Planetary Design – Reclaiming Futures audio series accompanies the conference of the same title and brings together critical voices and debate on the role of design in making, unmaking and remaking worlds.
Starting from the intersection of design, infrastructure, and the planetary environment, these conversations — between architects, cultural scientists, geographers, philosophers, scholars of emerging technologies and artists — act as a generative platform for a discussion around design’s role in producing our past, present, and potential for differently designed futures.
The podcast "Planetary Design – Reclaiming Futures" is a project produced by KoozArch in partnership with Governing through Design, supported by a Sinergia Research Grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Listen to all episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
with Özgün Eylül Işcen, Nadia Christidi and Sudipto Basu.
It often feels as though there are more frequent climate emergencies and environmental disasters than we can properly acknowledge, with consequences still to unfold. While some parties choose to profit from disaster capitalism, Özgün Eylül Işcen, Nadia Christidi and Sudipto Basu discuss their stance against catastrophic thinking.
with Dele Adeyemo.
If urbanisation is ineluctably spreading across the planet, exactly whose model informs the pattern? Whose plans inform the development of underdevelopment, and spatial imaginary of the mega city? Architect and artist Dele Adeyemo uses film to explore and interrogate issues of racial capitalism and the contemporary lifeworlds that exist in their midst.
with Rural Futurisms / Lesego Bantsheng and Awande Buthelezi.
Almost universally, conversations around imminent environmental, political and social urgencies tend to focus on urban agglomerations rather than on rural communities. Lesego Bantsheng and Awande Bulthezi present the concept of cosmotechnical intelligence, bridging indigenous, traditional and contemporary understandings of materiality and value.
with David Frank.
Depending on the market economy to deliver decarbonisation seems like a long and potentially futile game. Rather, asks environmental philosopher David Frank, what are the utopian and ecosocialist imaginaries and alternatives that we can draw upon in the real world?
with Anke Gruendel.
What is the relationship between design and democracy — and has it gone too far? The panacea of participation is widely prescribed, yet as researcher and political scholar Anke Gruendel suggests, questions remain around forms of knowledge and perspectives that are extracted or excluded.
with Orit Halpern.
The irrepressible rise of AI sees us enter a feedback loop between artificial and human cognition, as discussed here by author and scholar of digital cultures Orit Halpern. What does this mean for the automation of environmental intelligence? If AI is the answer, what’s the question?
with Claudia Mareis.
Postwar debates heralded the ingenuity of design, even as practitioners like Buckminster Fuller projected the “whole earth” as a testing ground. Examining these techno-scientific, universalist ambitions, designer and cultural scientist Claudia Mareis questions the modernist and imperialist agendas — separating industry from craft — embedded therein.
with Kenny Cupers.
Design is often called upon to solve problems that have their roots in political and ecological crises. Drawing upon his research on the history of Empire, academic and researcher Kenny Cupers reveals the origins of planetary thinking as a design project, always intended to shape the very nature of humanity.
with the Governing through Design team.
What possibilities unfold — political, social, cultural — if we propose design as a planetary endeavour, rather than as a problem solving activity? This driving question around the notion of planetary design, frames a discussion between KoozArch founder Federica Zambeletti with Kenny Cupers, Orit Halpern, Claudia Mareis and Laura Nkula-Wenz, from the research group Governing Through Design.
