Consumerism is a gross failure of imagination, a debilitating addiction that degrades nature and doesn’t even satisfy the universal human craving for meaning.

Doch die stichhaltigere Erklärung für die Unersättlichkeit des Status- und Machtstrebens liegt in der Regression, d.h. der erlernten Unfähigkeit, im umfassenden Gebrauch der Gesamtheit der eigenen Anlagen Sinn und Erfüllung zu finden, und der daraus resultierenden Verführbarkeit durch die attraktiven Eigenschaften der Macht.“

Can we reconfigure growth to mean richness in difference? Flourishing interdependent diversity of networks, network protocols and forms of interaction? What does this mean for digital decay, and can the decay of files, applications and networks become some form of compost, or what might be the most dignified form of digital death and rebirth?

Clearly, the economic contributions of biodiversity are highly significant as reflected in the many efforts to expose and capture economic values of biodiversity and ecosystem services

It’s the first time in the award’s 46-year history that retrofitting, the practice of upgrading buildings rather than knocking them down to start again, has triumphed. Lacaton & Vassal’s victory has shaken up the architectural profession and signals a remarkable shift in priorities among the world’s best city-makers. If embraced more widely, this could transform how buildings everywhere are regenerated.

“Bullets are for killing. I’m more interested in a golden seed. What do we need to plant so we can make the design of our institutions, financial systems, and economic framework regenerative and distributive?”

Over the last decade, degrowth has offered a concrete alternative to eco-modernization, projecting a society emancipated from the environmentally destructive imperative of competition and consumption. Urban development is the motor of economic growth; cities are therefore prime sites of intervention for degrowth activists. Nevertheless, the planning processes that drive urban development have yet to be questioned from a degrowth perspective.

Furthermore, many designers have limited experi-ence working on projects that defy the boundaries of a typical cor-porate design brief.

Narratives that describe time as uniform and evolving throughout history towards more accelerated states have also been critiqued for theirpotential to reinforce social inequalities (Sharma 2014) and for justifyingthe appropriation of natural resources in unsustainable ways (Bastian 2012).

Leider herrscht in der politischen Linken – polemisch zugespitzt – so etwas wie ein technischer Analphabetismus. Da heißt es dann oft, Technik sei etwas, das uns entfremdet. Das ist ein sehr, sehr bürgerlicher Gedanke.

Es ist unsere gemeinsame Pflicht, eine Antwort auf den aktuellen "Techlash" zu finden.

But we as an industry are doing a far better job than ever of abiding by code standards and running our work through linters and validators.

state regulatory boards

Engineers must answer for their work legally and professionally.

I think a properly-designed city could eliminate 80% of daily living expenses while providing a quality of life far beyond what we experience today. And I think this future will have to happen because the only other alternative is an aggressive transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor by force of law. I don’t see that happening.