DESIGN SCENARIOS AND ECOTOPIAS. NOTES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN LABORATORY

Abstract

This paper presents the conceptual underpinnings organized by a group of designers and design researchers for the creation of the Ecotopias Socioenvironmental Design Laboratory at PUC-Rio University. It begins by discussing the anthropogenic crisis, which the planet is currently facing, and the consequent design crisis. It also presents the field of design for sustainability, its transversality and eco-logic possibilities. It situates the process of constructing scenarios in this field as a methodological option for opening the imaginative and anticipatory potential of art and design to confront the planetary environmental crises and regenerate ecologies of the mind, social relations, and the environment. It describes the methodological steps of the scenario-building process derived from the project Sustainable Everyday, and, finally, it distinguishes the concepts of utopia and ecotopia.

Keywords

• Crisis
• Design for sustainability
• Ecology
• Scenarios
• Ecotopias