Beyond Sustainability: Designing More-than-Human Urban Encounters and Justice Practices

The Department of Design hosts a lecture series titled “More-than-human AI”. The event, organized by the PhD Program in Design in collaboration with the Design Intelligences Institute, is an opportunity to explore how designers can navigate and engage with AI to actively promote the resilience and flourishing of our environmental, social, and economic systems.

The first lecture, “Beyond Sustainability: Designing More-than-Human Urban Encounters and Justice Practices,” will be held by Rachel Clarke, researcher and senior lecturer at the University of the Arts, London.

Abstract:

The smart city began as a socio-technical imaginary that placed human and technological efficiencies at the core of its agenda. In recent years a reliance on the design of technological and data driven decision-making in urban planning and governance to support sustainability, carbon net zero and climate mitigation has become central to the smart city narrative.

In this talk the speaker will explore critical perspectives of the smart city and approaches to reconfiguring the dominance of technoscientific sustainable and efficient futures. Drawing from Clarke's new co-edited book Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities: Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation (2024, Oxford University Press), Clarke will discuss examples using the lens of ‘justice practices’ to consider how designers and practitioners are making sense of and developing more-than-human approaches to cohabitation with species, data, chemicals, hybrid technical-organic interfaces and other-worldly entities.

Bio:

Rachel Clarke is a design researcher and practitioner who combines visual communication with qualitative research, performance and storytelling on issues of climate change, sustainability and social inequality. She is senior lecturer in Design for Climate Justice and Course Leader for Art Direction at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London.

To attend the lecture, you must register by filling out this form.