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Stretching the Future By Design

Christian Bason and Jens Skibsted
Matt Holt Books, 2022
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Recommendation

Designers and authors Jens Martin Skibsted and Christian Bason ask you to look beyond the usual design process to the future of sustainability. Better product design requires careful consideration of its effects, both locally and globally. Skibsted and Bason present a solid overview of thoughtful, sustainable methods – like creating a circular economy to eliminate all waste and using living materials to build future infrastructure. Expanding the way you think about, create and innovate new products could mean the difference between saving the planet and human extinction.

Summary

Current modes of design often fail to address long-term global issues.

Today, most newly designed products fail to consider bigger issues like climate change, scarce resources and an ever-growing population. Manufacturers often make products that produce too must waste or use materials that can’t be recycled. 

Current modes of innovation often don’t consider long-term effects because companies design most products to meet “ultra-short-term market needs.”

Challenging short-term thinking means shifting to a more expansive mindset. Instead of focusing on corporate bottom lines, innovators and the organizations that employ them should work to create solutions on a systemic level. They should make products that produce less waste and use regenerative materials. More holistic designs mean considering entire ecosystems, long-term effects and ways to create greater sustainability.

Incorporate long-term thinking to design a better future.

Expanding the ways designers think requires lengthening the time it takes to create products. Trying to address immediate...

About the Authors

Jens Martin Skibsted is a multiple award-winning designer, entrepreneur, and design philosopher. Christian Bason is CEO of the Danish Design Centre, a nonprofit foundation backed by the government to advance the value of design for business, society and the planet. He is the author of Leading Public Sector Innovation: Co-creating for a Better Society.

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