ABSTRACT
This conslusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses Merton's description of contemplation, the design approach, with its emphasis on inner values and spiritual development, is one rooted in the natural processes of life and suffused by an attitude of humility, attention to reality, trans-religious and flexibility. It presents an attempt to reach beyond entrenched attitudes and conventions to show, through creative practice, some possible routes for reconceiving our notions of material culture and its relationship both to the natural environment and to our perennial search for meaning and fulfilment. Through a series of inquiries that explored values and attitudes, design and spirituality, knowledge and wisdom and non-utilitarian contemplative objects in various guises, the religious, the trans-religious and the non-made. Yet the influence of modernity still dominates the economically developed countries, despite inroads associated with postmodernity, and it offers a powerful precedent to the economically emerging nations.
