The Necessity of a Boring Revolution

emblematic ideas to take forward could include: * resilient and diverse communities as essential foundations; * the value of trust in government and civic institutions; * recognising the agility and capability latent within the public sector; * and the enormous value of inefficiency and redundancy in systems; * an understanding that there are essen... See more

In this article, I set to understand and explore fundamental thinking that examines a new design worldview. A proposal to change our ways of working as designers, first in voluntary communities (which we already have, but with different goals) and then to be better equipped to understand and explore as individuals and as a community.

Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables.

Modernism’s methodologies of mapping, designing, planning, for controlling and changing deeply complex systems may not be the answer to the challenges we face. Maybe we need to go underground — working in networked, symbiotic companionships, like mycelial arrangements, to generate infinite micro-revolutions.

New forms of architecture, infrastructure, and organisation will emerge from this, relying on a rebalanced relationship between participatory cultures and corporate interest, public sector and private sector, and the reinvigorated institutions of trusted government. It emphasises shared resources and civic relationships, yet recognises individual d... See more

to navigate the intersections between scale and regeneration, between growth and the commons. A principle of ‘many universals’ could provide the framework for balancing the tension between, on one hand, enabling community-led and governed projects to flourish, and, on the other, the need to then challenge massive and well-resourced centers of power... See more