Only one month is left to prepare and submit applications to the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the premier international prize program that awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge from Buckminster Fuller Institute on Vimeo.

Jury
Each year systems thinkers and design pioneers across a wide spectrum of human endeavor are invited from all over the world to be on the Jury and select a winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Past jury members have included Janine Benyus, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Helena Norberg-Hodge, John Thackara, Hazel Henderson, Danny Hillis, Alan Kay, Hunter Lovins, Bill Browning, José Zaglul, William McDonough, Adam Bly, Greg Watson and Vandana Shiva.

Entries
Past entries include visionary strategies from a radical solution to human transportation in the world’s largest cities to a strategy to dramatically increase crop yields and economic development in remote African villages. While the entries cover a broad range of topics, the common thread among them is a highly integrated approach to design — one that is simultaneously comprehensive, anticipatory and aligned with nature’s fundamental principles. This focus on an integrated design strategy is what distinguishes the Challenge and the innovators who have submitted their work from other prize programs.

The deadline for entries is 5pm (Eastern Standard Time) on Monday, October 4, 2010. For the call for entries, instructions for how to enter, reference materials, and much more, visit http://challenge.bfi.org

ExperimentaDesign is an international platform open to reflection and experimentation and devoted to design, project culture and creativity. As of 2008, this innovative, multidisciplinary event, founded in Lisbon, will take place alternately in Lisbon and Amsterdam. Its focus is design in its broadest sense: design as a tool, as a process of creation. ExperimentaDesign positions itself at the cutting edge of the modern culture, promoting the creation of laboratories, setting up international working parties and developing strategic synergies between cultural agents.

Challenge and experiment
ExperimentaDesign is essentially a reason for creating, and then, also, a space for exhibiting. It programmes possibilities, challenges participants, crosses paths, questions, experiments. It thinks about aesthetics,
ethics, social cohesion, industry, sustainability and economy. But above all it thinks about people.

Coming soon to Amsterdam

ExperimentaDesign’s first four editions took place in Lisbon. Now, in 2008, with the new platform created between the Dutch and Portuguese capitals, Amsterdam will host ExperimentaDesign for the first time. The theme this year is Space and Place, focusing on the questions raised by new urban landscapes and contemporary living in cities.

As in all other editions of ExperimentaDesign, the programme is designed to appeal to a range of audiences, from professionals to the general public. The opening week, filled with exhibitions, conferences, debates and
urban interventions, is a moment of strong social experience. People come from all around the world to listen, see, share and celebrate design and architecture.

ExperimentaDesign – Lisboa/Amsterdam is the result of a collaboration between ExperimentaDesign and the ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam Foundation, and between the cities of Lisbon and Amsterdam, with the local partnership of Droog Design.

Guter Konsum – böser Konsum

David Carlson has been working with design as a competitive weapon for twenty years. With design as an added value the Swedish designer helps his assigners create attractive brands ready for the challenges of the future. His assigners include Absolut, Level Vodka and Sony Ericsson to mention a few.

Since 2005 Carlson is sharing his thoughts on design in a quaterly report, called the »David Report«. The latest issue »I shop therefore I am« is about our consumption. Sponsor is the vodka brand »Absolute« from Sweden. The report consist of his thoughts and insights on consumption and also has an interview with Mathilde Tham, a professor of Beckmans College of Design and features Kristina Dryza, a trend forecaster and Sante Poroma, a Zen teacher from Stockholm.

[…] maybe it’s time to divide our consumption into good and bad consumption? […] we do have the opportunity to, through our consumption and our choices, create a better world (one mustn’t forget that the power of the consumer is enormous). It is all about WHAT Continue Reading »

Is there a relationship between the conceptual thinking behind Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 urinal and contemporary design practice? Design writer and Design Observer contributer Nick Currie believe’s there is. In an AIGA feature of 1995, Currie presents some interesting thoughts on the evolution of Conceptual Art and its impact on designing for social impact. Currie’s feature, Conceptual Design: Building a Social Conscience begins by exploring if there has ‘ever been “Conceptual Design?”’ and moves on to discuss how the conceptual arts of the early 1900s has led young designers to think more about social issues than consumer goods.

“There’s a generation of young designers who, almost a century after Duchamp, seem to share something of his spirit… Rather than products, these people are designing situations, intervening in existing arrangements, framing everyday activities in ways that make us think of them, unexpectedly, as “design.” And although they’re often satirical in tone, these designers share a concern with ethics and responsibility; one of the reasons the design they make is so often immaterial is their sense that the last thing the world needs is more objects, more consumer goods. The widening ripples of Duchamp’s gesture blend, in their work, with the repercussions of a gathering concern around issues like sustainability, community and responsibility: to be conceptual is, after all, to be thoughtful. “

Although, I do see the connection between Conceptual Artists influencing the IDEO-esq thinking and design practice of today, I find it difficult to trust Conceptual Art Continue Reading »

Whilst undertaking some extensive research into The Future of Design Education, I came across a beautiful piece of creative writing, from Lap Le, a Graphic Design Student at Oregon State University.

“To me, there was once a time when designers were warriors—trained and battle-hardened. They honored their craft, and practiced their bodies and minds to perfect it. The weak died, the strong lived and everyone in between knew that line…

I read and research everything I can and will continue to do so, but I question whether this will be enough to survive against a rising force. Deep down I know that the core principals I learn will provide sustenance and sustainability, but for every one of them that fails, a hundred will replace them. Will they overwhelm us? And if so, how will design, and our roles, be affected when everyone becomes a ‘designer’?”

Ref:
Le, L. (2006). The New Battlefield. New York: AIGA.

Mediacity is the name of a project that is financed by the Marie Curie mobility programme »Transfer of Knowledge« of the European Commission. It takes place at the Bauhaus-University Weimar and explores »the social settings and spaces of the city are created, experienced and practiced through the use and presence of new media.«

On January 18-19 now, Mediacity organizes the conference »Situations. Practices. Encounters.« That’s the chance to get a better understanding of the project and its interesting subject. Here’s a random choice from the speach titles in the programme: »Situating Design – Designing Situations«, »Territories, Prolongations, Visibilities: the Editing of Urban and New Media Environments«, »The Significance of Media in Promoting Social Interaction and Spatial Integration: The case of Johannesburg Inner-City« or »The Impact of Mobile Phone Use on Privacy Perception in Public Spaces.«

The conference has three speaker sessions, a workshop and »several additional activities« (whatever that means). Even if there are no big names on the speakers’ list: As it is an exciting subject and the project is interdisciplinary positioned it could be worth to take the trip to the beautiful city of Weimar and experience the Bauhaus-University and other things worth seeing like the houses of Goethe and Schiller, the Buchenwald Memorial or the Bauhaus Museum.