CITY ECO LAB
We have started work in earnest on City Eco Lab, a 'nomadic market of
projects' that takes place in November in St Etienne, France. The
concept is simple: literally millions of people are active in projects
which, in different ways, are the building blocks of one planet living.
These projects deal with different aspects of daily life: food, water,
energy, mobility, school, and economy. But many of these projects are
invisible, even locally. So it can feel, depressingly, as if nothing is
happening. City Eco Lab, by making some of these projects visible to the
wider populace, starts people talking about ways they might be improved
- or about doing similar projects themselves. The live projects we are
researching from the St Etienne region (it's an hour right from Lyon as
you head south) will be shown side-by-side with best practice projects
from other parts of the world. There will also be a tool shed with
resources to help people improve their projects: tools for designing,
tools for modelling and making things, tools for monitoring local flows,
tools for finding and sharing resources.In the middle of this market
(it's in a 5,000 square metre former gun factory) will be a campfire
zone for encounters between citizens, project leaders, tool makers, and
designers. The event is hosted by the St Etienne Cite du Design; its
designers are Exyzt and Gaelle Gabillet. Yes, we do want your
suggestions for best-practice projects to show next to the St Etienne
projects: for now, a short email, a weblink and a pic will suffice:
john [at] doorsofperception [dot] com
Biennale Internationale Design 15-30 November 2008, Saint-Etienne.
http://www.citedudesign.com/2008.html

FREE DOTT 07 MANUAL OFFER
The offer of a free Dott 07 Manual is open for one more week.
The Manual explores two questions: "What could life in a sustainable
region be like?" and, "how can design can help us get there?"
Here are some sample spreads:
http://www.thackara.com/dott/dottexamples/index.html
We will send five free copies to you if you tell us which four other
people you will send a book to - someone likely to make other Dott-like
events happen. Please send the names of your nominees, plus your full
postal address, to: john [at] doorsofperception [dot] com
(and please put Manual in the header).

T-SHIRT MILES
If cheap clothing chains used only bamboo and soyabean fibres, grew
these plants 100% organically, and produced only locally, their t-shirts
woud still not be sustainable. This is because of what happens when we
get a garment home. The average piece of clothing is washed and dried 20
times in its life: 82 percent of its lifetime energy use, and over half
the solid waste, emissions to air, and water effluents it generates,
therefore occurs during laundering. I learned this in Kate Fletcher's
excellent new book Sustainable Fashion and Textiles. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2008/03/from_food_miles.php

MOBILE MONEY
Imagine a cashless economy where there's no paper, no plastic, no coins
- just mobile banking. iAfrica reports that a virtual currency is is
reaching critical mass there as pre-paid airtime is traded to exchange
goods and services. At the touch of a button, value can stored as
airtime in your cellphone and used to purchase items from your local
street vendor. MTN Nigeria is among several companies supplying prepaid
top-up cards also allow people living in the UK to buy airtime for
members of family back home as a convenient alternative to sending small
amounts of money home. Fact: More than 800 million mobile phones were
sold in developing countries in the last three years.
http://business.iafrica.com/features/649690.htm

USE YOUR FEET TO REDUCE YOUR FOOTPRINT
"Walking is the Grand Central Station of life; it is the heart of
community life, the backbone of fitness, the centrepiece of community
security, the glue of transportation, the essence of learning and
creativity (from no less a source that the Peripatetics of ancient
Greece), the medium of romance, the humility of leadership, the heart of
social and economic justice, and the exchange medium of the physical
world". Chris Bradshaw, who wrote those words,is fantastically expert
on everything to do with informal transportation - walking, and most
cycling. He is also the owner of Pednet, the international mailing list
for walking advocates and those promoting pedestrian rights.
http://www.flora.org/pednet/

USER-LED INNOVATION
Darren Sharp writes from Australia to anounce a new report on user-led
innovation. It's based on in-depth interviews with leading thinkers on
user-led innovation including: Eric von Hippel (MIT), Yochai Benkler
(Harvard), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Siva Vaidhyanathan (Virginia),
John Howkins (Adelphi Charter), Michel Bauwens (P2P Alternatives)
and Mitch Kapor (Linden Lab).
http://smartinternet.com.au/ArticleDocuments/121/User_Led_Innovation_A_New_Framework_for_Co-creating_Business_and_Social_Value.pdf.aspx
or http://tinyurl.com/5e7ttc [both 2.4 MB pdf downloads]

SPAM SPAM
I'm getting regular spam from The Survival Food Store with offers of
long term storage food for times of emergency. Their copy editing leaves
so much to be desired that I'm reluctant to eat their products. But you
be the judge on whether or not to "stock up now and be ready when man
made or natural disaster strike" (sic).
http://www.survivalfoodstore.com/

EXPENSIVE WATER
Severe water shortages in Barcelona have prompted the Catalan government
to import drinking water by ship from Marseilles, not that far from
where I live in southern France. Barcelona's water company, Aigues de
Barcelona, is now installing port facilities in preparation. The seven
tankers employed in the water supply will have a capacity of 28,000
cubic metres each; five will be used on the route between Tarragona
and Barcelona, and two to transport water coming from the Rhone river
in southern France, from Marseille to Barcelona. The cost of these
emergency measures is estimated at 1.3 billion euros.
http://www.ansamed.it/en/spain/news/ME03.@AM19401.html

TIME TO START DIGGING?
Moving bags, moving people, moving goods: Logistics are life-critical
for us all. I was therefore alarmed to read in Supply Chain Standard
about logistics in the supermarket industry. On checking the software
descriptors of 14,000 product lines, one analyst found one or more
errors in the information lines of every single item contained.
(A standard description has 200 attributes, but industry customers
typically add up to 1,500 extra items of information on their own
account). Many supermarkets admit to at least 35 percent data inaccuracy
in their product files (says the industry's own in-house magazine).
"It's little surprise", concludes the writer, that "retailers end up
with little idea of what is in store, in transit, on order or at the
warehouse". Supermarkets only have three days supply of food in stock
at any one time... or so they think. So I don't know about you, but
I'm reminded that  this is planting season at my home in France:
I need to get back and start digging.
Supply Chain Standard January 2008 page 9 Penelope Ody

DESIGNING CONNECTED PLACES
A summer school in Pollenzo and Torino, Italy, addresses such topics
as active welfare (health and well-being) open and safe places (social
life and security) food networks (sustainable food systems) and
multi-mobility (efficient urban mobility). Tuition costs and hospitality
(food and accommodation) are covered by grants offered by the Torino
2008 World Design Capital; students will be responsible only for
travel to/from Pollenzo; plus a notional fee of Euro 100.
Deadline for applications is 15 May 2008
http://www.torinoworlddesigncapital.it/portale/en/content.php?sezioneID=445

IN THE BUBBLE 2.0
In a welcome turn of events, In The Bubble is going to be published in
Italian, French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese. I've reduced the
whole thing to 100 pages, added three new chapters, and changed the
sub-title to "design steps to a one planet economy". If you know of
a publisher in a language other than those listed above, who might
also be interested, do please drop me a line.

TRAVELS IN UNCANNY VALLEY
Many of us are confronted by a painful dilemma: we travel to earn money, and to see loved ones - and yet the only way to reduce the ecological footprint of flying is to stop flying. I took 78 flights last year, for example, which must put me in the top one per cent of individual polluters in the world. I have committed to fly 30 per cent less this year, and to reduce my flights by 90 per cent within ten years after that; but this will still leave me open to the valid charge of hyprocrisy for years to come. So I am very seriously motivated to explore substitutes for mobility. My search kicks off at a Pixelache University seminar on "Traveling Without Moving" in Helsinki. My fellow speakers are Juha Huuskonen, Andreas Zacharia (Carbon Hero), Matt Jones from Dopplr (remotely) and Danie Peltz (remotely). Saturday 15 March, Kiasma Theatre, Helsinki 15:00-16:30. Yes, I'm flying there; I promised Juha I'd be there nine months back - and you're right, that's no excuse. Read more about Uncanny Valley here:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2008/01/traveling_witho.php
Details of the seminar at Kiasma are here:
http://helsinki.pixelache.ac/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=74

DOTT 07 WRAP EVENT
Before we close the doors at Dott 07 for the last time, the final Dott 07 Explorers Club takes place in Newcastle next week. We'll have updates from the community design projects, and the Eco Design Challenge; we'll also debate what design schools are doing (or not) for sustainability. News on the next Dott will also be announced. This is your last chance to enjoy (with us) the Robert Stephenson Centre space - birthplace of the railway age. Time 1730h-2100h. Wednesday 12 March. Spaces are limited due to fire regulations so you need to book by email: susan.lowthian@dott07.com (Please put Explorers Club in the subject line).

WOULDN'T A FREE DOTT 07 MANUAL BE GREAT!
What could life in a sustainable region be like - and how can design can help us get there? Here are some sample spreads from the Dott 07 Manual: http://www.thackara.com/dott/dottexamples/index.html
We've got a couple of boxes of the book left over, so I will send five free copies to the person(s) who most intrigue me with the names of four other people you will send the books to when you get them. Hint: they should be people likely to make other Dott-like events happen. Email the names of your nominees, plus your full postal address, to: john at doorsofperception punt com (and please put Manual in the header). Subject to availability. Single copies are still available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/wouldnt-be-great-if-1/dp/1904335152

SOCIAL INNOVATION CAMP
What happens when you get a bunch of software developers and social innovators together, give them a set of social problems and only 48 hours to solve them? The Young Foundation plans to find out at the first ever Social Innovation Camp. They will select between five and 10 projects to come to the weekend where there will be funders who, it's hoped, will take on some projects. Ideas already submitted include Barcode Wikipedia, a tool for sharing cycle routes in London and an idea for how the web could help the UK prison system become a more humane institution. Call for Ideas closes this Friday. The camp is in London 4-6 April 2008 http://www.sicamp.org/

SHOULD DESIGN SCHOOLS BE CLOSED DOWN?
Neil McGuire asks me, in this Wodcast interview, whether I meant it when I said that design schools should be closed down.
http://www.wodcast.org/wodcast_webarchive/wodcast_thackara.mp3

THE BIG CHILL
Shopping for a snack in central London I counted 78 metres (256 feet) of chiller cabinets in one small central London branch of Marks and Spencer. M&S have made a laudable commitment to make its operations carbon neutral within five years - but the company's Plan A does not mention refrigeration.This is a huge issue, because more than 50 percent of food in developed countries is retailed under refrigerated conditions. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2008/01/the_big_chill.php

DAM NATION
Ever since I learned about about water mapping from Georg Bertsch, and about watershed-based planning from Chris Hardwick, at Doors 9 on Juice last year, I've been aware that we don't think enough about water. In a fit of guilt I bought a bunch of books about greywater harvesting; these now sit in a dispiriting and unread pile next to my bath. Then, I found a book called Dam Nation: Dispatches From the Water Underground which I have read - and commend to you all. http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2008/02/dam_nation_disp.php

REAL AND VIRTUAL, HYPER-LOCAL
Steven Johnson's books on the intersection of science, technology and personal experience have influenced everything from the way political campaigns use the Internet, to urban planning. He also co-created the online magazine FEED, Plastic.com, and most recently the hyperlocal media site, Outside.in. Steven will give the annual Stephan Weiss lecture in New York in 13 March; it commemorates the life of the late artist and sculptor, Stephan Weiss, partner of Donna Karan. Thursday 13 March 13, 6:00pm, Theresa Lang Center, 55 West 13th Street, NYC, 2nd floor. RSVP +1.212.229.5391 or email maligi@newschool.edu

WE THINK
Charles Leadbeater's new book is 'We Think: Mass Innovation Not
Mass Production'. It's published this week. Charlie will debate the impact of the web with Jonathan Friedland of the Guardian at the British Library on 26 March.
You can book for that event here:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/whatson/events/march.html
The first three chapters can be downloaded from: http://www.charlesleadbeater.net

ORANGE DESIGN REVOLUTION
A serious-looking book from the Said Business School at Oxford University is called "Designing for Services: Proceedings from the Exploratory Project on Designing for Services in Science and Technology-based Enterprises". Not a thrilling title, it's true, but many of the names on the contents page are Doors (and Dott) regulars - so you may want to check it out. A degree of dedication is required to decipher the orange pages with white text on them.
http://designingforservices.typepad.co.uk/designing_for_services/service_design/index.html

SOCIAL INNOVATION EXCHANGE (SIX)
The new SIX website lists projects and case studies from the International Social Innovation eXchange network.
http://www.socialinnovationexchange.org

BIO-INNOVATORS
The European Commisson has made bio-based products a green priority alongside sustainable construction, recycling and renewable technologies. In bio-based innovation we have a lot to learn from the natural world. This workshop brings together will bring together a number of leading bio-Innovators. 7 April, Reading, UK. www.dexigner.com/product/news-g13732.html

COMING WITH THE FLOW
A sign when you arrive at Heathrow's Terminal 4 says "Welcome To Britain" and you enter...a sleazy gift shop. Now I understand why: The chief executive of BAA, which runs Heathrow, was promoted to the job from Retail Director. He's now been been sacked - but before we rejoice, consider this: His replacement's last job was running a water company, Severn Trent. What will await us next time we arrive at Heathrow - a sluice?

OF DOOMERS AND BOTTLE-FILLERS
In Sao Paulo before Christmas someone referred to me as a "doomer." I had not heard the word before, but was told that it describes sad, train-spotter-like people who can't stop talking about peak oil, climate change, the instability of financial markets, the impending food crisis, and what John Michael Greer calls the "catabolic collapse" of industrial civilisation. Now it's true that plenty of people out there are unhealthily thrilled by the prospect of apocalypse. Their number includes, or so we are told, George W Bush. But you don't have to be an End-Days nut to conclude that we are headed for what one might call, to put it mildly, a discontinuity. If you look under the hood, the life-support systems of industrial civilisation are coughing and spluttering alarmingly. Even mainstream politicians, who hate being associated with bad news, are promising rough times ahead. But I reject the label "doomer". The word implies that, faced with these scary prospects, we have to choose either to join a cult, or head for the hills with a truckload of guns and baked beans. As a bottle-half-full kind of guy, I'm headed for a third space - between despair and flight - where a lot of creative and collaborative work needs to be done, much of it involving design. This newsletter - and Doors of Perception projects - will focus on those kind of activities during 2008.

TOOLS FOR SURVIVAL: ST ETIENNE DESIGN BIENNIAL
Imagine that you have the attention and presence of 80,000 designers and architects. Which five tools, business models, platforms, or applications, would you badly want them to learn about - and use? Tools for Survival is such an opportunity. The event and encounter, which Doors is directing for the St Etienne Design Biennial, takes place in November. We have a 5,000 square metre (50,000 square feet) shed to fill with tools and people - and hope you will help us do so. My idea is to arrange the whole space as a kind of caravanserai of informal stalls. Each stall, or carpet, will feature a tool, and people discussing its use. Live projects, in which communities from the region explore ways to use these tools, will run throughout the event. But Tools for Survival is not about green consumerism: Its focus is on platforms, models, base tools and system components - not discrete end-of-pipe products. A tool, in this context, can be a product, system. model, book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is ready to be used now (or will be available for use soon). Each tool will probably entail a degree of social and collaborative use. The main zones will be grouped around the themes of food, water, energy, shelter, mobility, monitoring, and designing. The look-and-feel of the event will be more Bladerunner than Little House on the Prarie. That's because most people will stlll live in cities, not in cutesy little homesteads, as the going gets....different. Right now, please just note the dates: the Biennial opens on 12 November and runs for two weeks. Over the coming period we will organise partnerships with other organizations, including a network of design schools. And we'll soon start a blog/wiki as a public domain place to assemble and select your suggested tools.

SCALE DILEMMA (1): DESIGNS OF THE TIME (DOTT)
Doors is still working with its partners on the legacy of Dott 07. As reported here over recent months, Dott explored what life in a sustainable region (North East England) could be like, and how design can help us get there. 21,000 people participated in Dott's two-week festival in October, and most of them seemed to be inspired by the practical ways to live better lives with less stuff that Dott projects came up with. In terms of legacy, seventy percent of Dott's public commission projects will carry on with new owners and partners into 2008, and elsewhere in the UK, there will be Dott programmes in Cornwall and Scotland between now and 2010. (Doors of Perception was hired to do the programme direction for Dott 07, but we hope to be involved in future Dotts, too). But a scalability challenge remains to be met: there are 250 regions in the European Union (EU), and perhaps1,500 regions in the industrialised countries, where things need to change most radically. What is the best way to multiply Dott-like, pan-regional experiments - and fast?
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2007/10/why_our_design.php

SCALE DILEMMA (2): Eco Design Challenge FOR SCHOOLS
Dott's Eco Design Challenge is a good example of the scalability dilemma. More than fifteen thousand school students used custom--designed calculators to measure their school's eco-footprint during 2007. They then ran projects to design lighter alternatives to the systems (food, water, transport, energy and waste) operating in their school. Many schools, with some modest help from Dott, invited professional designers in to help with these second phase projects.The winning school presented its project to parliamantarians in London, and everyone agrees that the Eco Design Challenge was fine, excellent, and inspiring. But it's also too small, and too slow. The Dott campaign involved 80 schools; but there are 37,000 schools in the UK, 300,000 in the EU, and 23,000 high schools in the US. What would it take to get all these schools started on similar projects in 2008?
http://www.dott07.com/go/dott-blog

PIXELACHE UNIVERSITY
Does the educational system have room for hackers, circuit benders, environmental activists, and VJ artists? What would be a suitable curriculum for nurturing independent grassroot initiatives? The seventh edition of Pixelache Festival in Helsinki will focus on education. Pixelache celebrates this theme by opening its very own educational programme, entitled Pixelache University - and we are going to enrol. 12-16 March 2008, Helsinki. http://www.pixelache.ac/university

THE ASSETS OF AFRICA
As Saki Mafundikwa aptly stated, “Africa is not poor, it just doesn’t have a lot of money.” If Africa does not have a lot of money, what then does it have?. This question, posed by Mugendi Mrithaa to conference chair Ezio Manzini, has persuaded us we should participate in the Change the Change conference in Torino, in July. It's about design visions, proposals, and tools. 10 -12 July 2008.
http://www.changingthechange.org/

SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY
There are two ways to reduce transportation emissions: reduce emission rates per vehicle-kilometer, or reduce total vehicle-travel. The vast majority of policy and design innovation focuses on the first - thereby guaranteeing perpetually rising transport intensity and perpetually postponed sustainability. This excellent paper by Todd Alexander Litman, at the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Australia, explains in policy terms how to reduce system-wide transport intensity within a viable economy. http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf

FREAKY WIKINOMICS
Don Tapscott's new book Wikinomics gallops along at a heady pace. "The knowledge, resources, and computing power of billions of people are self-organising into a massive new collective force", it gushes. This marvelous news is tempered by the suspicion that either I, or the Web 2.0 world, is afflicted by a severe reality deficit. Wikinomics promises us an internet-powered business utopia, but the words climate change, peak oil, and catbolic collapse, are notable for their complete absence. A better text for CEOs is John Gray's Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. "The pursuit of utopia must be replaced by an attempt to cope with reality" writes Gray. Warning that "an irrational faith in the future is encrypted into contemporary life", the laugh-a-minute philosopher recommends a diet of Spinoza and Tao-ism for those whose new year resolution is: Get Real.

NO NEW LISTS!
My own new year's resolution is to stop writing sustainability to-do lists. I'm supposed to be an expert, but it still gives me a headache trying to keep track of the Triple Bottom Line; the Three Main Components (and Four System Conditions) of The Natural Step; One Planet Living's Ten Guiding Principles; the World Wildlife Fund's Three Forms of Solidarity; the Copenhagen Agenda's Ten Principles for Sustainable City Governance; the Framework of Eight Doorways of the Sustainable Schools Network; and the ten Hannover Principles promulgated by Bill McDonough. Each list is the result of deep thought by smart and dedicated people - and there are doubtless other important to-do lists out there that I've missed. But can we please agree: enough already?

TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABILITY: SAO PAULO WORKSHOP
Imagine that you have the attention of 100,000 designers and architects. Which five tools, business models, platforms, or applications, would you badly want them to know about - and use? The use of the tool should enable citzens to enjoy an aspect of daily llfe in a radIcally resource effcient way.The purpose of this Doors of Perception workshop in Sao Paulo is to identify and document tools, from Brazil and Sao Paulo, that may be added to a global inventory that will be presented at an event in France in November 2008. Thursday 6 December (14h-19h) and Friday 7th (10-13h). Rua Ferreira de Araujo 741, Pinheiros, São Paulo. http://www.cbb.org.br/
The workshop is free but please register in advance: fabiosouza@idds.com.br, and john@doorsofperception.com.

DOTT MANUAL NOW ON SALE
Dott 07 was a year of community design projects in North East England that explored what life in a sustainable region could be like - and how design can help us get there. We called its publication a manual (rather than a book, or a catalogue) because it's about practical ways for people either to join Dott projects themselves, or to do something similar where they live. At 100 pages, and fully-illustrated in colour with real people,the Dott Manual is wildly under-priced on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dott-07-Manual-John-Thackara/dp/1904335152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195572368&sr=8-1

DOTT PODCAST
Should design schools be closed down? How do you make community-based design interesting? Your correspondent enjoyed this short conversation with Neil McGuire which is now available on wodcast.org.
http://www.wodcast.org/wodcast_webarchive/wodcast_thackara.mp3

MY MOBILITY MARK OF CAIN
Andreas Zachariah, the son of a pilot and an air stewardess, has developed a magical piece of software that automatically tracks my travel carbon emissions. On GPS-enabled mobile phones it identifies and evaluates the different forms of transport used as one moves about from A to B. It then outputs the aggregate carbon footprint of your travel to the device. (Wikipedia tells me that Cain's curse is his "inability to cultivate crops and the necessity that he lead a nomadic lifestyle." It's true: I'm a carbon criminal).
http://www.carbonhero.net/Intro.html
http://www.dott07.com/

ONE PLANET LIVING - ONE SMALL ISLAND AT A TIME
The UK's National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) has announced a £1m (1,4m euros, $2m) prize fund to reward people working together on new approaches to saving energy. The competition is open to groups "based mainly in the UK". You have until 29 February 2008 to enter. http://www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk

CITY BIKE SYSTEM IN PARIS
The Vélib city bike system in Paris is getting a lot of international media attention of late. It's an important first step toward creating a high quality, low cost, low carbon new mobility strategy for your city. Want one for your city, too? This New Mobility Policy Brief is a mayor’s guide to City Bike Strategies. http://www.velib.newmobility.org
http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/velib_index.htm

CHANGING THE CHANGE
Ezio Manzini is chair of a conference called Changing the Change that's part of Torino World Design Capital 2008. "It's a design research conference with a focus more on results than on methodology" Ezio tells me, "with an emphasis on what design research can do for sustainability". There will be also be an international summer school. Do you have good paper on a very interesting initiative? The deadline for submission of abstracts and draft visualisations is 21 January 2008.   Torino 10 -12 July 2008. www.changingthechange.org

LEAPFROGGING SCORE
Europe's Score! network involves 28 institutions and several hundred professionals in a programme to promote "radical change, system innovation and paradigm shifts" in policy and business as regards sustainablility. Their March conference is about eco-design, supply chains, marketing, sustainable
business models, base of the pyramid economies, leapfrogging. It's at Les Halles des Tanneurs, a refurbished 19th century tannery.10 and 11March.
http://www.score-network.org

KITCHEN BUDAPEST
Kitchen Budapest, a new media lab, which opened in June, is doing fascinating work: a robot lawnmower that reproduces photographic images on the landscape; an intelligent autonomous raft that's still floating down the Danube; a local network for displaying local videos; and a web 2 platform called GETS that that enables local level service exchange. Three months on, their first catalogue is already online and and is also available upon request in printed form. Kitchen also have residency openings for such programmes as "Pimp My Gadget" for next year. Kitchen has to be one of Europe's livliest labs. www.kitchenbudapest.hu/hu/2007summerpdf

LANDLINES
Is there something in the soil?
http://www.thecumbrianetwork.co.uk/landlines-1
http://www.eikongraphia.com/?p=2094

DEVICE ART IN NO-TIME
Global interaction designers discuss the design of interactive systems - web and desktop, mobile, consumer electronics, digitally enhanced environments, and more. Some great keynoters include Alan Cooper, Sigi Moeslinger, Bill Buxton, and Malcolm McCullough. Matt Jones talks about "designing in no-time" and Regine Debatty proposes "device art".
http://interaction08.ixda.org/

WANTED: PESKY DESIGN CRITTERS
Alice Twemlow writes with news of a new graduate program in design criticism, the first of its kind in the U.S., that will begin at the School of Visual Arts in New York in Autumn of 2008 "with a stellar faculty and an innovative curriculum".
http://designcriticism.sva.edu

DRIVE-BY GRAFFITI
Floor van Keulen and René Oey made drawings and texts and projected them from a car via a video beam onto houses, factories, empty walls and passing traffic.
http://www.stadsgezichten.com/index.htm

TRIPPING IN MANCHESTER
Like many northern cities, Manchester is changing fast. Do you want to critique the implications of "regeneration"? Are you passionate about the possibilities of inventive walking and drifting? TRIP wants to hear from people with ideas and practices to do with psychogeography, neogeography, deep topography (for people who are up themselves?), locative media, and collaborative mapping. Manchester, 19-22 June 2008.
http://trip2008.wordpress.com/

BETTER LIVES WITH LESS STUFF - BY DESIGN
I promised not to fill this newsletter with Dott announcements again - but forgive me if I remind you just once more that the Designs of the time (Dott 07) festival runs 16-28 October on the banks of the River Tyne.
http://www.dott07.com/go/festival
http://www.doorsofperception.com/

THING LINKS AND REAL-TIME TRAVEL STATS
A couple of late additions to the "wouldn't it be great if...." Dott 07 debates. Andreas 'Zac' Zachariah will present his dazzling CarbonHero system at the Movement Dilemma debate on 18 October; it calculates the carbon emissions of all your journeys in real time and displays them on your mobile phone. Ulla Maria Mutanen will talk about micro marketing with ThingLink as part of the debate on food systems and cities on Monday 22 October. And we've added Carbon Detectives to the debate on sustainability, schools, and schooling on 23 October; the Carbon Detectives calculator enables 37,000 UK schools to measure their carbon footprints and compare results. Our debate will focus on how best to help schools make their footprints nine times smaller.
http://www.dott07.com/go/dott-07-festival/dott-debates/

TIPPING POINT PUBLISHING (1) "CRUDE AWAKENING"
Surely the only reason the world financial system does not collapse, despite all those trillions of dollars of unsecured debt, is the psychology of mass denial. Could an accumulation of media events undermine global wishful thinking once and for all? After Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" comes another scary-because-boring blockbuster: "Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash". This film tells the story of "how our civilization’s addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with geology". A succession of oil experts in crumpled suits come to a startling, but logical conclusion: our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled. Or.... http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/film.html

TIPPING POINT PUBLISHING (2) "A DEMON OF OUR OWN DESIGN"
Why do markets keep crashing and why are financial crises greater than ever before? The author of another tipping point publication, this one a book, has been the risk manager to some of the leading firms on Wall Street and has more recently been a designer of quant funds. In A Demon of Our Own Design Rick Bookstaber tells the story of man’s attempt to manage market risk and what it has wrought. "Bookstaber has seen the ghost inside the machine and vividly shows us a world that is even riskier than we think. The very things done to make markets safer, have, in fact, created a world that is far more dangerous," says the blurb.
http://rick.bookstaber.com/

TIPPING POINT PUBLISHING (3) THE DOTT 07 MANUAL
So there you have it, the ingredients for despair: Gore's drowning baby polar bears and grim warnings on climate change; Bookstaber predicting the collapse of the money system; and now Crude Awakening on the end of industrial society. But there are good news publications out there, too. For example, we've written a 100 page "manual" to accompany the Designs of the time (Dott 07) Festival. We call it a manual (rather than a book, or catalogue) because it's about practical ways for people either to join Dott projects themselves, or do something similar where they live. It's published on 16 October. For some reason it's not up on Amazon yet, but it soon will be (10 pounds / 15 euros / 20 dollars + postage) and in the meantime you can register your interest with: claire.capaldi@dott07.com (Please put "manual" in the header).

BOTTLES HALF EMPTY AND BOTTLES HALF FULL
We made this list of recommended books for the Dott festival bookshop:
1 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed - Jared Diamond
2 Heat - George Monbiot
3 An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore
4 A Demon of Our Own Design - Richard Bookstaber
5 Six memos for the next millennium - Italo Calvino
6 Relational Aesthetics - Nicolas Bourriaud
7 Smart Mobs - Howard Rheingold
8 Worldchanging - Alex Steffen
9 Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes - Viljoen&Bohn
10 In The Bubble - John Thackara
11 A Geography of Time - Robert V. Levine
12 Fire and Memory: On Architecture and Energy - Luis Fernandez-Galiano
12 Powerdown - Richard Heinberg
13 Cradle to Cradle - William McDonough and Michael Braungart

PLUS....

SAO PAULO
I'll be in Sao Paulo between 3-7 December and would love to meet or hear about anyone there with a Doors connection: john@doorsofperception.com

HOW TO BE A DESIGN STUDENT
If you are one of the thousands of students starting design and architecture courses this month, Core77 has put together a fantastic set of tips, tricks, and life hacks for you. Hack2School is divided into five sections: Classroom, Dorm Room, Represent, Crash Course, and Cheat Sheet. There are guest essays from Ralph Caplan, Alissa Walker, Alice Twemlow, Steve Portigal, Jessica Helfand, Scott Klinker, Steven Heller, Sam Montague, and Jill Fehrenbacher.
http://www.core77.com/hack2school

WHY GO TO THE DOTT FESTIVAL?
It brings together the results of projects and events that explore what sustainable life in one region (North East England) could be like – and how design can help us get there. The projects do not propose global answers - they are site-specific, and are co-designed with citizens. But they usually incorporate new technology, and in every case novel design challenges have been confronted. The 12 day Festival runs 16-28 October in Baltic Square on the banks of the River Tyne - a birthplace of the carbon age.

20 FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

1) Free Dott Manual (if you have five converastions with a stranger)
2) Debates: http://www.dott07.com/go/dottdebates
3) Festival site: http://www.dott07.com/go/festival
4) Town Criers: http://www.dott07.com/go/vitalsigns
5) Landscape/Portrait: http://www.dott07.com/go/landscape
6) Move Me! http://www.dott07.com/go/moveme
7) Welcomes: http://www.dott07.com/go/welcomes
8) Urban Camping: http://www.dott07.com/go/designcamp
9) Landlines: http://www.dott07.com/go/movement/design-camp/landlines/
10) Mapping The Necklace http://www.mapping-the-necklace.org.uk/
11) New Work http://www.dott07.com/go/newwork
12) Low Carb Lane http://www.dott07.com/go/lowcarblane
13) Eco Design Challenge http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge/
14) Our New School http://www.dott07.com/go/school
15) Journey Through Dementia http://www.dott07.com/go/alzheimer100
16) Design and sexual health http://www.dott07.com/go/dash
17) Our cyborg future? http://www.dott07.com/go/cyborg
18) City Farming http://www.dott07.com/go/urbanfarming
19) DE07 http://www.dott07.com/go/de07
20) Region http://www.dott07.com/go/what-is-dott-07/about-north-east-england/

WHEN WOULD BE THE BEST TIME TO GO?
You coud 'do' the festival in a morning - but rushed visits are old-paradigm. The days Thursday 18 to Monday 22 October are probably best. Monday 22 is a one day mini-Doors, on Food Systems, Cities, and Design.

WILL THERE BE A DOORS GET-TOGETHER?
What a good idea. Yes. At 18:00h on Sunday 21 October. Somewhere nearby the Festival. Watch this space.

WHEN ARE THE MAIN DEBATES?

CYBORG: OUR FUTURE HUMAN BODY.
Café Scientifique – 19:00-21:00
Monday 15 October

THE MOVEMENT DILEMMA
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 18:00-20:00
Thursday 18 October

DESIGN AND SEXUAL HEALTH
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 11:00 -14:00
Friday 19 October

THE JOURNEY THROUGH DEMENTIA
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 15:00-17:30
Friday 19 October

FOOD SYSTEMS & CITIES
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 11:00-16:00
Monday 22 October

LOW CARB LANE.
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art 12:00 –14:00
Tuesday 23 October

SUSTAINABILITY, SCHOOLS, AND SCHOOLING
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art 15:00-17:30
Tuesday 23 October

INTERSECTIONS
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 09:30-19:00
Thursday 25 October Friday 26 October

DO I NEED TO RESERVE SEATS AT THESE DEBATES?
Yes, here: http://www.dott07.com/go/dottdebates/register

HOW DO I GET TO NORTH EAST ENGLAND?

UK LAND CONNECTIONS
http://www.intersections07.com/gettingthere.html

FLIGHT CONNECTIONS
http://www.newcastleairport.com/Destinations/Destinations.htm?Version=access

FLIGHT TIMETABLES
http://www.newcastleairport.com/NR/rdonlyres/1C2B405E-12D6-41B3-81BC-7D43E3DFC6D1/0/NCLCOMPLETEAUGUST07.pdf

WHERE DO I STAY?
http://www.intersections07.com/accom.html

DOTT 07 DEBATES
The Dott 07 Festival (15-28 October) brings together the results of projects across North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like - and how design can help us get there. During the Festival, a series of debates will ask: what did we learn, and what do we do next? Participation in the debates is free, but you have to reserve a place in advance.

DEBATE 1: THE MOVEMENT DILEMMA
Can transport and tourism ever be sustainable? The movement of people and goods around the world consumes vast amounts of matter, energy, space and time - most of it non-renewable. Could transport intensity be de-coupled from economic progress - and if so, how? The debate begins with a keynote from Antony Townsend, research director at the Institute of the Future in Palo Alto. There follows a review of Dott 07’s Move Me project, which explored the potential to transfrom transportation resource efficiency in one village, and the results of Dott's Sustainable Tourism Design Camp. Thursday 18 October, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 13:00-17:00.To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

DEBATE 2: DESIGN ACTION FOR SEXUAL HEALTH
Design and  Sexual Health. Healthcare professionals and service designers, together with
citizens and service providers , debate the lessons learned from the DaSH project. Design
and  Sexual Health (the DaSH project) confronted a challenge: sexual health clinics can be
so unwelcoming that people, who need to visit them, don’t. Dott worked with Gateshead PCT to
make sexual health testing  and treatment services easier to access and use. 
Friday 19 October, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, 10:30-14:00. To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

DEBATE 3: THE JOURNEY THROUGH DEMENTIA
Dott 07’s Alzheimer 100 project charted the key stages of the journey through dementia in collaboration with people with dementia and their carers. What opportunities for service design innovation exist on that journey? Service ideas that emerged from co-design workshops range from time banking, to assistive technology. This debate is organised in conjunction with the Alzheimer's Society nationally. Friday 19 October, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art – 15:00-17:30. To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

DEBATE 4: FOOD SYSTEMS AND CITIES
Up to 25 percent of the ecological footprint of a city can be attributed to the systems which keep it fed and watered. This international debate, organised jointly with Doors of Perception, reframes food systems as design opportunities.The day opens with a review of Dott's Urban Farming project in Middlesbrough: it involved more than a thousand citizens and dozens of organisations, and plans for a second year are already well advanced.
Monday 22 October, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, 11:00-16:00. To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

DEBATE 5: LOW CARB LANE
More and more of us would like to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, especially at home. But how to do it? Wind turbines? Fuel cells? Solar panels? Wood-chip boilers? There are many choices, but it’s hard to choose. It’s also hard to pay. Low Carb Lane tackled these challenges head-on in a real street: Castle Terrace in Ashington. Tuesday 23 October, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art 12:00 –16:00. To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

DEBATE 6: SUSTAINABILITY, SCHOOLS, AND SCHOOLING
One group above all others has a stake in the transition to sustainaility: today's school students. Are we giving them enough leeway to shape the world they will live in? The debate begins with a review of two projects: In Eco Design Challenge, Dott challenged year eight students across the North East with two questions: "how big is your school's ecological footprint?"; and, "what design steps would make it smaller?". We will hear how they fared. A second Dott project, Our New School, asked: "“How do we create schools that prepare our children for their futures?". Teachers, parents, students, policymakers and designers will debate: what lessons have been learned? how do we scale up these experiments? Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art 15:00-17:30. To reserve your place email adam.thomas@dott07.com or visit www.dott07.com

PART 2: OTHER NOTICES

CUSTARD PIE CALL
Frederico Duarte wins my project of the month award. The most famous of the Portuguese cakes, the Pastel de Nata (Custard Tart), shows up everyday in counters and tables of thousands of people all over the World. From São Paulo to London, from Singapore to Maputo, how do all the incarnations, names and adulterations of this Portuguese icon reflect the original delicacy? Duarte has issued a worldwide call for cake photographs from all the places on Earth where these cakes are sold, bought and eaten. Please look out for Pastel de Nata and Bolo de Arroz in your city, photograph it and send it to his group. If you don't have a flickr account email the photo to him and he'll put it there, and credit it to you
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabricoproprio/ 

GOVERNMENT AGAINST GREENWASH
My other project of the month award goes to the UK government. The term greenwashing applies when companies (or governments) spend more money or time advertising being green, than on investing in environmentally sound practices. The UK government is taking two potentially important steps that, in the medium term, could become a powerful deterrent against greenwash. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2007/07/greenwash_answe.php

THE DISRUPTERS
Lessons for low-carbon innovation from a new wave of environmental pioneers. This NESTA report tells the stories of eight businesses and
organisations that are pursuing low-carbon goals using disruptive innovations.
http://enews.nesta.org.uk/rp//26/process.clsp?t=543Y69GoC9mm

SUV OF BILLBOARDS
What will be the impact of large scale integrated displays on architecture and urbanism? Will these people ask our permission before transforming public space with energy guzzling screens? I added that second question because it does not appear in the programme of this conference in London. 11 and 12 September 2007 Central Saint Martins Innovation Centre, London http://www.mediaarchitecture.com

GOODBY PRIVACY?
Seamless surveillance panopticon - or freedom of expression? This year's Ars Electronica Festival delves into what the public and private spheres have come to mean and the interrelationship that now exists between them. 5. - 11. September 2007, Linz, Austria
www.aec.at/privacy

$100k FOR DESIGN REVOLUTION
The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) announces the launch of a challenge that will award $100,000 annually for the development and implementation of "a solution with significant potential to solve the world's most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth's ecological integrity".?http://challenge.bfi.org

WHAT DO THEY CREATE?
A newsletter from the UK Parliamentary Design Group asks me, "Did you know that the creative and cultural industries account for 7.3% of the UK economy, comparable in size to the value of the financial services industry?'. To which my response is, "yes, but isn't it about time we stiid back and reflected critically on what it is these industries create?". A big chunk of the creative industries' turnover comes from adland, where spending will break through the $400 billion mark this year: That's $555 per person in the USA (compared to $209 per head in France, $25 in Latin America and $8 in China). And what is the purpose of these creative billions? They are spent to stimulate consumption - most of which will be unsustainable.
www.designinparliament.org.uk

SIX BILLION DEPRIVED PEOPLE
When we asked "how does reading this newsletter leave you feeling?" 38% of you answered "inspired" and another 48% said "thoughtful". But more than six billion people are not yet subscribers. That's four billion people who could be inspired, but are not. Get them on board!?http://www.doorsofperception.com/Mailinglist/

HOW HIGH IS THE CLIMATE CHANGE BAR?
This sounds dry but I have a feeling it 's an important development.
Carbon Trust and the UK's Environment Ministry, Defra, have joined
with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to develop a standard
method for measuring the embodied green house gas (GHG) emissions in
products and services. Once completed, a "Publicly Available
Specification" (PAS) will ensure a consistent and comparable approach
to supply chain measurement of embodied GHGs across markets. There's
a way to go, of course, before the problem of "greenwash" disappears.
But PAS creates an important part of the architecture for a global
system that will enable people to make a meaningful comparison
between whole-system enviromental performance of competing
products and services.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2007/070530a.htm

RESOURCE WARS
Clashes over resources, both major and minor, are often the unseen
factor behind chaos and violence and we need to develop fairer systems
the distribution of resources. A new book by Wolfgang Sachs and other
specialists from the internationally renowned Wuppertal Institute
explains what is involved in resource conflicts and the new regimes
needed to eliminate them. Resource Conflicts, Security, and Global
Justice, London: Zed Books, 2007.
http://www.zedbooks.net/fairfuture

SLOW TRADE, SOUND FARMING
Agricultural trade policies pursued in the last decades have
contributed to price instabilities for agricultural goods and an
increase in market concentration and the industrialization of
agricultural production at a global level. A two-year dialogue
among farmer representatives, trade analysts, policy advisors,
and researchers from Southern and Northern countries led to this
proposal for a new system. Wolfgang Sachs/Tilman Santarius et al.,
Slow Trade - Sound Farming. A Multilateral Framework for
Sustainable Markets in Agriculture. Aachen/ Berlin:
Misereor/ Heinrich Boell
Foundation, 2007.
http://www.ecofair-trade.org

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AND DESIGN
In terms of someone's carbon footprint, a single holiday in New
Zealand is equivalent to 60 short domestic visits to the North East of
England by a UK citizen. But those sixty trips are not sustainable if
they stimulate a wasteful use of finite resources by visitors and
their host businesses. This is a pressing dilemma: Tourism is
fundamental to the North East's economic strategy and in many other
regons around the world. So how might we re-shape tourism to be
consistent with sustainabiity? Designs of the time (Dott07) has asked
expert speakers to address this queston on 12 July in Newcastle. Chris
Little heads Tourism Development Unit at One North East. Leandro
Pisano and Alessandro Esposito develop ICT strategies for development
of rural areas in South Italy. Beth Davidson is the mapping creative
lead on Mapping The Necklace. And Ross Lowrie is a project leader of
the Tyne Salmon Trail. The event is free but you need to reserve a
place with Beckie Darlington:
beckie.Darlington@dott07.com

WHERE'S MY PHONE?
Thirty per cent of people who keep their phone in a pocket, and 50
percent of bag carriers, sometimes or always miss incoming mobile
phone communications. Ace street researcher Jan Chipchase ran a study
in eleven countries across four continents to find this out. He
extended the study to include the carrying of keys & money - the
so-called mobile essentials (but did not include the reading glasses
which I also have to locate in order to send a text message). Before
long we'll be able to distribute the functional components of a phone
around our bodies and clothes - so what will a "phone" look like then?
Answer, says the report: a Japanese bondage bunny.
http://www.janchipchase.com/wheresthephone

THE LOST INNOCENCE OF DESIGN
If you read Italian, I wrote this piece for La Stampa's new magazine.
http://www.lastampa.it/_settimanali/specchio/editoriale.asp

FREE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES
The traditional meeting for the free civil networks in Catalonia (SAX)
has been extended to new participants worldwide affiliated to the
WSFII (World Summit for Free Information Infrastructures).
Registration is free and everyone interested in developing
non-proprietary networks is invited.
http://guifi.net/ca/SAX2007En

DON'T INVENT, SEARCH
In a new book the economist William Easterly emphasizes the role of
'Searchers', groups throughout the world who are experimenting with
piecemeal interventions and altering them in response to feedback.
A project in Ethiopia run by Water Aid concentrates on a single
objective: providing clean water to some very poor villages in
the Rift Valley and involving local villagers in direct management
of the work. GlobalGiving.com promotes decentralised
methods of distributing aid.
http://www.adb.org/Economics/speakers_program/easterly.pdf

READERSHIP SURVEY
Thank you (x10) for your 299 thoughtful and incredibly helpful
responses to our readership survey last month. For the record: 53% of
you are male and 47% female; your ages range between 20-70 (spread
pretty evenly across the decades); 27% of you are designers, but no
other occupation exceeds 10%; 33% of you are self-employed, 10% are in
a micro-enterpise, 21% are in education (as a student or teacher). You
live all over the world, with 31% in North America and 31% in Europe.
When asked, "how does reading this newsletter leave you feeling?" you
answered: "inspired" (38%) "thoughtful" (41%) "im gonna be rich!" (2%)
and "irritated" (2%). To the question, "If we set up a group for your
fellow readers on Linked In, or similar, would you join it?" 79% of
you answered yes. And 79% answered yes to the question "If monthly
Doors get-togethers were organised by volunteers on a local basis,
would you attend them? You proferred many suggestions about ways we
might improve this newsletter. A lot of you requested a clearer
organisation of content and better usability. Quite a lot of requests
for podcasts. We need to keep the width to 70 characters. We'll act on
these asap. 25% of you said you would donate between $2 and $25 per
month to help pay for the changes (OK, OK: 23% said $2). Hmmm.

AAA! THE WINNER
I fed all the responses into random.org and the winner of a free lunch
is someone called "aaa_matrix". I'm eager to hear from her/him/it.

WHAT MIGHT LIFE IN A SUSTAINABLE REGION BE LIKE?
And what design steps are needed to get us from here, to there? Make a
note of the Dott Festival dates: 16-28 October 2007, Baltic Square,
Gateshead, UK.
http://www.dott07.com/

MAPPING THE NECKLACE
Roam, meet, share, map. By revealing hidden value, maps reduce the need
for carbon-emitting buldings and infrastructure. A gorgeous array of
teams will assemble in Durham for Mapping The Necklace (5-7 May). A Dott
moment, at which all Doors readers are welcome, is on Sunday 6th. One
group will map the most beautiful cows in the park. Other teams will
audio map, using ambient and verbal cues as way markers. Performers will
chart busking spaces in the park. Dog experts will plot dog tracks that
tell what your dog is thinking about. GeoScrooters will share
experiences through photos, art, sound, and poetry. A Gimme Shelter! A
design team will ask if a shelter needs to be something physical or can
it be psychological? Dashing Parkouristes will leap out of trees.
Foodies will map edible bounty in the park, from wild garlic, to
elderflower and fungi. Join us at Old Durham Gardens, Sunday 6 May, or
send a friend. Details from:
beckie.darlington@dott07.com

WHAT WILL SUSTAINABLE TOURISM BE LIKE? MAKE IT HAPPEN
We are still looking for visionary and effective young designers to
help us create practical examples of what sustainable tourism might be
like to do, and how it can work as a business. The Dott Design Camp in
July in North East England will tackle five live projects with local
partners: Urban Camping; Allendale Industrial Heritage; Designing the
Agricultural Landscape; Weardale Disused Railway; Wind Power in the
Landscape. if you are interested, or would like to recommend someone,
the deadline for applications is 15 May.
http://www.dott07.com/go/tourism/design-camp

DOORS OF PERCEPTION 9B: FOOD SYSTEMS DESIGN
So many questions and possibilities were raised at Doors 9 in Delhi, in
March, that we will reconvene in October in England. The event will
include a field visit to the Dott Urban farming project in
Middlesbrough,plus time to see the Dott Festival in NewcastleGateshead.
Reserve the dates: Friday 19 to Sunday 23 October. Details to follow in
this newsletter.

THE POINT OF IT ALL
The Picture House exhibition at Belsay Hall in North East England opens
with a Digital Dinner on Thursday 3 May. We'll see and discuss works
that include a kinetic reflection display system called Aleph. The name
(explain the artists, Adam Somlai-Fischer and Bengt Sjolen) comes from a
fictional point of singularity described by Jorge Luis Borges as "a
point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it
can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously,
without distortion, overlapping or confusion". Be there or
be....dis-a-pointed. Contact: beckie.darlington@dott07.com
http://www.aether.hu/2006/aleph/
http://www.dott07.com/

CREATIVE COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE
For four years Doors of Perception has been involved in a Europe-wide
project called EMUDE (it stands, clunkily, for "Emerging User Demands
for Sustainable Solutions"). A network of design schools acting as
'antennas', has collected examples of social innovation in a wide
variety of contexts. Many of these seem to be more resource-efficient
than conventional ways of organizing daily life. Such examples are on
the edge of the known world for many urbanites, but we believe these
fringe examples may be the harbinger of wider scale social
transformation to come. You may judge for yourself how representative
these signs are in Creative Communities, the book of Emude that has just
been published. Edited by Anna Meroni and a team at Milan Polytechnic,
Creative Communities is available to download. (It's a heavy file, but
worth the wait).
http://www.dis.polimi.it/emude/book1/

SOCIAL INNOVATION EXCHANGE (SIX)
SIX is a new global network of networks to promote social innovation
across the fields of technology, design, cities, social
entrepreneurship, public policy and business. The Six network spans
sectors as diverse as culture, education, health and the environment.
http://www.socialinnovationexchange.org

GRASSROOTS TO GLOBAL
People from Emude and Six (the two preceding stories) will be in Beijing
for a workshop organized by Honeybee Network to discuss how to incubate
and scale up scale up innovation models that work. The idea is to
facilitate a common incubation platform and develop a longer-term vision
for international cooperation. Information from Anil K Gupta, Professor,
Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad 380015, India. Building Global
Value chain around Green Grassroots Innovations and Traditional
Knowledge being organized in Tianjin, China 31 May 31- 2 June.
anilg@sristi.org / anilg53@gmail.com

THE POLITICS OF GESTURE
"Small steps - returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning
off the water while you brush your teeth - are of such minor impact,
compared to our ecological footprints, that they are essentially
meaningless without larger, systemic action as well". A hard-hitting
editorial in WorldChanging trashes the strategy of recycling, whch is
described as "essentially, the politics of gesture, little different
than wearing a rubber wrist band or a pink ribbon". Doing better, say
the editors, will involve "setting a hard bar against which to measure
our actions". Too true: this is where the line will be drawn.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006520.html

FOOD SYSTEMS: THE DESIGN AGENDA
Up to 25 percent of the ecological impact of an advanced city can be attributed to its food systems. This striking number was just one of the insights to enliven Doors of Perception 9 on "Juice" which took place in Delhi last month. Profiles, workshop reports, and conference presentations, will be posted soon. Pending that, here is a work-in-progress reflection on what we learned.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/juice/archives/_home_news/juice_food_energy_design.php#more

DOTT GOES TO PARLIAMENT
Is design an answer to climate change? UK Environment minister David Miliband, and Design Council Chief Executive David Kester, were among speakers at a seminar in London's Parliament to brief parliamentarians on the design-related approaches to sustainability being piloted by Dott 07 (Designs of the Time). My bit is here:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2007/03/dott_goes_to_pa.php

UPCOMING

COMPLEX UTENSILS (MILAN/TURIN, 18 APRIL)
An international competition called Torino Geodesign will be launched in Milan on 18 April during the Salone di Mobile. Italo Lupi (editor of Abitare) hosts Sergio Chiamparino (Mayor of Turin); Stefano Boeri (curator, Torino Geodesign); Fernando and Humberto Campana (Brazilian designers); Guta Moura Guedes (ExperimentaDesign, Lisboa); and John Thackara (Doors of Perception). April 18, 18h-20h, Sala Buzzati, Corriere della Sera, via Balzan, 3 ang. via S. Marco, Milano

RE-THINKING THE INTELLIGENT HOUSE (28 APRIL, PASADENA)
"Dwell on Design: The Intelligent House" is at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. The conference complements "Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living" organized by the Vitra Design Museum with Art Center. The latter, an exhibition and research initiative, envisions the house of the future as a place for new spatial experiences, new systems of sustainability, and new sensory enhancements.? http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/conferences/5257336.html

DOORS AT THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER (01 MAY, L.A.)
I'm staying on for two days in LA after the Dwell conference. If anyone in or around LA would like meet up for a drink on Monday 1 May, drop me a line: http://www.farmersdaughterhotel.com/

DIGITAL DINNER AT BELSAY HALL (03 MAY. NORTHUMBERLAND, UK)
So you think you know what an English country house feels like? Well think again. English Heritage and Dott 07 (with Juha Huuskonen) have invited experimental film directors, artists and designers to transform Belsay Hall in Northumberland with a series of cutting edge art and new media installations.The specially commissioned exhibition will feature fashion, sculpture, music, design, poetry and video filling Belsay's vast empty rooms, spare castle and Grade 1 listed gardens. On Thursday 03 May Dott's Explorers Club is organising a visit and dinner at the site for a maximum of 50 people. You need to book (and pay 16 euros) by Friday 20 April. It's first-come first served at this one-off event. [‘Picture House, Film, Art and Design at Belsay’ is curated by Judith King and presented by English Heritage as part of its contemporary art programme in the North East, which is funded by Northern Rock Foundation and Arts Council England, North East. The Picture House exhibition is also funded by Design Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Heritage Lottery Fund, Northumberland Strategic Partnership and ONE North East. Picture House forms part of the North East England World Class Festival and Events programme and three commissions have been curated by Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007)]. For BOOKINGS, contact: beckie.darlington@dott07.com

MAPPING THE NECKLACE (06 MAY, DURHAM)
Can you roam a park which doesn't, as such, exist? How do you map something ephemeral like a memory, or a noise? In the City of Durham, the Necklace Park has opened for business – virtually. On May 5-7, you are invited to join spies, geeks, performers and other lone rangers to track, create, and compose your own park along a12 mile stretch of the River Wear with its 1,000 years of river-linked experience.
http://www.mapping-the-necklace.org.uk/

ECO DESIGN SCHOOLS CHALLENGE (MAY - JUNE)
Dott 07 asked Year 8 students in 84 schools around the North East of England to explore how design could reduce the ecological footprint of their school. We are still looking for enthusiastic and talented designers, from all disciplines, to volunteer their time to work with one of these schools for a day or more. Please fill in the form and we will be in touch soon.
http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge/thechallenge
http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge/designers-into-schools

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DESIGN CAMP (12-21 JULY)
What design steps would it take to camp in an urban wasteland? Could one re-design the landscape seen from a passing train? What new uses might we design for a disused cement quarry? How might wind farms become tourist attractions? In July, Dott 07 hosts an international design camp, led by Steve Messem of Fred, to develop sustainable tourism ideas for (and with) six North East locations. Results of the Design Camp will feature at the Dott07 Festival in October 2007. If you would like to be considered for a place, please email a short statement of interest to:
http://www.fredsblog.com
http://www.dott07.com/go/tourism/design-camp

DOTT 07 FESTIVAL (15-28 OCTOBER)
Who designs your life? The culmination of Dott07’s year in North East England will be a festival in which Dott participants will share experiences with others – like you? – doing similar work on key themes: mobility and access; food and cities; the journey through dementia; sustainable tourism; and so on. Note the dates: 14-28 October, NewcastleGateshead, UK.

FRIENDS' EVENTS

SNOUT - PARTICIPATORY SENSING
In next week's Snout ‘participatory sensing carnival’ in London, artists, producers, performers and computer programmers demonstrate how to create wearable technologies, from scavenged media, in order to map the invisible gases that affect our everyday environment. The project also explores how communities can use this visual evidence to participate in or initiate local action.? The performance will show in action two prototype Snout sensor ‘wearables’ based on traditional carnival costumes. Venue: Cargo, 83 Rivington St, Kingsland Viaduct, London, EC2A 3AY Tuesday 10 April. http://www.iniva.org

LUMINOUS GREEN
Maja Kuzmanovic of FoAM invites your participation in the Luminous Green Symposium about ecologically inspired and sustainable worlds. Speakers incude Srinivasan Soundara Rajan (Barefoot College), Jennifer Leonard, (IDEO), Mike Longhurst (McCann-EMEA/EACA), Marko Peljhan (Interpolar), Carole Collet (Central Saint Martins), Joey Berzowska (Xs Labs, Concordia University), Philippe Samyn (Samyn and Partners). Monday 30 of April 2007, Groenhoven Estate in Malderen, Belgium. http://luminousgreen.org/

GLOBAL CURATORS CONVERGE
Fourteen heavyweight design and architecture curators will gather in Minneapolis to discuss new directions at major international museums. Speakers include Paola Antonelli (MoMA), Ole Bouman (Netherlands Architecture Institute), Jean-Louis Cohen (NYU), Brooke Hodge (MOCA), Joseph Rosa (Art Institute of Chicago), Deyan Sudjic (Design Museum), Olivier Touraine (UCLA and Columbia), Henry Urbach (San Francisco MOMA). These big beasts are moderated by Janet Abrams, Steven F. Ostrow, and Tom Fisher. Friday 27 and Saturday 28 April 28, 2007 Minneapolis. http://design.umn.edu/go/project/DAIP07

READING LIST

EXPORT OF EMISSIONS
‘Even if we were able to] shut down all of Britain's emissions tomorrow, growth in China will make up the difference within two years. So we've got to be realistic about how much obligation we've got to put on ourselves". That was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on returning from a Caribbean holiday, just after Christmas. But Britain's modest sounding two percent adds up to 552 million tonnes and is more than the 112 smallest emitting countries put together. And although CO2 emissions emanating directly from the UK domestic economy may sound modest, the process of globalisation means that CO2 is emitted around the world on the UK’s behalf. One estimate suggests e actual size of Britain's global footprint as a nation, when emissions associated with the worldwide consumption of FTSE 100 company products are added up, amounts to 12 to 15 per cent of the global total. And that 15 percent does not include the emissions made since the dawn of the carbon-industrial age, which Britain helped invent, that perists in the atmosphere to this day.
http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0702_climate/missingcarbon.pdf

DRUIDS AS DESIGNERS
Which box does one belong in during these curious times? Jan Jaap (Spreij) sent me links to two really quite excellent articles - on peak oil and the future of industrial society - written by....the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. Great writer. Great beard. But Grand Archdruids look so young these days.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2007/03/failure-of-reason.html
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2007/01/technological-triage.html
http://www.aoda.org/bios.htm

BEING THERE, BUT NOT, WITH NEVEJAN
Doors' lifelong friend and collaborator Caroline Nevejan has completed the dissertation for her PhD on "presence and the design of trust". Her timing could hardly be better. As George Monbiot so inconveniently demonstrates in "Heat", each passenger on a return flight from London to New York produces roughly 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide. "There is no technofix to the disastrous impact of air travel on the environment...the only answer is to ground most of the aeroplanes flying today" concludes cheerful George. So Nevejan's topic, the design of presence in technologically mediated environments, moves centre stage. http://www.xs4all.nl/~nevejan/presence/

MARCH EDITION OF THIS NEWSLETTER
There wasn't one. We were at:
http://juice.doorsofperception.com/

THIS MONTH'S THEME: DO IT!
Eugenio Barba describes our era as "the dance of the Big and the Small". Global companies have embarked on meangful and accelerating change in response to the climate crisis. They have moved in part because a million grassroots organisations (according to Paul Hawken) are also active. Feel left out? Here are a few more ways for you to join the party:
- Doors of Perception 9 (New Delhi)
- Dott Explorers Club: what would make a region 'sustainable'?
- Mapping The Necklace
- Eco Design Schools Challenge
- Design Camp on Sustainable Tourism
- Dott Festival

DOORS OF PERCEPTON 9 - FINAL CALL
A unique gathering of global design experts meets in New Delhi, India, on 2, 3 March, to imagine solutions to the growing crisis concerning food and energy. The ninth edition of the celebrated Doors of Perception conference is on the theme 'Juice'. There's plenty of time to register.
http://doorsofperception.com/juice/

DOORS 9 VOLUNTEERS
We are looking for five volunteers to help out in New Delhi for the period 27 February to 5 March. You need to have prior production experience, a cool head, and an all-round can-do attitude.

WHEN WOULD OUR REGION BE SUSTAINABLE?
How would we know when a region is "sustainable"? And how do we get from here, to there? The answers given to these questions vary wildly. For many politicians, a lack of clarity is intentional: it helps them avoid difficult decisions. But a vague promise to be "increasingly sustainable" is a cop-out. We need to know how much things need to change, and by when. The next meeting of the Designs of the time (Dott 07) Explorers Club debates this issue of targets and timeframes. Robert Stephenson Centre, Newcastle, UK, 13 March. Tickets from:

MAPPING THE NECKLACE
Can you roam a park which doesn't, as such, exist? How do you map something ephemeral like a memory, or a noise? In the City of Durham, the Necklace Park has opened for business - virtually. On May 5-7, you are invited to join spies, geeks, performers and other lone rangers to track, create, and compose your own park along a12 mile stretch of the River Wear with its 1,000 years of river-linked experience. http://www.mapping-the-necklace.org.uk/

ECO DESIGN SCHOOLS CHALLENGE
Dott 07 asked Year 8 students in 84 schools around the North East of England to explore how design could reduce the ecological footprint of their school. We are now looking for enthusiastic and talented
designers, from all disciplines, to volunteer their time to work with one of these schools for a day or more. Please fill in the form and we will be in touch soon.
http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge/thechallenge
http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge/designers-into-schools

DESIGN CAMP ON SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
In July, Dott 07 is hosting an international design camp in which teams of young designers from many countries, spanning multiple disciplines, will develop sustainable tourism ideas for (and with) six North East locations: Urban camping in noisy Newcastle; rural industrial heritage in gorgeous Allendale; change the look of the landscape next to the North Coast main line; re-purpose a cement quarry in Weardale; and make power generation look gorgeous on top of a windy hill. Results of the
Design Camp will feature at the Dott07 Festival in October 2007. If you would like to be considered for a place, fill in the form: http://www.dott07.com/go/tourism/design-camp-registration

DOTT 07 FESTIVAL
Who designs your life? The culmination of Dott07's year in North East England will be a festival in which those who have taken part in Dott will share experiences with others - like you? - doing similar work. Doors of Perception will help organise encounters on key themes: mobility and access; food and cities; the journey through dementia; sustainable tourism; and so on. Note the dates: 14-28 October, NewcastleGateshead, UK.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist/archives/2007/01/january_2007_do.php
http://www.dott07.com/

OTHER STUFF

STERLING RAMPANT
Bruce Sterling, viridian design activist and all-round seer, is in rampant form in his newsletter this month.(It's a soul sister to this one). "The climate crisis is in its Neville Chamberlain phase right now. People still imagine that a concern with the climate is trendy, and that a judicious head-nod here will mean peace in our time. Those people are not merely mistaken, they are delusionary. They are nodding in disdain at the basic laws of physics. The human race has spent two industrious centuries unearthing the planetary dead and setting them aflame in the sky. There is hell to pay for an affront like that, and it's all ahead of us in this century".
http://www.viridiandesign.org/notes/1-25/Note%2000001.txt

HOW KLM MADE ME CRY
I try to give money to KLM on their ghastly website. At Step 4 (of 5) the procedure gets stuck, and I have to abort. I fill in a two-page form itemising what went wrong and send it to the "help" desk. I receive this reply: "Dear Sir, Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with us. Please be assured that no changes have been made that would affect KLM's products, services and reliability. With kind regards, Niels van Oppen, KLM E-Service Desk".

SLOW = GOOD
"The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting" (Milan Kudera). Thus inspired, Ken Goldberg, director of Berkeley's art, technology, and culture colloquium, is planning a tenth anniversary celebration after a campus lecture by Matmos on the Re-Dematerialization of the Art Object. 12 February. http://atc.berkeley.edu/

SLOW = BAD
http://www.sushu.de/TruckJam

GLOBAL EMERGENCY TEACH-IN
As an architecture student, are you being trained for the world you will inherit? The 2010 Imperative Global Emergency Teach-In, on 20 February, addresses global warming and climate change in an interactive web-cast live from New York. The hope is to reach more than 500,000 students, faculty, deans and practicing professionals in the architecture, planning and design communities in both North and South America. http://www.2010imperative.org

With this email we preview our main activities for the year – especially Doors of Perception 9 in India, and Designs of the time (Dott 07) in the UK. Please make a note of the key dates. Please also pass this newsletter on to friends and colleagues who may be interested.

DOORS OF PERCEPTION 9 on “JUICE” (FOOD, ENERGY, DESIGN)
Doors of Perception 9 takes place in New Delhi at India Habitat Centre on Saturday 3 March. The theme of the conference is “Juice: Food, Energy, Design”. It is followed in the evening by a social technologies bazaar. Doors 9 is preceded by an evening Mediawalla Festival proiduced by Pixelache. On Sunday 4 April all participants are invited a Holi party.

WHY FOOD AND ENERGY AS AN ISSUE?
Global food systems are not sustainable. Industrialised food consumes ten times more energy in production and distribution than enters our bodies as nutrition. In 'developed' countries, the food consumption of a single family generates eight tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. This madness is enabled by non renewable fossil fuel. But what to do? Doors 9 breaks the food systems issue into bite-sized design chunks.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/food/

WHY THE THEME “JUICE”?
To do things differently, we need to perceive things differently. How we think about food is as important as the design steps we take to change the system. Food continuously circulates through the landscape into our homes and bodies; it thereby organizes our calorific, symbolic and social energies. In south Asian cultures juice, the essence of food, can also mean credit, electricity, access, flavor, and love. Doors 9 is about food as metaphor as well as system - as culture, as well as consumption.

DOORS 9 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME (Saturday 3 March)
Doors 9 opens with a introduction to the relationships between food, energy and design by Hannu Nieminen (Finland, Nokia), Aditya Dev Sood (India, Centre for Knowldge Societies), Debra Solomon (Netherlands, culiblog.org) and John Thackara (France, Doors of Perception). Session 2 is about food in cities: Dutch architect Winy Maas (MVRDV) proposes three-dimensional agriculture, with a reference to pig cities. Urban designer Andre Viljoen explains his book about Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULS). David Barrie and Nina Belk describe their urban farming project for Designs of the time (Do0tt 07) in the UK. Designers Sanjeev Shankar and John Vijay Abraham compare old and new traditions of street food. Chris Hardwicke (Toronto) and Ron Paul (Portland) discuss farmers markets as hubs within food systems. Session 3 is on food information systems. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, ponders new ways to think about browsing for food. Divya Sharma looks at food maps. Ellis Neder (USA) and Ian Brown (Fair Tracing, UK) look at identity management and food certification systems. Session 4 of Doors 9 is on “juice”. Designers Jogi Panghaal and Ezio Manzini discuss the different ways European and Asian cultures think about food. Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich (editors Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century) describe small and large scale changes already under way with Walter Amerika, an advisor to multinational food companies. Session 5 of Doors 9 (yes, it’s a full day, but there’s food throughout) is a social technologies bazaar featuring innovative food-related projects from around the world. Among those you will meet are: Garrick Jones (UK, Ludic Corporation); Georg Christoph Bertsch (Germany, Cargo Bathing); Giovanni Canata (Italy, DxH2O water project); Claire Harten (USA) and Maria Wedum (Denmark), Dirt Cafe; Kultivator (Sweden, agriculture as art); Dori Gislason (Iceland, new lives for fishing villages); Francesca Sarti (Italy, food kiosks in Florence); Marije Vogelzang (Netherlands, Proef project); Maja Kuzmanovic (Netherlands, Groworld) ; Margie Morris (USA, Intel, food repositories).

MEDIAWALA PROCESION
Plans for a street-level new media happening during Doors 9 are being developed in some secrecy by Juha Huuskonen and Aditya Dev Sood. We know is its name - Mediawalla Festival, or MWF – and that it’s inspired by the mythical wedding procession of Radha and Krishna. MWF is, we hear,“a collaborative interpretation of ritual in the public space”. Featured artists will include Leandro Pisano and Alessandro Esposito (interferenze.org) who will present projects from molleindustria.it. Delhi Air Traffic Control has been alerted that Usman Haque will float into town on his magic carpet: http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/open-burble-update.html

DOORS OF PERCEPTION 9
Further annoncements, together with details on how to register:
http://juice.doorsofperception.com/

DESIGNS OF THE TIME (DOTT) April-October

Who designs your life? Designs of the time (Dott 07) is a year of innovation projects, leading to a two-week long festival, that address just that question. Doors of Perception is leading the content development of this new biennial, which is an initiative of The Design Council and the development agency, One North East. Even now, communities and individuals across the North East of England are exploring ways to improve an aspect of daily life – helped by design.
http://www.dott07.com/

DOTT 07 FESTIVAL (14-28 October)
The best way to experience the full range of Dott07 activities will be during a two week festival in Newcastle-Gateshead. You will encounter all those who have taken part in Dott’s projects and events, and Creative Community Awards (The Commies) will be given in recognition of outstanding achievement. Special presentations will feature Sociable Objects (Ulla-Maria Maartinen) and a daily skills bazaar in which visitors may consult a multitude of experts in 20 minute increments.
http://www.dott07.com/go/dott-07-festival

WHAT IS DOTT FOR?
Two hundred and fifty regions in Europe (and many more worldwide) are in search of a shared vision to inspire economic and cultural renewal. In Dott 07, the abstract idea of sustainability becomes a concrete question:“how do we want to live?” By the end of 2007, some Dott 07 projects may evolve into enterprises; people in the region will have learned, by doing it, new approaches to social innovation; a further legacy will be platforms for ongoing social innovation – such as places, hubs, and support schemes.
http://www.dott07.com/go/the-region/a-new-approach-to-design/a-new-approach-to-design

DOTT 07 PROJECTS

MOVE ME!
Could we improve mobility for people, and access to services, without adding more cars or building new roads? Scremerston County First School in Northumberland is the focus for this project, which is led by Live|Work. This small school is a daily hub for 42 children and 34 families. The Move Me! project looks at the school community’s mobility needs – including un-met ones - and explores how they can be better served by combining existing vehicles and services in smarter ways. http://www.dott07.com/go/mobility/move-me

MAPPING THE NECKLACE (5-7 May, Durham)
Could a public park be more than grass and benches? Durham’s Necklace Park is a 12 mile stretch of spaces – and experiences - linked to the River Wear. You create your own park by mapping tracks, forests, picnic and fishing spots. You can prepare routes in advance, online - or swap ideas with fellow visitors once you are there. Durham Necklace Park is yours to re-create. The project is led by Susan Williamson with Claire Lancaster. Dates: 5-7 May 2007.
http://www.dott07.com/go/tourism/interviews/susan-williamson

LOW CARB LANE
More of us would like to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, especially at home. But how? Wind turbines? Geothermal? Fuel cells? Solar panels? Wood-chip boilers? There are so many competing proposals that it’s hard to decide. It’s also hard to pay: few people can afford to invest, on their own, in off-grid equipment. Low Carb Lane, which is led by Live|Work, tackles these challenges head-on in a real street: Castle Terrace in Ashington. The community is exploring the potential to achieve warm homes in ways that reduce their carbon footprint and also save them money. http://www.dott07.com/go/energy/low-carb-lane

ECO-DESIGN CHALLENGE
Year eight students in 80 schools across the North East of England have been invited to map their school’s ‘carbon footprint’. Having identified which aspects of their school’s systems and activities are wasteful, they will soon propose the re-design of their school’s key systems to reduce its impact on the environment. The 50 best schools will further develop their plans with the help of professional designers. The best designs will be eligible for awards at the Dott Festival in October. If you would like to be considered as one of those designers working with the schools (as a volunteer) please contact project leader Nick Devitt:
http://www.dott07.com/go/eco-design-challenge

STUFF-O-METER
How many materials are wasted during the manufacture of a hairdryer? Or a car? Dott and Design and Art Direction (D&AD) have issued a challenge to communication design students: Develop a ‘Stuff-O-Meter’ to help us all understand more about the “hidden rucksack” of everyday products. Competitors will design a visual representation of the lifetime use of material resources, from cradle to grave, of a household durable product. The best designs will be presented at the Dott Festival in October.
http://www.dott07.com/go/energy/dandad

OUR_NEW_SCHOOL
What should the design priorities be when a school is rebuilt? During the next 15 years, 3,500 UK schools will be rebuilt or refurbished in an £80m programme called Building Schools for the Future (BSF). Dott07 has teamed up with a real school – Walker Technology College – to ask: how best should the money be spent when their turn comes? In a project led by Engine, Walker is setting up a Future School Lab within its existing building. The Lab will be a place where design ideas are developed and discussed among the school community.
http://www.dott07.com/go/school

ALZHEIMER 100
What practical steps are needed to improve daily life for people with dementia and their carers? Dementia affects 750,000 people currently in the UK – rising to an expected two million by 2050. This project, led by Thinkpublic for Dott and the Alzheimer’s Society, is investigating everyday problems experienced by Alzheimer’s patients and carers. The project enables people with Alzheimer’s and their carers to document a “day in our life”. These documents will become opportunity maps on which are marked practical things that need to be fixed. Where new with support systems, or devices, are needed, the project will make design proposals.
http://www.dott07.com/go/health

DESIGN AND SEXUAL HEALTH
Sexual health clinics can be so unwelcoming that people who need to visit them, don’t. The UK government has given local authorities money to improve their buildings and services. Dott is working with Gateshead Council and Louise Hulton (Options) with Jennifer Singleton on the DaSH (Design and Sexual Health) project. Its about design actions to make sexual health services easier to access, and use.
http://www.dott07.com/go/health

THE CYBORG SHOW: ME, OR MACHINE? (August-October)
Who designs your body? This controversial exhibition, curated by Andrew Chetty, features prosthetic body parts: ears, eyes, skin, limbs, organs. They are joined by robots designed to look after old people - or to perform surgical operations. You will experience devices designed to connect our bodies and minds to networks, or try on smart textiles and wearable computing. The event invites you to discuss the question: Is this a future we want? Newcastle, Discovery Museum.
http://www.dott07.com/go/health/our-cyborg-future-me-or-machine

URBAN FARMING
Based in Tees Valley, the project will get people growing their own food in small medium and large urban growing spaces. These will range from window boxes to larger planter boxes and low sided skips. Meal Assembly Centres, or MACs, will be established to show growers how best to prepare their produce. The project, led by David Barrie with Debra Solomon and Nina Belk, will culminate in one big ‘Meal for Middlesbrough’ which will involve all the individuals, schools, businesses, farms and communities which have taken part. (This project will also feature at Doors 9 in New Delhi).
http://www.dott07.com/go/food

FOOD INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Doors teamed up with the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Designs of the time (Dott07) to sponsor a competition in the 2006-2007 RSA Design Directions competition. Our two competition themes were food information systems, and sustainable tourism. Winners will be selected in London this month by jury members Emily Campbell (Critish Council), Hilary Cottam, Professor Anthony Dunne (Royal College of Art), Rob Holdway (Giraffe Innovation), Natalie Jeremijenko, Ulla-Maria Maartinen (thinglink), Dorothy Mackenzie, Steve Messem (Fold Gallery), Lesley Morris (Design Council), Debra Solomon (culiblog.org), John Thackara (Doors of Perception).
http://www.rsadesigndirections.org/dott07.html
http://www.dott07.com/go/education/dott-rsa-design-directions

PICTURE HOUSE @ BELSAY HALL (May-October).
Visiting an English country house will never be the same again. An extraordinary array of artists has been commissioned by Judith Hall for English Heritage for a spectacular event called Picture House at Belsay Hall, one of the region’s finest country estates. Juha Huuskonen, for Dott 07, invited celebrated new media artists to instal digital works as part of the show. Picture House opens on 5 May 2007.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.00100200800k00800b

THE WELCOMES
What do we see, and what do we experience, on arrival in a region? For The Welcomes, Stella Hall is inviting artists and designers to re-make places, situations, and experiences. Their work will feature in airports and railway stations, motorway cafes, on mobile phones. Prepare to be surprised!

VITAL SIGNS
How happy are we? The news - and politicians - can often be downbeat. In Vital Signs, artists and desigers have been asked by Forma for Dott 07 to create a well-being ‘dashboard for the North East’. State-of-the-art infographics on huge displays - and in surprising other places – will start a thousand conversations.

NEW WORK
Fifty-five percent of the UK workforce does not have a job in the 9-5, Monday-Friday sense of the word. Dott’s NewWork project (nicknamed “Working Life After Starbucks”) is about practical design steps to improve the day-to-day experience of people who are self-employed or have a micro-business. Many people who work from home are isolated and could do with places to go to meet each other; they need help accessing the government’s 300+ assistance schemes; and they would benefit from exchanging skills and services with each other on a local basis.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/11/life_as_a_spot.php

DESIGN CAMP ON SUSTAINABLE TOURISM (September)
Could there be more to tourism than staring at strangers, flopping on beaches, and shopping? In September 2007, teams of young designers spanning multiple disciplines will develop radical alternatives to mainstream tourism. Steve Messem of Fold Gallery will coordinate projects for ‘in-between’ locations: medieval army barracks, disused coal mines, cooling towers, fishing ports. Projects may include twenty-first century youth hostel, extreme sport nature parks, find-and-cook food trails, meetings beyond the convention centre, mapping local knowledge.Teams will present their proposals to a jury of design professionals, entrepreneurs and local citizens. The best projects will feature at the Dott07 Festival in October 2007. A Call for participants will be made later this month.
http://www.dott07.com/go/contact-us

ALSO SHOWING (October)
Dott has partnered with the region’s existing design annual, DE07, to present the following events and exhibitions, also during October: From The Earth We Came (graphic design on the streets); Our Friends In The North (graphic design show); Design For Science (world class scientific visualization at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens); Launch + Designed&Made (in Newcastle Fire Station); Re-Design | Design Contains; Decompression (Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland); Matthias Bentsson (National Glass Centre, Sunderland); Gareth Pugh (Arts Centre, Washington); Talking Cities (Urban Drift exhibition from Berlin, see below).
http://www.design-event.co.uk/
http://www.dott07.com/go/the-region

TALKING CITIES (October)
How might the forgotten corners of post-industrial cities be rescued? This trans-disciplinary exhibition was conceived by Francesca Ferguson for Urban Drift at the spectacular coal-washing plant at Zeche Zollverein, in Germany. It looks at the ways marginal, residual and neglected public spaces, and brownfield sites, can be reconfigured and reactivated. For the North East of England version of the show, architects and urban designers will add proposals for the region to complement proposals shown in Germany. October, North East England.
http://talkingcities.org/talkingcities/pages/1_en.html
http://www.dott07.com/go/contact-us

CONFERENCE ON PROFESSIONAL DESIGN PRACTICE
What are the new ways professional designers will work in the future, and how should design education best prepare them? This international conference will discuss these questions in the context of lessons learned during Dott projects.The conference is jointly organised by Dott, the Design Council UK, and Northumbria University. Kevin McCullough is conference director; Core 77 and Blueprint are media partners. 25, 26 November 2007 (to be confirmed), Newcastle.
http://www.dott07.com/go/contact-us

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN DOTT
The Dott 07 website, and its monthly email newsletter, will announce events and opportunities for participation.
http://www.dott07.com/go/contact-us

PIXELACHE 2007, HELSINKI (March-April)
Shortly after arriving back from India, the Pixelache team bring you the 2007 edition of Europe’s most edgy and interesting festivals of electronic arts and subcultures. Highlights include a seminar on Architecture for Participation; a spectacular Nordic VJ Meeting / VJ Jamming Session; an island party; Prix Möbius Nordica interactive media competition; and a wide variety of DIY art + tech that involve generative art and design, open hardware and circuit bending, self-made VJ software demonstrations. There is also be a trip to Turku for the ‘Digitally Yours’ exhibition at Ars Nova & Aboa Vetus museum featuring works from Finnish and international media artists .Wednesday 28 March – Sunday 1 April 2007, various venues, Helsinki. http://www.pixelache.ac/

FOOD, ENERGY, DESIGN
The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces in food energy. Global food systems are becoming unsustainable in terms of environmental impact, health, and social quality. But what to do? Doors of Perception 9 in New Delhi brings together artists, urbanists, agronomists, growers and squatters to exchange experiences on what works among food information systems, community supported agriculture, urban farming, street food, slow food, new forms of community cooking, and agritourism.The theme is "Juice: Food, Fuel, Design". Saturday 3 March at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Registration opens on 1 December.
http://juice.doorsofperception.com/

CARBON COST OF DOORS
Long-haul flights produce 110 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre. According to George Monbiot's new book, Heat, a single passenger flying to New York and back produces roughly 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Each of us flying to Doors in India will therefore produce the best part of two tonnes of CO2 emissions. Each. Monbiot says that a 90 per cent cut is needed, by 2030, if the biosphere is to remain habitable for you and me, and that a 90 per cent cut in emissions requires most of the planes which are flying today be grounded. He's probably right. Our excuse for Doors 9 is
that it is too late to cancel the event - but it's a limp excuse. Doors' core business - bringing people together from different parts of the world - is going to have to change, and radically.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/10/post_8.php

STERN, MONBIOT, AND THE TASKS OF DESIGN
Is this month a turning point? The Stern review of climate change economics - by a former World Bank chief economist - surely marks a step change in government responses to the crisis. It's not just that Stern's conclusions correspond broadly to what environmentalists have been saying for fifteen years. The fact that the report was commissioned by The Treasury, which guards the nation's money, is also key. Money is at stake, so Something Must Be Done - not just talked about. George Monbiot, responding to Stern, has proposed a "ten point plan for drastic but affordable action" . I have added
some of the design tasks that would be involved during implementation of such a plan here:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/10/stern_monbiot_a.php

STUFF-O-METER
We've had requests for guidance from design schools about the competition to design a stuff-o-meter. (Designs of the time - Dott07 - has teamed up with Design and Art Direction (D&AD) in a challenge to communication design students to come up with a stuff-o-meter that would lift the veil on the hidden history of the everyday products we take for granted). Some pointers
are here:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/10/stuffometer_2.php

POWER-CRAZED TELEVISION
Speaking of stuff-guzzling products: new generation televisions use far more power than the ones they replace. The monster tv sets being marketed by the likes of Sony and Philips consume five times as much power as the models they replace. And that's not counting the energy embodied in their
manufacture. If we admit that organising international conferences is not sustainable, and we do, will Philips or Sony do the same for these SUVs of television sets?
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-2.html

CORE BLIMEY
A Core77 meeting in Boston could be one place to discuss these issues. "As products and systems become smarter and more technologically imbued, the mandate of the designer is thrown into question. If we can make anything, what should we make? And if all of our activities have consequences - environmental, economic and social - what are the opportunities for moving
positively into the future?" A lurid movie-like poster features some terrific speakers: John Maeda, Natalie Jeremijenko, Bill Cockayne, Jason Pearson, Allan Chochinov. November 15, Boston.
http://www.core77.com/design2.0/

WHOLE EARTH CATALOGUE FOR iPOD GENERATION
An essential new book - Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century - contains 600 pages of tools, models and ideas for building a better future. Bill McGibben says that the book "is The Whole Earth Catalog for the iPod generation". There are short features on a thousand cool ideas: slow food, urban farming, hydrogen cars, messenger bags made from recycled truck tarps, pop-apart cell phones, and plywood made from bamboo. There are also how-to guides teaching us how to etch our own circuit board, or organize a smart mob.
http://www.worldchanging.com/book/

WEAKNESS IN NUMBERS?
Many people have already moved from talk to action. Paul Hawken reckons that over one million organizations, populated by over 100 million people, are engaged in positive activity designed to address climate and other environmental issues. "Collectively this constitutes the single biggest movement on earth, but but it flies under the radar" he writes. Paul's new project, a book and tv project called Blessed Unrest , will reveal the depth and diversity of this worldwide 'movement of movements'. Its very size and complexity is a challenge. In just one Dott 07 project, for example - Low Carb Lane - we've had to engage with more than fifteen different organizations. And for them, of course, Dott is number sixteen in a crowded field. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/10/too_many_entiti.php

THE SOCIAL PURPOSE SPACE
There's a lot else going on under the radar besides a million organizations busy on climate change. A conference in Beijing heard evidence from three continents that social innovation is also all around us - also invisibly so. There is vast opportunity for us to amplify, improve and accelerate a transition to new ways of living which is already under way. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/10/the_social_purp.php

COMPETITIVENESS SUMMIT
Is effective response to climate change a pre-condition of national competitiveness? I'll ask that question at next month's national (in the UK) debate on "how business can use creativity to drive innovation and secure competitive advantage". Keynote speakers are Trade & Industry Secretary
Alistair Darling; Lord Sainsbury, Parliamentary Under Secretary, Science and Innovation, Department of Trade and Industry; Sir George Cox, Chairman, Design Council; David Godber, Director, Nissan Design Europe; Professor David Begg, Principal, Tanaka Business School, Imperial College. And me.
London, 7 December.
http://www.neilstewartassociates.com/se193

THERE IST NO SUCH THING AS 'SOCIETY'
"Getting sufficient awareness into robots, and building robots that are capable of working and interacting with people in their everyday lives, is an important field for the society and economy". Says who? Says the European Commission, that's who. This year's annual Information Society (IST) shindig
is full of un-reconstructed tech-pushers; but it's also a good event to find out where all those billions of euros are being spent. IST Event 2006, Helsinki 21-23 November.
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent/2006/cf/network-detail.cfm?id=738

DRESS TO BE SCANNED
The IST portfolio contains several ethically iffy projects. One, called Humabio, combines novel biometrics with state-of-the-art techniques to develop "less intrusive security systems". Humabio will "aid the monitoring and assessment of the psychological state of ...people under extreme stress or people under other special conditions... by implementing an intelligent, multisensorial wearable system that will be able to ubiquitously monitor and classify the personal psychological condition of users using signals obtained from their faces". Another project, Aubade, seeks to obtain " new
algorithms and methods for emotion understanding" based on the measurement of brain electrical activity and "other body parameters".
http://www.aubade-group.com/

VICTORY FOR LA VOUTE!
Our friends who run the project called "La Voute Nubienne" (Nubian Vault) won $5,000 in an Ashoka Changemakers Competition on "How to Provide Affordable Housing.". If you voted, thanks! It really made a difference. If you didn't, they still need $300,000 to scale up their brilliant work.
http://www.lavoutenubienne.org/article.php3?id_article=16&lang=fr
http://www.changemakers.net/journal/300606/

VJ IN COLOMBIA
Our friends at Pixelache are looking for projects, concepts and prototypes to be presented in Finland, France and Colombia. Among special programs are a Nordic VJ Meeting (Pikseliahky / Helsinki); Architecture for Participation seminar (Pikseliahky / Helsinki); Democracy: Do It Yourself (Mal au Pixel /Paris); Pixelazo + Selvatorium (Medellin & Leticia, Colombia). Three themes run through all events: VJ culture and audiovisual performances; experimental sound, interaction and electronics; grassroot networks and the politics of media technology. The deadline for proposals is 30 November.
http://www.pixelache.ac

SPROUTS
Need to build up your strength for the eco-work to come? Or to walk to Delhi for Doors 9? Check out Amsterdam's micro-green restaurant, 'Grow Yer Own Dang Food'. Created by Debra Solomon, the restaurant is situated in Mediamatic's 'Night Garden', an exhibition linking next nature, new technology, and contemporary art. Visitors can enjoy 31 sorts of sprouted vegetable accompanied by that most quintessential of Dutch foods, potato mash (stamppot). Night Garden will be open for two months in Amsterdam.
http://www.mediamatic.net

PASS THIS ON
Speaking of sprouts: We calculate that 5.3 people read each copy of this newsletter, but that 1,512 do not - mainly because they never heard of it before. So pass it on! Tell your friends to subscribe. It's free.
http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist/

FAT, CITIES, AND HOMELAND INSECURITY
Fat-clogged sewers are not the only threat facing modern cities. Hunger is another one. Some governments appear to believe that growing food is an old-fashioned activity that is inconsistent with a shiny knowledge-based economy. Read more at: http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/09/fat_city_revisi.php

.000001 % SOLUTION
Yes, Doors 9 is about an important security issue: energy and food. We seek funding to the tune of .000001% of America's Homeland Security budget to pay for scholarships so that project leaders may come to New Delhi from different parts of India and elsewhere in South Asia. If you are able to fund a scholarship or two, please contact: desk@doorsofperception.com

DOTT07 SCHOOLS PROJECT
More than 200 UK schools have been invited to measure the ecological and carbon footprints of their school day. They will record everything from how far their food has travelled before it hits their plates, to how they get to school, and how much energy and water is used to heat and clean their classrooms. The Dott07 project includes characters who are named after the core themes: Aqua, Recycle, Energiser, Eco and Consumer. Next year the best 50 schools will design ways to make their footprint smaller.
http://www.dott07.com/go/dott-blog

SCHOOL OUT OF SCHOOL
What are the design challenges in schooling apart from the buildings? A lot of attention has been given to design and architecture aspects (such as the UK’s huge Building Schools for the Future (BSF) rebuilding programme). What other aspects of learning might be enhanced by design? This month’s Dott 07 Explorers Club features Joe Heapy, author (with Sophia Parker) of the recent book “Journey to the interface" .There will also be a special presentation by Juha Huuskonen, director of Pixelache, one of the world's most interesting festivals for electronic art and subcultures. 10 October, Newcastle (UK).
http://www.dott07.com/go/events/explorers-club

STUFF-O-METER
The amount of waste matter generated in the manufacture of a single laptop computer is close to four thousand times its weight on your lap. A key information design challenge is this: How to make this aggregate waste of materials in everyday products visible. Designs of the time (Dott07) has sponsored a student design comptition with D&AD with the brief: “Take one household product and design a visual representation of its lifecycle, cradle to grave”.
http://www.dandad.org/studentawards07/briefs/05.html

DOORS/CKS IN LILLE
Doors of Perception’s India partners – Aditya, Karthikeya, and Sayalee from Centre for Knowledge Societies in Bangalore – are participating in Lille3,000 from 10-16 October. If you’d like to connect up, drop them a line at:
aditya@cks.in
http://www.lille3000.com/

BIG MAC: A GOOD READ?
About three minutes after we launched our design competition about food information systems (with Dott and the Royal Society of Arts) I learned via SmartMobs that McDonald’s is placing codes on the packaging of many foods. Eaters may scan the package with their cell phones to obtain nutritional information. So young designers seeking to win a trip to Doors 9 - the prize for winning the competition - don't have to invent a QR food application because McDonalds has done that. Take that as your starting point - and amaze us with how much further it could go.
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/07/07/qr_code_hyperl.html
http://www.dott07.com/go/education/dott-rsa-design-directions

THE NOISE MADE BY FOOD
At 7am the roads were empty except for a large white truck. Its driver was unloading packaged food into a shop. An incredible, raw-edged roar of noise came from the refrigeration unit on top of his cab. In the railway station cafeteria, two refrigerated drinks machines were roaring away so loudly that the sales assistant had to shout to tell me the price of a coffee. Read more at:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2006/09/noisy_food.php

TINY STEPS TO CHANGE THE WORLD
50 simple, everyday actions that can improve our environment, our health, and our communities are in a book called We Are What We Do. Author David Robinson will talk about it on Tuesday 24 October 2006, 6.30pm, Conway Hall, London. To reserve a place please email Sandra Deeble: sandra.deeble@wearewhatwedo.org
http://www.wearewhatwedo.org/

BATTLE OF IDEAS ABOUT TECH
“We promise more trenchant debate than Westminster has seen in years” say the organisers of Battle of Ideas. Among 200 speakers from politics, business, media and academia, I will debate with Matt Locke, head of innovation, BBC Future Media & Technology, and futurist James Woudhuysen. Our topic: 'Putting design and technology to good use”. Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London, Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 October.Tickets can be booked online.
http://www.instituteofideas.com/tickets/battleofideas2006.html

RE-DESIGN PROSPERITY
Many indicators show that economic growth has not added to people’s perceived quality of life. Speakers asked to consider alternatives to money as the only measure of value include Jeremy Rifkin, Derrick de Kerckhove, Lucy Orta, Raimon Pannikar, and me. 7 November, Boras, Sweden.
http://www.thedesignofprosperity.se/

DESIGN AND MONEY
Idcast, the monthly webzine, interviewed a bunch of people about issues that bridge design, culture and technology – such as money.
http://www.interactiondesign-lab.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi

WHICH ARE THE TOP D-SCHOOLS?
“Desperate to innovate, companies are turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers”. Business Week has published a special feature and league table that tells corporate desperados where to look first. It’s remarkable how quickly BW’s Bruce Nussbaum has turned design into a mainstream business issue in the US. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/dschoolindex.html?