Published: February 19, 2011

A decision by the Indian government set up four new National Institutes of Design [NIDs] in the country has sparked a lively debate about the kinds of design they should teach. An influential group of design thought-leaders has launched a campaign called VisionFirst that calls for a “rigorous co-creation process to bring clarity to the [...]

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Africa, Where Events Are King. John Thackara talks to Mugendi M’Rithaa

By John Thackara | Published: February 18, 2011

First published in Design Observer. [Introduction] As the global crisis unfolds, interest in alternative economic and social models is growing – and with it, attention to what we might learn from Africa. Most of us in the North are badly informed about a continent that is home to over 900 million people, living in 53 [...]

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Next-generation biennials

By John Thackara | Published: September 26, 2010

I just got back from Oslo where their Architecture Triennial has opened. I participated in its main conference, Man Made Tomorrow and will report on that event soon. But ahead of the conference, Bjarne Ringstad, curator of the Triennial, asked me to reflect on how the role of such set-piece events might evolve to match [...]

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