ABSTRACT
Society would certainly benefit from new levels of synergy that might emerge from within, between and across many social, political, ideological, economic and biological boundaries. Buckminster Fuller’s grand vision of a ‘synergy of synergies’ was helpful. Hannah Jones looks at the potential for sustainable urban planning by seeing the spaces between buildings as possible sites of unintended potential. Perhaps the most promising work in the ‘design for sustainability’ movement has been edging towards metadesign by advocating a more enterprising, adaptive, ‘zero-waste’ society. In this system, production would operate as a ‘cradle-to-cradle’ system, that offers more and more opportunities for sustainable enterprise. Despite the heroic efforts by the pioneers of ‘eco-design’, ‘design for sustainability’ and so on, global carbon emissions continue to rise, and bio-diversity levels are falling at an alarming rate. The logic of ‘sustainability’ appears to offer a ‘lose-win’ scenario in which citizens must curb their desires in deference to future generations of consumers.
