Future Concepts

Dutch Design Daily

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What Design Can Do www.whatdesigncando.com

Climate Action Challenge

By 26-11-2017

In a fragile era for the global environment, as climate change denier President Trump withdraws from the Paris Agreement; the urgency to find powerful and inspiring solutions to the effects of climate change is bigger than ever before. By launching this Climate Action Challenge, social impact platform What Design Can Do and its partners Ikea Foundation and Autodesk Foundation make the huge – and for many people abstract – issue of climate change tangible and understandable, while at the same time offering potential and practical solutions. Some of the winners:

Artificial Glaciers
Suryanarayanan Balasubramanian, India
Artificial ‘ice stupas’ store glacial meltwater in a form that makes them melt slower in spring, so that water is available when it is most needed. To store winter for use in the summer is as unexpected as magic. This project is practical and poetic at the same time.

Twenty
Mirjam de Bruijn, The Netherlands
This project that proposes to ship detergents and other cleaning products without the water they usually are diluted in, not only saves transport emissions, but more importantly helps raise awareness. The project can become a powerful symbol for people helping them to rethink their everyday consumption and live a lighter life.

Powerplant
Marjan van Aubel, The Netherlands
Sharing a meal is a good start for a conversation about where our food comes from and how the land where it is produced can best be used and revitalised. Land management is a key aspect of adaptation and bringing together indigenous knowledge, science, cooking expertise and design offers great opportunities for this. Crossovers like these we need more.