Beyond Scale: Design as an Attitude

This lecture will explore current design responses to global challenges based on Alice Rawsthorn’s book ‘Design as an Attitude’, where it shows how resourceful designers are using new digital tools to help to tackle the environmental and refugee crises, and to reinvent dysfunctional social services.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author, whose books include Hello World: Where Design Meets Life and, most recently, Design as an Attitude. Her weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade.

Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice is chair of the board of trustees of Chisenhale Gallery and a founding member of the Writers for Liberty campaign for human rights. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of Design Emergency, a research platform that investigates design’s role in building a better future. Their book, Design Emergency, will be published in May 2022.

Alice has been awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.

“BEYOND SCALE” LECTURE SERIES:

Although the spatial dimension is crucial in architecture and design,  especially in relation to humans, our concerns extend into other major concerns. (Especially now when so many people like to see “scalability” as the panacea for all). The series aims at linking current challenges and questions within and beyond architecture and design, from the macroscale of infrastructural and territorial dynamics to the microscale of the pixel component. We aim to set up conversations around topics that pertain to architecture and design, but that also have a considerable impact beyond our discipline, such as:

• Energy consumption and environmental impact of the built environment, at all scales.
• Transformation and reutilization versus production from scratch (of objects, buildings, fashion, software, etc)
• Inclusivity, diversity, parity, and questions of care in the professional and academic environment
• Global practices versus local awareness of specific contexts
• The digital realm as a space for creation, action, protest, vindication, etc

Lectures will take place in hybrid format from our Segovia and Madrid campuses at 18pm CET