Lien De Ruyck

Industrial Design operates within a capitalistic system. Industrial Designers create things to be made, purchased, and used by consumers. In the end, this exchange most frequently benefits the corporations and other entities who hold power…

Life-centred design enables product designers and businesses of physical and digital products to consider the impacts of their products on all people, all non-humans, and all planet.

We are approaching the biggest ecological collapse in 65 million years. The urgency of this moment demands a different kind of thinking — one that puts life at the centre of every decision. In conversation with Standard Deviation, we explore visions for a regenerative future, and what it means to give back much more than we take.

We will get ourselves to the Purpose Built Era in due time, but as designers, innovators, and leaders — we can start accelerating this shift by asking the right questions. Instead of asking “How do we get into the Metaverse?” start asking: how can we f ocus on strategic, needs-based innovation.

Instead of making things that add value back to a system, our current linear economic model extracts and processes raw materials from nature, produces pollution and returns negative externalities back to the planet in the form of waste — which then affects all living things in negative ways. Externalities are things not accounted for in the current... See more