Massive Change
Book by Bruce Mau and The Institute Without Boundaries
Reviewed by Giselle Carr
Issue 9 Fall 2011
How can design shape the world?
What is the difference between the economies as we know them and their overarching systems or, “design economies”? What would it take to systematically change the course of the future, or attempt to do so? The answer to each of these questions is the same: massive change, which is not about the world of design, but rather about “the design of the world.”
A collaborative work between Bruce Mau and the Institute Without Boundaries, Massive Change showcases and contextualizes the profound challenges faced by humanity today, and the extraordinary possibilities of design to help alleviate them. The book details several economies that transcend the current notion of profit-based or geographically-based economies:
• Urban Economies
• Movement Economies
• Energy Economies
• Information Economies
• Image Economies
• Market Economies
• Material Economies
• Military Economies
• Manufacturing Economies
• Living Economies
Massive Change offers a very tangible road map to the good life that is already being designed, a case by case review of successful design from the standpoint of the way things work, as opposed to the way things look. The challenges we face today cannot be solved without design as both beauty and brains – the brilliant and scientifically grounded solution must also be extremely compelling and irresistible. In this sense, the designer as a living revolution of possibility, and the book compels us to act with that knowledge. “The reality for advanced design today is dominated by three ideas: distributed, plural, collaborative. It is no longer about one designer, one client, one solution, one place. Problems are taken up everywhere; solutions are developed and tested against other solutions. The effect of this is to imagine a future for design that is both more modest and more ambitious.”