Sustainable design means care for all of life - 
not just human life. Sustainable design is about relationships - not just transactions. 
it’s about care, not just consumption. 


1. Relational Ecology and Design
@johnthackara
Politecnico Milano
Design Thinking for Sustainability
25 November 2020
@Wild_Culture

2. three takeaways

3. 1.
sustainable design is about
relationships -
not just transactions.
it’s about care,
not just consumption.
@HazeloneWhite

4. 2.
sustainable design means
care for all of life
- lifeworlds -
not just human life
@HazeloneWhite

5. 3.
we need better relationships between
places, communities, and nature
these relationships can be enabled by
social infrastructure
creating this infrastructure is a
design opportunity

6. theory of change

8. a. Relational Design
b. Lifeworlds
c. Social Infrastructure

9. a. Relational Design

10. “value does not inhere in objects -
it arises from relationships”
David Bollier

11. relationships with place

12. urban
rural

13. civic relationships

14. relationship to materials: “who made my clothes? where? how? ” (@ravelry)

15. b. Lifeworlds
Gingko Bioworks
Atelier Luma
Urban Lifeworlds
Peer-To-Peer restaurants

16. social value + ecological value + economic value
lifeworlds

17. “the next Facebook”

21. “From a lifeworld perspective, care means
embodied, relational, understanding”
(Ulrica Hörberg, Kathleen Galvin)

22. Luma Arles
Atelier Luma

23. ATELIER LUMA
Bioregional
Design Lab

24. mapping and
research

25. historical
research

26. geology, climate &
economic research
@HarvardGSD

27. agriculture and
land-use research

28. materials
research

29. landscape
research

30. prototyping

31. prototyping

32. Algae Platform

34. Opportunity
Urban Lifeworlds
Civic Ecology / Ecological Urbanism

35. Green New Deal
Green Infrastrucure

37. URBAN BIODIVERSITY
nature reserves
parks
forests
heaths
grasslands
urban commons
railway banks
green berges and cycle paths
alongside rivers streams and ponds
allotments
private gardens
royal estates
historical buildings
brownfield and postindustrial sites
cemetaries
airports, ports
roofs of high rise buildings

39. reconnecting
pollinator corridors

40. Microbial metrics: 99% of life is invisible
Elizabeth Hénaff
microbial foraging

42. @TNatureOfCities

43. Opportunity
Peer-to-peer (P2P) restaurants

46. the distributed ‘restaurant’

47. 47 School for Village Hosts: System
2D large backdrop image Source: Casa Netural, Italy
Grottole, Basilicata, Italy

48. @OpenFoodNet

49. new distribution platforms

50. Taobao rural now: 50,000 rural live-streamers
End 2020: 250,000
Top 10%: 8x average rural income

52. Wei Wei
(Taobao University) Plan: Train 200,000 farmer live
streamers by end 2020

53. opportunity?
every lifeworld needs a
@copenhagenizers
Taobao University

54. c. Social Infrastructure

55. Social infrastructure:
“organisational tools and models that enable people to do
good work” (Donatella Della Ratta)
“non-market forms of social coordination”
(David Bollier)

56. CEO CIO COO
Chief Design Officer
Chief Sustainability Officer
Chief Nature Officer

57. @NurtureDev

58. P A U S E

59. Next Economy
Sharing Economy
Circular Economy
Commons
Transition Towns
P2P
Platform Cooperativism
Local Money
Hackers / DIY / Makers

60. @ParticipatoryC

61. 2016
@ParticipatoryC
First Platform Co-op

62. @ParticipatoryC
social infrastructure

63. 2018
Google backs
Platform Co-ops

64. 1.
sustainable design is about
relationships -
not just transactions.
it’s about care,
not just consumption.
@HazeloneWhite

65. 2.
sustainable design means
care for all of life -
not just human life
@HazeloneWhite

66. 3.
we need better relationships between
places, communities, and nature
these relationships can be enabled by
social infrastructure
creating this infrastructure is a
design opportunity

67. P A U S E