Design Beyond the Human: Transdisciplinary Conversations about the Planet

Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9781350338074
Format: Paper over boards
Year: 2026
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Description:
How can design shine a light on humanity’s relationship with the planet, its ecosystems and inhabitants, now and in the future?

Global challenges like climate change and ecosystem degradation are proving that a singular disciplinary approach is inadequate to respond to issues where societal behaviours, individual choices, political decisions, economic, technological and scientific developments are so densely entangled – not least in design. But what happens when we turn things around and decentre “the human” to look at our relationship with the planet, its ecosystems and inhabitants beyond the capitalist human-nature binary worldview?

Design Beyond the Human is a collection of essays by international scholars, designers and engaged citizens traversing activism, anthropology, conservation, creative writing, design practice, design theory, economics, education, environmental humanities, ethics, history, indigenous knowledge, law, philosophy, poetry, politics, regenerative agriculture, science, sociology and technology. Divided into three sections – We Are Not Alone, Design Beyond the Human, and Mediating Human Non-Human Relations Through Design – the text generates conversations capable of thinking about life on planet Earth, challenging the Anglo-European anthropocentric conceptualisation of design that dominates practice, education, and academic discourse. Each section is unique: charting the transdisciplinary cultural perspective that is required to comprehend our predicament, the critique of human-centred design and its interdependence with capitalism, and the nascent practices an