How can design shape a greener and fairer future?

...the introduction to a conversation I took part in at Anthropy in March.

In March of this year, I was invited by Design Council CEO Minnie Moll to take part in a conversation alongside the brilliant Indy Johar as part of Anthropy—a conference at Cornwall’s Eden Project that emerged out of the COVID pandemic with the strapline ‘inspiring a better Britain’. Indy and I were each given ten minutes to introduce ourselves and share some provocations for an exploration of ‘how design can shape a greener and fairer future’. Here’s how I opened our conversation…

“I am Katie Treggiden. I am an author, journalist and podcaster specialising in craft, design and sustainability. I am also a certified Blue Health Coach and a nature facilitator working with purpose-driven and creative companies on their imperfect journeys towards genuine sustainability.

‘Anything that hasn’t grown or otherwise naturally manifested has been designed—either consciously or not.’

“As the title of this conversation suggests, design shapes our whole world – in fact, anything that hasn’t grown or otherwise naturally manifested has been designed—either consciously or not. So, of course, the chairs you’re sitting on, the clothes you’re wearing and the space we’re in today have all been designed, but so too was every element of this conference from the shuttle bus service that got you here (or not!) this morning, to the decisions – conscious or otherwise – that led to who gets to be in this room right now.

“So, how can design shape a greener and fairer future? Firstly, we need to understand the hierarchies within which those conscious and unconscious design decisions are made.

“In the design industry, we sit in a hierarchy that is so entrenched that we barely notice it. You’ve probably never thought about it either, but I bet this sounds familiar: Architecture is at the top, then industrial design and product design, then interior design and craft and making are at the bottom. It is reflected in salaries, in prestige, in awards, and in who gets to sit on stages like this one today. Now, I must say, the Design Council has done a brilliant job of addressing this in their recent appointment of 100 new Design Experts, but nevertheless, it persists.

“And it mimics wider hierarchies that the design industry exists within and that all of us move through every day. Hierarchies that put men, white people, straight & cis folks above women, people of colour and the queer community, that put the global North above the global South, science & ‘head knowledge,’ above indigenous wisdom, ‘heart’ and ‘hand knowledge’, that put cities and buildings above villages and nature connection and that put capitalism, shareholder primacy and the public realm above trade, reciprocity and the domestic realm.

“Now, I grew up here in Cornwall. My surname might suggest that to you – in fact, my Dad has traced our family tree back to the 1700s and to a village of the same name. You might think that’s something to be proud of (or you might not, but it is and I am!), but I was raised to prize all the things at the top of that hierarchy. So, I left for London, via university, and got a great job in a big, shiny building.

‘We are simply not going to find the answers to these crises in boardrooms.’

“But, working in the creative industries in London for 20-some years, I realised that the answers to the environmental crisis – and the various other crises that intersect with it – won’t be found in the places and within the hierarchies that created them. As Audre Lorde put it: ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’.

“We are simply not going to find the answers to these crises in boardrooms, in offices, in buildings, or even in design, as long as those hierarchies persist.

“So, it’s really exciting that we’re here, in these biodomes, in Cornwall, in the countryside, by the sea. And we have an opportunity to really be here—to not treat this like any other conference in any other conference centre, but to hang out at the bottom of that hierarchy.

“We’re going to spend some time now talking about the role that design has to play in inspiring a better Britain. But before we do, I want to encourage us to look to the bottom of the design hierarchy for inspiration.