Alastair Fuad-Luke is engaged in an on-going conversation about ‘slow design’ - design to slow human, economic and resource use metabolisms in order to re-balance individual, socio-cultural and environmental well-being. Since 1998 he has practised as a sustainable design facilitator, consultant, educator, writer and activist.  With experience with a broad range of design approaches (sustainable design, eco-design, slow design and co-design), environmental consultancy/soil bio-engineering, and the media/publishing industry, he sees fresh, exciting roles for designers in the sustainability debate – including as facilitators and enablers – and illustrates the design praxis that accompanies these more (inter-)active roles in his latest book, Design Activism:Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World (Earthscan, 2009). He believes the pluralism inherent in the slow design approach generates a plethora of fresh creative challenges. This pluralism is illustrated in his 2004/2005 archival web site, SLow, where the principles, theory and practice of slow design are discussed.

As author of The Eco-design Handbook (Thames & Hudson, 2002, 2004, 2009) he believes that slowing down resource use metabolism is a critical challenge that is also implicit in the slow design approach.  So, slow design embraces best practice eco-design and Design for Sustainability too. Working in Higher Education over the last 12 years has revealed a huge challenge to embed sustainable design theory and practice in a new generation of designers – and that challenge continues with urgency.

Exploration of new paradigms and a re-focusing on design for well-being are critical to future design capability and its credibility with wider society. He also sees a need to re-democratise design by re-enabling people’s innate design instincts and skills. ‘Design democracy’ using participatory design or co-design re-builds the commons and encourages local, socially beneficial and low environmental impact solutions. It also contributes to the accumulation of ‘slow knowledge’ in the “commons”.  He is a strong advocate of the slow co-design approach.

Alastair was Secretary of the Board of slowLab from its formation in 2005 to July 2009, contributing to its steady growth, co-authoring the Slow Design Principles with the slowLab’s founder Carolyn Strauss and nurturing the network and its members.

fuad-luke.com >

SLow >

60 minutes sofa/bench >