Open Book for Sustainist Design
How sharing, localism, connectedness and proportionality are creating a new agenda for social design
Design for social innovation is on the rise. The challenges that we are facing today require us to come up with new ways of shaping the way we live together. Last year we called for contributions to redefine the social design agenda. As a result of the process that ensued, the the Sustainist Design Guide is now here. This exploratory guide travels the new “landscape” of social design thinking and practice, viewed through the “lens” of the concept of sustainism that was coined by Michiel Schwarz and Joost Elffers. The Sustainist Design Guide presents a new agenda for design, based on values such as sharing, connectedness, localism and proportionality, as well as sustainability. It challenges us to transform these and other sustainist qualities into design criteria and include them in our design briefs. The guide maps out best practices and explores how designers can become more socially and ecologically responsible. It opens the debate on what it means to be “sustainist designers.”