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‘The Material Digital’: Reflections on the unseen
No full textThis chapter is concerned with an analysis of technology as a form of Ecological Citizenship. It aims to examine the characteristics of technological artifacts and processes as a means of reorienting their relationship to the inextricable entanglement of human and more-than-human systems, and to reimagine the conditions structuring their behaviors and use. Conventional understandings of technology are often presented as oppositional to ecological modes of behavior and thinking. Authors propose a perspectival reorientation of our relationship to technology in the context of Ecological Citizenship. We address how digital carbon footprint, digital consumption, and digital design can be reconceptualised through an Ecological Citizenship framework, affi rming our responsibilities within increasingly interconnected systems. A set of conceptual signposts for the design and analysis of technology in its planetary situation will be developed through a discussion of relevant case studies, suggesting preferable directions for future digital design practices
Craft 3.0; Positioning craft and design practice(s) within ‘reduction’ and nature-based design
Full text linkExtractive industries and excessive production are furthering ecological collapse. In the age of the planetary climate crisis, impactful new approaches to ecological practices are imperative. Designers and creatives are not only account-able for innovative solutions, but their work is also intertwined with environmental collapse. By evading ecological implications, designers are complicit in (potential) created problems, requiring a deeper comprehension of their decisions, actions, and their ‘craft’. Our next paradigm (around design) must be nature-based ‘design for planet’. As the world considers this impact, we examine the designer’s role (as a practice of their craft) considering the earth and non-human species. It is within this expanded notion that we see ‘nature-based design’ and Ecological Citizenship as a timely planetary-scale, multi-species contemporary craft. Authors characterise Craft 3.0 as reducing ecological impacts, positioning it as a discourse of: reduction, considerate to its surroundings, contexts, beyond human species, supporting skills to contextualise within environments for pos-itive benefit. Craft 3.0 seeks to differentiate tactics to prioritise ecosystem(s), intent on mitigating against negative consequences. The Craft 3.0 position is mapped through; interviews and insights from contemporary literature, creating a contemporary approach to craft and tacit skills. Craft 3.0 establishes trans disciplinary skills nurturing knowledge of materials, their cultivation, application and growth/regeneration. In turn this impacts: usability, ecological issue(s) and ‘craft practices’, working contextually within environments for ecological remediation
The architectural casino: Conversations about colonial modernism in Haifa
No full textAfter the First World War and under the British Mandate, Haifa grew from a small Ottoman port town into a regional metropolis and industrial centre around a deep seaport. The city was part of an open space that extended from Cairo to Damascus through Beirut, in a region where Syria, Palestine and Lebanon were part of the same fluid, interconnected space. During the Second World War, Haifa became a border town. Under French Vichy, the border between Lebanon and Syria ran sixty kilometres to the north and hardened only after the creation of Israel in 1948 and the wars with Lebanon. Haifa’s architectural modernism developed in relation to the city’s geopolitical environment. No building better manifests Haifa’s predicament than the modernist casino building, built in the city’s Bat Galim seafront district
Immersive art and embodiment: Emotional haptic and immersive XR storytelling
No full textFor over 20 years, exploring digital embodiment has been critical to my practice, while the driving force has been exploring ways to provide a stimulating experience that engages as many senses as possible for participants, full-body sensory engagement has been the ultimate goal. Since 2018, I have been drawn to virtual reality as a means to tell very intimate and personal stories within encompassing, meaningful virtual environments. The aim has become to hold and support ‘immersants’ (Davies 2002), both physically and emotionally, while telling highly affecting stories. This chapter will discuss digital embodiment theory and knowledge on haptics that I have sought to underpin, alongside lived, artistic evolution to create emotional, embodied experiences within Extended Reality (XR), which, encompasses virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, performance and interactive installation set ups. It also covers my approach and use of haptic devices to enhance narrative experiences, as well as providing insights for making such works in the future
Hacking legal systems for good: Unpacking barriers and opportunities for ecological citizen(s)
No full textWe are in a time of transition that demands diverse approaches and regenerative pilot work to disrupt damaging trajectories. The reality of climate change, the need for sustainable practices, and the key social contributions from interested organisations should be normalised, or even legislatively mandated. Yet in the UK, the ongoing housing crisis leaves little room for altruistic approaches by residents, organisations, or citizens. Housing for Good (HfG) is a design-led charity concept that makes volunteering and community development more accessible. It presents citizen-led, place-based actions framed through in-progress legal terms. At the time of writing, 131,140 households in England were in temporary accommodation, a 12-percent rise from the previous year, with 169,050 children among them. At the same time, volunteering is declining, with recruitment becoming harder, and wider community engagement being constrained by time and finances. Citizens clearly have the will to act, but are limited by capacity and circumstance. Against this backdrop, the paper asks: how can legal contracts be re-designed to ‘fail-to-safe’, defaulting to security and mutual benefit when stress-tested? Three guiding questions frame our inquiry: (1) which legal instruments best support housing for the public good; (2) how can contractual clauses embed social and ecological safeguards; and (3) how can design methods translate complex legal language into accessible, enforceable agreements? We position design as a practice with a duty of care that extends beyond financial gain, one that mitigates harm, empowers others, enables accessible reform, and supports regenerative futures. This work directly aligns with the conference track offering new ways to explore; how design can foster spatial justice, care, and resilience and, secondly, the position of the Housing for Good proposition rethinks the notion of dwelling in response to crisis, migration, and systemic inequality… Work navigates systems creation and provides place-based responses for resilience. Overall the HfG proposition can be translated into different fields; opening-up territories of place-based entrepreneurship for the benefit of Ecological Citizen(s). We draw on Ecological Citizenship as a framework for rediscovery, helping communities navigate sustainable origins and forge new pathways. The Ecological Citizen(s) Network+ aims to catalyse transitions by providing autonomy and accessibility to initiate sustainable conditions. Here, legal prototyping becomes a vehicle for Ecological Citizenship, embedding rights, duties, and community benefit into housing governance. Methodologically, our work combines design workshops, legal design, and iterative prototyping. The methodology treats legislation as simultaneously speculative and practical. Our approach includes legal prototyping, stress-testing agreements against breakdown scenarios, multi-stakeholder translation workshops, and algorithmic drafting utilising legal-AI tools to ensure clarity, modularity and public accessibility. Co-design with solicitors and community practitioners, speculative mapping of legal futures, and prototyping of template contracts position designers not only as artefact-makers but as policy mediators. While our focus is UK-based due to funding, the framework is internationally relevant. Contributions include: Housing for Good’s ‘mark’ development and barriers we encountered in the legalese, on the pathway to creating repeatable legal assets. We conclude that legislative systems can be ‘hacked for good’ through open, accessible, community anchored design processes, offering designers a role in reshaping housing, law, and social justice
Atmospheric occupations
No full textIn response to the climate crisis, the overriding political imaginary rests on the belief that technology will prevail over the atmosphere’s ability to redistribute wealth via weather; but, as the materiality and intensity of weather quickly reconfigures environments, our occupation of the atmosphere and its occupation of us shifts to the fore of land and human rights struggles around the globe. While often discussed in terms of symptomatic change—rising seas and intensifying weather events—the skeletal structure of climate destabilisation centres on the birth and death of planetary winds that distribute, stabilise, and assemble material and affective realities. As these structures collapse and emerge anew, they unground historic relations between weather and Empire and offer a chance to organise around the seen and unseen differently. Considering a key set of atmospheric relations, this introduction to atmospheric occupations will focus on meteorological assemblages from the Tibetan Plateau to the eastern Mediterranean
