Designers need to “fundamentally rethink our relationship with the natural world”, according to the curator of a new exhibition which argues the needs of nature and animals should be considered when creating homes, buildings and products.
Justin McGuirk, the curator of the upcoming More Than Human exhibition at the Design Museum in London, said our current “human-centric” approach to design needs to be radically overhauled as the world adapts to the climate crisis.
“We’re stuck in a carbon accountancy model which is basically about doing everything exactly the same as we currently do, just a little bit less bad,” he said. “That’s not really going to cut it.”
McGuirk believes there needs to be “a fundamental shift in position” for all designers.
“Every design project needs to think about how it’s affecting other species, or either limiting its impact on other species, or ideally promoting the health of other species,” he said.
The More Than Human exhibition, which opens on 11 July, presents ideas for how the world of design could achieve the shift McGuirk and others are calling for.
There’s a pavilion that is specifically designed to encourage insects to nest in its exterior, a project in New York where a wave breaker has been built using a colony of oysters rather than concrete, and it features a “monumental seaweed installation” by the artist Julia Lohmann.
Innovative design ideas that help restore damaged and dying marine ecosystems such as coral reefs, which are dying at record rates around the world, are also included.
Reef Design Lab’s Living Seawalls – an artificial habitat for marine life – will feature alongside the lab’s Modular Artificial Reef Structure II, which is placed on the ocean floor to help regenerate and repopulate natural reef structures.
McGuirk said there’s a sense that humans are detached from nature. “We extract what we need and then we build what we want. But actually we’re interdependent with all these living systems, so it’s really a new way of thinking that we’re trying to encourage,” he added.
The More Than Human movement first emerged in the late 1990s when David Abram, the cultural ecologist, geo-philosopher and performance artist, coined the term. It has since moved from the theoretical to the real world.
“It’s really only been around in theory for about 20 years,” said McGuirk. “But I’ve noticed among a younger generation of designers that this is becoming much more a way of thinking for them.”
The exhibition is the first curatorial collaboration between the Design Museum and its national design research programme, Future Observatory, which launched in 2021 and champions new design thinking on environmental issues.
Tim Marlow, director and CEO of the Design Museum said: “It’s important for museums and cultural institutions to respond to the complex issues facing our planet and society at present. It’s also important to shift perspectives from a human-centric view of the world to one closer to nature, which will make this a landmark exhibition in every sense.”
