We are delighted to bring you Issue 02 of Future Observatory Journal. We launched the journal earlier this year to explore more expansive narratives for design that respond to the true scale of the climate crisis. We began with Bioregioning as a challenge to current models of climate action. In Issue 02, we turn to More than Human and the fundamental question of our relationship with the living world.
More-than-human design is a challenge to contemporary practice in so many ways.
It may, in fact, contradict the very definition of design as we currently understand it, because design has always been human centred. Indeed, ‘human-centred design’, with its endearingly humanist focus on the user experience, is still a term of approval, an aspiration. It’s a standard that much design does not yet even meet. And yet, if the Anthropocene has made anything clear, it is that we live in a time when human interests have to be tempered with the interests of the rest of the living world. What does it mean to design not just for ourselves but for other species and for the health of natural systems?
We explore that question with the help of a number of designers, writers and thinkers. The Forecast distils some of that thinking into a succinct and highly visual set of propositions, which have been beautifully brought to life by the writer Daisy Hildyard. As a way into the theme, the artist and writer James Bridle offers a highly personal perspective on what more-than-human design means to them, connecting Gaia theory with a small house in Greece. The speculative designers Dunne & Raby revisit a classic text by the philosopher Thomas Nagel on what it might be like to be a bat. The celebrated anthropologist Anna Tsing spoke to us about how the practice of ‘noticing’ is her way of challenging modernist visions of the future. Alenda Chang investigates more-than-human worlds in video games. Eliot Haworth explore multispecies architecture in Berlin, while James Peplow Powell dives deep into the world of coral restoration. Finally, Studio Ossidiana have produced a poster-sized manual of how to practice more-than-human design. And these are just the highlights.
It's also worth mentioning that the more-than-human is a theme that runs across the Future Observatory Programme this year. We will soon be announcing the recipients of the next round of Design Exchange Partnership grants, which responded to this theme. And in summer 2025 the Design Museum will stage a major exhibition – More than Human – which will bring together a new generation of artists, designers and architects who have brought this challenging perspective into their work.
But, for now, we hope you enjoy this issue of the journal.
