Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Futurekind
Design for and by the People
by Dr. Rob Phillips
Published by Thames & Hudson, May (16) 2019
240 pages 900 illustrations Hardback 25.5 x 21.0 cm
ISBN: 978 0 500 519790
Price: 39.95 Hardback
Manual and manifesto, an inspiration and a call to arms; this rich and timely survey is all in one and presents over sixty innovative, socially and environmentally conscious design projects changing the world for the better.
We have grown accustomed to two beliefs: the first, that only experts can be designers; the second, that our everyday activities are harming the world. Yet, with new platforms, digital communication and engaged online communities, the products we can now design - and truly need - can be made by anyone for social and environmental good. Social design can see that primary school children learn to code, and uses local information in off-grid locations to create global change. Open-source design is enabling us to remake our world right now.
Structured into eight areas of application, from healthcare to education, Futurekind showcases over sixty projects from across the globe and across every scale and budget to reveal how design practice is being transformed by open-source platforms, crowd-sourcing and the latest digital technologies. Each has made a genuine different to lives and communities around the world.
Rather than being client-driven, as commercial design often is, each project here is the result of designers who reach out, communities who get involved and the technologies that are helping people to realize ideas together. From a playground-powered water pump in South Africa to a DIY budget mobile phone, each of these groundbreaking projects is presented through fascinating and life-affirming stories, diagrams that reveal the mechanisms and motivations behind each design approach, and photography that celebrates the humanity of the endeavor.
Open-source and open-source design, aka open design, can make a difference on so many levels, both for the Planet and for the people, and there more that those sixty projects that are listed in the books worldwide at the moment and more coming “on stream” all the time. The most important thing with those designs is that they can be replicated in many cases in a garage at the place where whatever it is is required and wanted. The small plastic recycling “plant” of the project “Precious Plastics” on page 152 to 155 comes in full open-source, if I am not entirely mistaken, with the plans downloadable under Creative Commons and all the machines can be built, basically, from scrap parts with some welding and other tinkering skills. It is aimed to enable anyone, including in Third World countries, to build such a “plant” and to recycle plastics of all kinds into new products (for sale) thus creating a livelihood too.
This is not about the world of design, but the design of the world
Dr. Rob Phillips is an award-winning product designer and a senior tutor on the Design Products Course at the Royal College of Art. His research into open design and citizen science has resulted in internationally taught methods at MIT, Goldsmiths, Cornell, and the BBC. As a designer, his past clients have included: Puma, Samsung, Save the Children, Visa; the Victoria and Albert Museum and Google. His research seeks to 'Engage Design' processes to decrease people's impact, gaining insight into what people really do ... thinking how can we be Futurekind to Humankind.
A most interesting book and read for anyone interested in socially and environmentally conscious design and especially open-source and open design. I can wholly recommend it and also to do some further research on the subject, as there is much more out there than could have fitted into the book.
© 2019
