REDESIGN THE FUTURE – DAY 2

“Redesign the future” is the title of the Designmonat Graz online symposium that is held by FH JOANNEUM and Creative Industries Styria in cooperation with the Green Tech Cluster. In three panels, international speakers present solutions and best practice examples for the major project of the future – its’ very own rescue. Design will take a significant role in it.

Technically, the future had already been planned. We knew the problems as well as their solutions. The implementation was next. And then everything changed in an instant. “Today is tomorrow’s yesterday” as we like to say. Back to Square One then. It’s all about rethinking and redesigning the future, today more than ever. And here we have the online symposium’s topic which approaches the future in different ways. This also calls for a philosophical and spiritual base/foundation, as described in Stuart Walker’s latest book “Design And Spirituality”. He will open the symposium with a keynote, followed by 3 panels dealing with the following topics: the future of design education, the complex topic of climate in public space and design that puts people center stage even more.

LiveStream:

 

Chat:

 

 

DAY 2

PANEL 2

 

Abstract
Titel: Can future cities perform like a forest?

Urban agglomerations, cities, will continue to grow in the future. As early as 2020, urbanization will enable more than 80% of the world’s population to live and work in cities and urban areas. Strategies for dealing with climate change therefore play a crucial role in the future of cities both globally and locally. New ways of cooling, air-conditioning and improving the air quality of existing and built cities in order to reduce the „urban heat islands effect“ in the long term must be developed to ensure a quality of life in our cities. If we understand the city as an organism, we also have to think and design the city of the future as an ecological systemic body that can actively contribute to the climate and the environment. This approach changes the notion of architecture itself. Architecture is no longer merely a passive shell that protects us from the climate, but it itself becomes part of this living organism in the naturally networked system, becoming itself an active part of the complex.

 

_SPEAKER 2: AGLAÉE DEGROS | TU GRAZ, INSTITUT FÜR STÄDTEBAU​

Aglaée Degros is professor and chair of the Institute of Urbanism at Graz University of Technology and Science Fellow at the Free University of Brussels. In 2001, she cofounded with Stefan Bendiks Artgineering, an office dedicated to improve the relation between landscape, city and infrastrutcure.
www.tugraz.at

 

 

Abstract
Titel: Urban Climate Surfaces

Using a number of examples, the lecture deals with the transformation of traffic space into public space and the potential of this conversion to improve the climate. Redesigning traffic space not only influences the modal split of a city, but also enables the reactivation of ecosystems, as surfaces can be unsealed, resulting in a public realm with more green and less asphalt. It also makes it possible to better integrate public space into metabolic cycles and ideally improve them. This refers not only to improving air quality and reducing the impact of the urban heat island through planting, but also to water, soil, material, waste and energy cycles.

 

_SPEAKER 3: DARIA MAYSKAYA, ENERGIE STEIERMARK KUNDEN GMBH

Abstract
Titel: Future Energy Communities

more infos will follow shortly

---

PANEL 3

_SPEAKER 1: MARIANA GONZÁLEZ DE LA ROSA, COORDINATOR OF THE BA DEGREE IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, UNIVERSIDAD IBEROAMERICANA PUEBLA

She is industrial designer, CONACYT fellow in the Industrial Design Postgraduate UNAM, Diploma in Social Economy and Cooperative Entrepreneurship. Manager and facilitator of Saberes y Sabores de Puebla project associated with the UNESCO Design Cities Network. Some publications: “Augmented Reality as a tool to build identity and appropriation of public spaces” and “Geo Referenced Map for Participatory Design.”

 

Abstract
Titel: Alternative economies, another way to rethink design practices for the people

If the world is transforming through ecological, political, economic and social movements, why does industrial design in Mexico continue a strong tradition towards aesthetic objects? As coordinator of an industrial design program, I face a market disconnected from sustainable practices and the power of design to transform our social realities. The root becomes deeper being a peripheral country where the term economic development is another colonizing form to determine the designer practices. Design for people should be focused on our pluriverse realities; In that sense, understanding design from the south perpective show us other alternatives to train us and insert ourselves into models of social and solidarity economy, a figure that seeks to respond to the needs of our context.