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Design Field
Research Strand
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How can the culture sector drive the green transition?

Future Observatory publishes reports on exhibition design, architectural retrofit and cultural institutions

 
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‘You can fit the tools you need to make a stone beam in a suitcase’

Over 30% of global carbon emissions are produced by construction. To meet national and international climate targets, the UK therefore needs to radically rethink the materials with which it builds.
 
Leilah Hirson-Comley
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‘Housing is one area where individuals can take meaningful action’

Facilitating the adoption of domestic retrofitting in Canterbury and East Kent is a Design Accelerator led by the University for the Creative Arts. Our coordinator Leilah Hirson-Comley spoke with
 
Leilah Hirson-Comley
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Redefining the problems, reframing the questions

The following conversation sees Future Observatory’s curatorial director, Cher Potter, in discussion with the 2022/23 cohort of Design Researchers in Residence on the topic of design research.
 
Cher Potter
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‘If we care about the planet, we should care about pigeons’

Ahead of the opening of the Design Researchers in Residence’ exhibition at the Design Museum in late-June, our coordinator Leilah Hirson-Comley caught up with resident James Peplow Powell.
 
Leilah Hirson-Comley
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Adapting Together

Adapting Together, last week’s symposium organised by Future Observatory and ImaginationLancaster, set out to consider how designers can create and support participation in climate action.
 
Author: George Kafka
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The Museum as a Catalyst

Museums are changing. They can be catalysts, proactively supporting a just and sustainable future.
 
Author: Justin McGuirk
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‘They transformed in front of us’

The Design Exchange Partnerships are fifteen AHRC-funded research projects integral to the Future Observatory programme. Each funded project brings researchers into collaboration with non-academic
 
Leyla Salih
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Apply now: Low Carbon Housing

Future Observatory is recruiting a Research Lead to deliver a research project, Low Carbon Housing: How a museum can help drive sustainable mass housing in the UK, funded by the Arts and Humanities
 
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Questions of Scale: Reflecting on our first symposium

“The first question any design researcher with an innovative idea encounters is, how do you scale that up?”