John Thackara

For thirty years John Thackara has traveled the world in his search of stories about the practical steps taken by communities to realize a sustainable future. He writes about these stories online, and in books; he uses them in talks for cities, and business; he also organizes festivals and events that bring the subjects of these stories together. John is the author of a widely-read blog at designobserver.com and of the best-selling In the Bubble: Designing In A Complex World (MIT Press) – also translated into nine languages. As director of doorsofperception.com, John organizes conferences and festivals in which social innovators share knowledge. He has lectured in more than forty countries.

The Good Work In Urban-Rural

A new course in Sweden poses the question, “what will a self-sufficient Hällefors Municipality taste like in 2030?”

Students on the course act like talent scouts. They search for unrealised food-growing potential across the region – people, unused land, forgotten traditions.

January 31, 2023

fish and chips

The relationship of my texts to a dead fish

As a writer, my work involves a search for small islands of coherence – that I can later describe – in which social and ecological relationships thrive together.

May 6, 2021

Fungi of Saskatchewan

Bottom-up Biodiversity

Whether connecting schools to farms in France, daylighting rivers in Mexico, or rewilding grasslands in Patagonia, we’re learning how to ‘do’ biodiversity well.

January 14, 2021

Chinese mountains

Urban-Rural: The New Geographies of Innovation

Growth, in this new story, means soils, biodiversity and watersheds getting healthier, and communities more resilient.

The signals of transformation I talk about are not concepts, and they are not the fruits of a vivid imagination. They are happening now.

September 30, 2020

Design Harvest piece

How To Thrive In the Next Economy: Preface to the Chinese edition

This book is not about pre-cooked solutions. It’s about building on what has already been done, in our various social and cultural histories, and on what’s being done, right now, in diverse contexts around the world.

May 22, 2019

Bauhaus building in Weimar

Re-wilding the Bauhaus: What its Foundation Course Should be like Today

No textbook for the new foundation course exists – which is probably just as well. The course is better thought of as a journey, than as a body of knowledge.

April 26, 2019

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