Design and Visual Culture
Design Observer
ArchiveBooks + Store
Job Board
Email Archive
Comments
About
Contact
Log In
Register
Observatory
ResourcesSubmissions
About
Contact
Featured Writers
Michael BierutWilliam Drenttel
John Foster
Jessica Helfand
Alexandra Lange
Mark Lamster
Paul Polak
Rick Poynor
John Thackara
Rob Walker
Departments
AdvertisementAudio
Books
Collections
Dialogues
Essays
Events
Foster Column
Gallery
Interviews
Miscellaneous
Opinions
Photos
Poetry
Primary Sources
Projects
Report
Reviews
Slideshows
Today Column
Unusual Suspects
Video
Topics
AdvertisingArchitecture
Art
Books
Branding
Business
Cities / Places
Community
Craft
Culture
Design History
Design Practice
Development
Disaster Relief
Ecology
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
Fashion
Film / Video
Food/Agriculture
Geography
Global / Local
Graphic Design
Health / Safety
History
Housing
Ideas
Illustration
India
Industry
Info Design
Infrastructure
Interaction Design
Internet / Blogs
Journalism
Landscape
Literature
Magazines
Media
Museums
Music
Nature
Obituary
Other
Peace
Philanthropy
Photography
Planning
Poetry
Politics / Policy
Popular Culture
Poverty
Preservation
Product Design
Public / Private
Public Art
Religion
Reputations
Science
Shelter
Social Enterprise
Sports
Sustainability
Technology
Theory/Criticism
Transportation
TV / Radio
Typography
Urbanism
Water
Environment
01.14.13: John Thackara
Healing The Metabolic RiftJohn Thackara on the possibilities and issues global business leaders will face at the 2013 World Economic Forum.
READ MORE
12.07.12: John Thackara
German Government Think-Tank Supports Fringe Change AgentsOverview of the 400-page report World in Transition: A Social Contract for Sustainability from the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WGBU), the heavyweight scientific body that advises the German Federal Government on ‘Earth System Megatrends’.
READ MORE
12.05.12: John Thackara
Venice: from Gated Lagoon to BioregionA review of the options that Venice faces in trying to shore up the city.
READ MORE
10.23.12: John Thackara
From Autobahn to BioregionA review of the projects submitted to the Audi Urban Future Award.
READ MORE
09.26.12: John Thackara
Old GrowthThe tale of a furniture giant and the possible ecological happy ending.
READ MORE
08.07.12: John Thackara
What Is, Or Is Not, a ‘Green Job’?Discordant information amplifies confusion about what is, or is not, a ‘green job’.
READ MORE
07.28.12: Alexandra Lange
Hiking the MuseumEnnead Architects’ new Natural History Museum of Utah works to make natural history seem like the ongoing process of discovery that it is, layering geology and topography, paleontology and interactivity.
READ MORE
07.23.12: John Thackara
The Other Green EconomyPeople the world over are divided between radically different conceptions of their future: resource-intensive production on the one side, versus regenerative land-based enterprises, and mosaics of micro-enterprises, on the other.
READ MORE
05.17.12: Alexandra Lange
The Well-Tempered EnvironmentWater features, old trees, food trucks. Three elements of the architecture of outdoor civic life in North Texas.
READ MORE
05.01.12: John Thackara
Istanbul: City of SeedsRather than dream up exotic visions of “what could be”, an xskool looks for social and natural assets that already exist – and grows from there.
READ MORE
04.04.12: John Thackara
Oil-Powered ThinkingWhy is it that countervailing facts don’t change things in our evidence-based world? And what might we do about it?
READ MORE
03.01.12: John Thackara
Zurich Eco LabA report on the Zurich's thriving urban eco culture.
READ MORE
02.22.12: Alexandra Lange
Reassembling the American Dream"Foreclosed" at the Museum of Modern Art asks what people really like about suburban living. And then, Can they do that with less?
READ MORE
02.14.12: John Thackara
Design In The Light of Dark EnergyA shortened version of a talk on why the world has to reduce energy consumption, the five per cent energy solution and some of the people around the world who are leading the way.
READ MORE
02.14.12: John Thackara
A Reading List for Mr. Mario MontiA (mostly) online list of readings for the new Italian Prime Minister, Mr. Mario Monti, and anyone else who is ready for a cold hard look at our energy resources and options.
READ MORE
06.02.11: John Thackara
Sweat Equity InfraThe Millau Viaduct is a tourist attaction in the making. Future vistors will gawk at it and wonder: “how *did* they build that?”
READ MORE
05.31.11: John Thackara
From Ecstasy to Exergy: Running Out of Easy CopperThe days of abundant resources and falling prices are over forever, the consequences for many so-called “green technologies” will be devastating.
READ MORE
05.11.11: John Thackara
Energy: A Sense of LossWhenever electricity is transmitted from one place to another a certain amount is simply lost. In older grids, energy is wasted overcoming resistance in the lines themselves.
READ MORE
03.01.11: John Thackara
Work Faster, India!“Work faster, get time for life.” I just got back from a short trip to India where this insane slogan adorned a poster at a bus stop. It pretty much sums up a febrile mood in Delhi where it was announced during my stay that India's economy will grow by nine percent next year.
READ MORE
01.10.11: Alexandra Lange
Is No the Answer?Bag bans, yes. But why is no plastic the answer?
READ MORE
11.29.10: John Thackara
In the Air of MadridOur world is awash in eco information, but starved of meaning.
READ MORE
11.22.10: Edward Morris and Dmitri Siegel
Destroy This BookThe Green Patriot Posters project looked to the graphic design and artistic communities for ways to invigorate and mobilize people to remake our economy for a more sustainable future.
READ MORE
11.15.10: John Thackara
Is an Environmentally Neutral Car Possible?The future of the car has been electric for what? Five years now? Ten? The answer is 110 years. The new Riversimple, makes us look again at the feasibility of the electric car.
READ MORE
10.26.10: John Thackara
A Lesson from CornwallI've always loved lichen. I found this one in Cornwall’s Biodiversity Action Plan and chose it as a beautiful asset that already exists in the county.
READ MORE
09.29.10: Adam Harrison Levy
The Wood StackerAll his work, freed him from a dependency on oil. His heat is local.
READ MORE
06.16.10: Alexandra Lange
In Metropolis: Blue Sky ThinkingWhat’s really happening at Inland Steel?
READ MORE
04.11.10: Alexandra Lange
Governors Island, ca. 2014?We finally receive an image from the long-under-wraps West 8 master plan for Governors Island.
READ MORE
10.05.09: Alexandra Lange
(Women and) Children FirstPier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park is one more way New York City is attempting to be child-friendly.
READ MORE
04.01.03: John Thackara
Interior Design at War [April 2003]Report on design in the war in Afghanistan, the Pearl River Delta in China, the Media Lab Europe (MLE), the 50th anniversary of the German Design Council, New Mobility, and more.
READ MORE
