Dezeen 15
Posted by Bath Bespoke on 4 November 2021
“Rather than celebrate what we’ve already done, we want to look ahead.”
The world’s most influential architecture, interiors and design magazine, Dezeen celebrates its 15th birthday on 17 November 2021. To celebrate, they have invited 15 creatives to propose ideas that can change the world over the next 15 years.
Dezeen 15 is a three-week digital festival available online until 19 November exploring how architecture and design can help make the world a better place. Coinciding with the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, it aims to showcase how creativity and design can offer bold, imaginative solutions to the world’s problems.
A written manifesto prepared by each contributor will be published daily and each creative will have a day dedicated to them during the event, during which they will guest edit Dezeen and share the vision behind their manifesto in a live video interview. Each talk will be publicly available to watch on the Dezeen 15 microsite.
Highlights so far include…
Swap cars for trees | Es Devlin
In the first of the 15 manifestos, British artist and designer Es Devlin imagines looking back from 15 years in the future at the positive progress made since the COP26 climate conference.
In her vision, world leaders agreed upon a raft of measures to reduce emissions and improve life in cities, including replacing cars with trees. Meanwhile, architects and designers have all signed an oath promising “to do no harm to the planet as they practice”.
“Imagine a possible future. It’s 1 November 2036 and every city centre on the planet has swapped parked cars for planted trees. Every city centre has been pedestrianised and optimised for cycles. Every parked car has been replaced with a planted tree. Every car park has become a forested park. Every new and remodelled building has been designed according to vertical-forest principles with two trees planted for every human inhabitant. Every city in the world has achieved 50 per cent tree coverage. City space is shared equally between people and trees.
Designers of all products and systems have signed up to a code of conduct, like a Hippocratic oath in medicine or an ethical code of practice in law and accounting, to aim to “do no harm” to the planet as they practice, to engage in circular design principles, aiming to account for the entire lifespan of every product they design.”
RenaiXance | Amber Slooten
Co-founder of the digital fashion house The Fabricant (and the first-ever fashion student to graduate with an entirely digital collection), Amber Slooten ushers in a new era of creativity where everyone has an equal chance of success regardless of their background.
Slooten believes that new technologies will allow creatives from anywhere in the world to showcase their talent and achieve success based on merit.
“Imagine a future that belongs to creators: a future where we remove history’s gatekeepers and build a new economy where our financial rewards are finally equal to our talent. Artists will become the tastemakers, curators and patrons of each others’ work, determining the value of creativity on our terms instead of old-school ideas of worth calling the shots.
We’ll call it the RenaiXance. A new era where we become one another’s most vocal cheerleaders, giving back to our fellow creatives while raising one another up and enabling those with fewer resources. Collaborations will happen in real-time across the planet, digitally connecting to build multi-creator pieces that give each of us the chance to be recognised and monetise our efforts for the long term.”
All images: Dezeen