Nineteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Solarpunk is a movement which aims to replace society’s apocalyptic and dystopian views of climate change with an alternative more optimistic vision of what the world might look like in the near future. Emerging in 2008, Solarpunk has been described as an eco-futurist movement which encourages us to avoid catastrophe by imaging a future that people would like to live in, rather than avoid. Such powerful utopian ideas arguably have their roots in William Morris, News From Nowhere, and Buckminster Fuller’s beliefs that things can’t be changed by fighting reality but rather by creating a new model. I believe Solarpunk is an ideal catalyst for the design community in that it provides an invitation to us all to put our imaginations to work to seek practical actions and interactions. The Gardens by the Bay in Singapore (2012) the Beijing City Library, created by Snøhetta (2018-2023) are wonderful examples of what can be achieved when design balances nature and technology. Through interpretive research methods this paper explores the design affordances and solutions which might emerge from a solarpunk rewilding of our imagination.