Leaders of today: sustainability and design

For MA Design Show at Bargehouse our class is presented with a slot of four hours for a possible debate or discussion. The slot is in the morning from 9am to 12pm on thursday October 8th a day before the show’s private view.  We all agree that an inspirational speaker or discussion between couple of speakers would be a positive addition to the show and exploration of the course. We have a clean slate, who would we want to invite and who is available to come along? Its in the OXO Tower, so central London should be a destination accessible to many speakers. “If you don’t ask you don’t get” Anne reminds us from the recent Greengaged experience, and our minds open to all possibilities.

My mind moved from Papanek to Buckminster Fuller and Illich, and then began to think in terms of contemporary speakers.

Current list is ambitious but so is the goal of the designers’ on the course to create positive change, if we could bring in the few from the list, we will be looking forward to a lively and fulfilling debate :

Ezio Manzini – Professor of Industrial Design, Politecnico de Milano
Nicola Morelli – an associate professor at the School of Architecture and Design, at Aalborg University
Richard Buchanan – former Dean of the Design School at Carnegie Mellon
Victor Margolin – Dept. of Art History University of Illinois
Jane Bickerstaffe – director of Incpen, the Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment, UK
Helen Hughes – national adviser, voluntary and community sector, Improvement and Development Agency

Lucienne Roberts – author on design and co-founder of sans+baum
Michael Eavis – festival event business organizer, Glastonbury
Cameron Sinclair – co-founder of Architecture for Humanity
Ken Livingstone – British politician, environmentalist
Albert Tucker – from Twin Trading
Chris Sherwin – Forum for the Future
Valerie Casey – from Design Accord
Adam Werbach – CEO of Saatchi&Saatchi S.
Tim Smit – Eden Project
Ann Thorpe – Design Activism
Alice Rawsthorn – design critic of the international Herald Tribune
Bruce Mau – Bruce Mau Design
John Thackara - director of Doors of Perception

David Kester – chief executive of the Design Council
McDonough/ Dr. Braungaurt – Cradle to Cradle
Lynda Relph-Knight – Editor, Design Week
Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry – founders of Method, environmentally cleaning products
John Grant – Author of The Green Marketing Manifesto
Debra Szebeko – ThinkPublic
Rob Holdway – Giraffe Innovation
John Elkington – Founder of SustainAbility (pick)
Jonathan Chapman and Neil Gant – Authors of Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories: A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays
Stephen Bailey – cultural commentator
Jonathon Porritt – Founder Director of Forum for the Future
Alastair Fuad-Luke – itinerant sustainable design lecturer and writer
Slow Design
Bill Dunster – ZED Factory
Nabeel Hamdi – architect and author
Trevor Baylis – English inventor
“As they say, art is pleasure, invention is treasure, and this nation has got to recognise that. If they can spend a fortune on dead sheep and formaldehyde, then it can spend a bit more of that money on inventors.” Trevor Baylis, Wiki

Toy of the day:

James Galt and Company (galt toys)