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Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli, two of the world’s most influential design figures, meet the visionary designers whose innovations and ingenuity give us hope for the future by redesigning and reconstructing our lives, enabling us to thrive Design Emergency tells the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists, who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes - Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology - Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published May 25, 2022
19 people are currently reading
368 people want to read
About the author
Alice Rawsthorn
25 books26 followersAlice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and the author of critically acclaimed books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.
An influential public speaker and social media commentator on design, Alice has participated in important global events including TED and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Her TED talk has been viewed by over a million people worldwide. One of The Big Issue's 100 Changemakers 2023 for her work on Design Emergency, she was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.
Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice graduated in art history from Cambridge University. She was an award-winning journalist for the Financial Times for nearly twenty years, working as a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneering the FT's coverage of the creative industries. For over a decade, Alice was design critic of the international edition of The New York Times, writing a weekly Design column, which was syndicated to other media worldwide.
An honorary senior fellow of the Royal College of Art with an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts, Alice is a founding member of the OECD's Future of Democracy Network, of the advisory board of the DemocracyNext research and action institute and of Writers at Liberty, a group of writers who are committed to championing human rights and freedoms as supporters of the human rights charity Liberty.
Alice has served on many cultural juries including: the Turner Prize for contemporary art; the Stirling Prize for architecture; the PEN History Book Prize; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture; the Buckminster Fuller Challenge; the Museum of the Year award; the Rome Prize for Architecture and Design; the Soane Medal for Architecture; and the BAFTA film and television awards.
A former chair of the boards of trustees of The Hepworth Wakefield museum in Yorkshire, Chisenhale Gallery in London and Michael Clark Company, the contemporary dance group, Alice was a longstanding trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery. A trustee of Arts Council England from 2006 to 2013, she is a past chair of the British Council's Design Advisory Group and a former member of the Design Council and of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Design. From 2018 to 2023, Alice was a member of the UK government's Honours Committee for Arts and Media.
As well as contributing essays to a number of books on design and contemporary culture, Alice is the author of an acclaimed biography of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, described by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as "panoramic in scope, passionately argued and highly addictive to read". Design as an Attitude is published globally by JRP|Ringier and Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, by Phaidon. Alice's books have been translated into over a dozen languages.
An influential public speaker and social media commentator on design, Alice has participated in important global events including TED and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Her TED talk has been viewed by over a million people worldwide. One of The Big Issue's 100 Changemakers 2023 for her work on Design Emergency, she was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.
Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice graduated in art history from Cambridge University. She was an award-winning journalist for the Financial Times for nearly twenty years, working as a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneering the FT's coverage of the creative industries. For over a decade, Alice was design critic of the international edition of The New York Times, writing a weekly Design column, which was syndicated to other media worldwide.
An honorary senior fellow of the Royal College of Art with an honorary doctorate from the University of the Arts, Alice is a founding member of the OECD's Future of Democracy Network, of the advisory board of the DemocracyNext research and action institute and of Writers at Liberty, a group of writers who are committed to championing human rights and freedoms as supporters of the human rights charity Liberty.
Alice has served on many cultural juries including: the Turner Prize for contemporary art; the Stirling Prize for architecture; the PEN History Book Prize; the Aga Khan Award for Architecture; the Buckminster Fuller Challenge; the Museum of the Year award; the Rome Prize for Architecture and Design; the Soane Medal for Architecture; and the BAFTA film and television awards.
A former chair of the boards of trustees of The Hepworth Wakefield museum in Yorkshire, Chisenhale Gallery in London and Michael Clark Company, the contemporary dance group, Alice was a longstanding trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery. A trustee of Arts Council England from 2006 to 2013, she is a past chair of the British Council's Design Advisory Group and a former member of the Design Council and of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Design. From 2018 to 2023, Alice was a member of the UK government's Honours Committee for Arts and Media.
As well as contributing essays to a number of books on design and contemporary culture, Alice is the author of an acclaimed biography of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, described by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as "panoramic in scope, passionately argued and highly addictive to read". Design as an Attitude is published globally by JRP|Ringier and Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, by Phaidon. Alice's books have been translated into over a dozen languages.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 30, 2022
Read for a book club discussion. It just never grabbed my attention. That isn’t to say it isn’t an interesting read, just not to me.
Read
September 5, 2022The foreword begins with an irritation.
Without detracting from the opening anecdote about Buckminster Fuller and his later contributions, it seems remiss to ignore the original inventor of the Geodesic Dome, Walther Bauersfeld and perpetuate the falsehood of Fuller’s ‘invention’.
It is equally innovative to adapt the invention and see potential in a different context, smaller scale; robust, temporary shelters.
There’s a-lot to read, and a-lot to like. A-lot to reflect upon.
The topics are structured and the interviewees interesting. I have a high regard to Ilse Crawford’s work, so it was especially interesting to read her interview.
The COVID tie-in seems primed to be topical and to be honest, it seems too early to reflect upon, it is all the more glaring that the same basic methods were employed - the historical references to the beak mask only serves to highlight our inability to evolve long term approaches and methodology to recurring pandemics.
Although…
If there was a reference to how our present flow design in healthcare, the funnelling and penning of incoming patients in A&R, fails utterly for virus infection - then I missed it.
I would only say that most of the issues touched upon are ‘wicked’ in scale, whereas the projects are for the most part, re-actionary and local in response.
The long-term project like the Jing kieng jri, is community driven and multi-generational, in contrast to ‘designer’ initiated responses.
So, this book, full of examples and perspectives from practitioners, is perhaps really two books, or could be restructured, possibly the long-term and strategic, “Building a Better Future” and the contextual responses to acute issues, “Design for Emergency”. Or even Emergency Design. Design Emergency.
Anyway, quibbles and critique aside - very worth a read.
Without detracting from the opening anecdote about Buckminster Fuller and his later contributions, it seems remiss to ignore the original inventor of the Geodesic Dome, Walther Bauersfeld and perpetuate the falsehood of Fuller’s ‘invention’.
It is equally innovative to adapt the invention and see potential in a different context, smaller scale; robust, temporary shelters.
There’s a-lot to read, and a-lot to like. A-lot to reflect upon.
The topics are structured and the interviewees interesting. I have a high regard to Ilse Crawford’s work, so it was especially interesting to read her interview.
The COVID tie-in seems primed to be topical and to be honest, it seems too early to reflect upon, it is all the more glaring that the same basic methods were employed - the historical references to the beak mask only serves to highlight our inability to evolve long term approaches and methodology to recurring pandemics.
Although…
If there was a reference to how our present flow design in healthcare, the funnelling and penning of incoming patients in A&R, fails utterly for virus infection - then I missed it.
I would only say that most of the issues touched upon are ‘wicked’ in scale, whereas the projects are for the most part, re-actionary and local in response.
The long-term project like the Jing kieng jri, is community driven and multi-generational, in contrast to ‘designer’ initiated responses.
So, this book, full of examples and perspectives from practitioners, is perhaps really two books, or could be restructured, possibly the long-term and strategic, “Building a Better Future” and the contextual responses to acute issues, “Design for Emergency”. Or even Emergency Design. Design Emergency.
Anyway, quibbles and critique aside - very worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews