Strategic design is about applying the principles of traditional design to "big picture" systemic challenges such as healthcare, education and the environment. It redefines how problems are approached and aims to deliver more resilient solutions. In this short book, Dan Hill outlines a new vocabulary of design, one that needs to be smuggled into the upper echelons of power. He asserts that, increasingly, effective design means engaging with the messy politics - the "dark matter" - taking place above the designer's head. And that may mean redesigning the organisation that hires you.
Strategic design is about applying the principles of traditional design to "big picture" systemic challenges such as healthcare, education and the environment. It redefines how problems are approached and aims to deliver more resilient solutions. In this short book, Dan Hill outlines a new vocabulary of design, one that needs to be smuggled into the upper echelons of power. He asserts that, increasingly, effective design means engaging with the messy politics - the "dark matter" - taking place above the designer's head. And that may mean redesigning the organisation that hires you.
What can you do with a degree in architecture? Where might it take you? What kind of challenges could you address? Architects After Architecture reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of designing buildings. In this volume, we meet forty practitioners through profiles, case studies, and interviews, who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways to tackle the climate crisis, work with refugees, advocate for diversity, start tech companies, become leading museum curators, tackle homelessness, draft public policy, become developers, design videogames, shape public discourse, and much more. Together, they describe a future of architecture that is diverse and engaged, expanding the limits of the discipline, and offering new paths forward in times of crisis. Whether you are an architecture student or a practicing architect considering a change, you’ll find this an encouraging and inspiring read. Please visit the Architects After Architecture website for more information, including future book launches and events: architectsafterarchitecture.com
'Show me something I've never seen before and will never be able to forget - if you can do that, you can do anything.' It's 1957, long before computers have replaced the trained eye and skilful hand. Our narrator at State University is determined to major in Art, and after several risible false starts, he accidentally ends up in a new class: 'Introduction to Graphic Design'. His teacher is the enigmatic Winter Sorbeck, equal parts genius, seducer and sadist. Sorbeck is a bitter yet fascinating man whose assignments hurl his charges through a gauntlet of humiliation and heartache, shame and triumph, ego-bashing and enlightenment. Along the way, friendships are made and undone, jealousies simmer, and the sexual tango weaves and dips. By the end of their 'Introduction to Graphic Design', Sorbeck's students will never see the world in the same way again. And, with Chip Kidd's insights into the secrets of graphic design, neither will you.
This quirky handbook of Italian gestures, first published in 1958 by renowned Milanese artist and graphic designer Bruno Munari, will help the phalange-phobic decipher the unspoken language of gestures--a language not found in any dictionary. Photos.
This brilliant collection mixes the storytelling originality of George Saunders and Lydia Davis with a sensibility all its own, taking the reader on an extraordinary tour of an old and a new Australia. A woman on a passenger ship in 1958 gets involved with a young, wild Barry Humphries. A man looks back to the 1970s and his time as a member of Australia’s least competent scout troop. In 1988, a teenage boy recalls his sexual initiation, out on the tanbark. In 2015, two sisters text in Kmart about how to manage their irascible, isolated mum. Then, in the near future, a racist demagogue addresses the press the day after his electoral triumph. As the cities heat up and lose their water, a lady from one of the ‘better suburbs’ makes every effort to get her family into an exclusive gated community. Outstandingly original, bitingly satirical and written in a remarkable range of voices, A Couple of Things Before the End is a powerful vision of where we are – and where we may be headed. ‘These voices, so superbly heard and rendered, threw me into fits of laughter and slyly broke my heart.’ —Helen Garner ‘Astonishing ... an inventive collection of missives from the end of history. Complicated and savage and difficult and funny and melancholy, it’s both harsh and a caress. How do we speak and write into a future? I think Sean O’Beirne is showing us one way of doing it.’ —Christos Tsiolkas ‘O’Beirne inflects his identifiably Australian characters with a darkly comic and empathetic voice ... altogether, this collection invokes [our] questionable past, ironic present and disturbing future.’ —Books+Publishing
Thirty years before the advent of the literary graphic novel movement in the United States, Yoshihiro Tatsumi created a library of comics that draw parallels to modern prose fiction and today's alternative comics. The stories collected in The Push Man are simultaneously haunting, disturbing, and darkly humorous. A lone man travels the country, projecting pornographic films for private individuals while attempting to maintain a normal home life. The lives of two men become intertwined when one hires the other to observe his sexual escapades through a telescope. An auto mechanic's obsession with a female TV personality turns fatal after a chance meeting between the two
For Greek myth fans, those who can’t get enough of the D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, and readers who have aged out of Rick Riordan, this classroom staple and mythology classic is perfect for learning about the ancient myths! As the gods and goddesses of Olympus scheme, the ancient world is thrown into turmoil when Helen, the most beautiful woman in all of Greece, is stolen away by her Trojan love. Inflamed by jealousy, the Greek king seeks lethal vengeance and sends his black war ships to descend on the city of Troy. In the siege that follows, history’s greatest heroes, from Ajax to Achilles to Odysseus, are forged in combat, and the brutal costs of passion, pride, and revenge must be paid. In the end, the whims of the gods, the cunning of the warriors, and a great wooden horse will decide who emerges victorious. Homer's epic poem, The Iliad, is one of the greatest adventure stories of all time and Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling of the classic saga embodies all of the astonishing drama, romance, and intrigue of ancient Greece. Don’t miss The Wanderings of Odysseus, the companion to Black Ships Before Troy, and follow Odysseus on his adventure home. This book has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades 6-8, Stories) in Appendix B.
This book is concerned with socially engaged art projects in the Chinese countryside, with the artists and intellectuals who are involved, the villagers they meet and the local authorities with whom they negotiate. In recent years an increasing number of urban artists have turned towards the countryside in an attempt to revive rural areas perceived to be in a crisis. The vantage point of this book is the Bishan Commune. In 2010, Ou Ning drafted a notebook entitled Bishan Commune: How to Start Your Own Utopia. The notebook presents a utopian ideal of life based on anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s idea of mutual aid. In 2011 the Commune was established in Bishan Village in Anhui Province. The main questions of this book thus revolve around how an anarchist, utopian community unfolds to the backdrop of the political, social and historical landscape of rural China, or more directly: How do you start your own utopia in the Chinese countryside?
Around the world, a new architectural form is emerging. In public places a progressive architecture is being commissioned to promote open-ended, undetermined, lightly programmed or un-programmed interactions between people. This new phenomenon of architectural form – Pavilions, Pop-Ups and Parasols – is presaged by rapidly changing social relationships flowing from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The nexus between real and virtual meeting is effectively being reinvented by innovative and creative architectural practices. People meet in new and responsive ways, architects meet their clients in new forums, knowledge is ‘met’ and achieved in new and interactive frameworks. It contrasts bluntly with the commercially structured interactions of shopping malls and the increasingly deliberate interactions available in cultural institutions. These experiences imbue a new type of client; casually engaged, flocking, hacking, crowd funding and self-helping. Contributors include: Rob Bevan, Pia Ednie-Brown, Roan Ching-Yueh, Dan Hill, Martyn Hook, Minsuk Cho, Andrea Kahn, Felicity Scott, Akira Suzuki Contributing architects include: Alisa Andrasek/Biothing, Peter Cook/CRAB studio, CJ Lim/Studio 8, Tom Holbrook/5th Studio, Matthias Hollwich/HWKN, Mamou-Mani Architects, Benedetta Tagliabue/EMBT
