“The Bærekraft days” are pleased to present an exquisite workshop on Thursday August 28th 2008 at. 1500-1800 in tent no. 1 on the lawn in front of Islands Brygge 37 in Copenhagen.

We present a cooperation consisting of EXDL - Experience Design Lab, ECCO International and AGENTURET / Gravitations. The workshop will be about a new radically different, colorful and challenging concept: “The Sustainability Challenge - a dialogic design expedition-lab”. The Sustainability Challenge is a journey, exploring new ways to work with “bærekraft”- (”SUSTAINABILITY POWER”), design, philosophy and culture. We are planning expeditions with teams of professionals to Gambia, Argentina and India, with the first tour in the spring of 2009. Niels Peter Flint from EXDL, Guro Heilmann from ECCO International and Oleg Koefoed from The Agency / Gravitations will tell about the ideas and together with the participants work with prospects. We will work with a vision of “beyond green” - and, of course, we will also produce some “bærekraft flowers” (an important part of the BÆREKRAFT DAYS - please see (and sorry only in danish) http://agenturet.net/?p=32), which brings together concept, vision and the project in whole. We hope to see as many as possible to talk about how local wisdom, “bærekraft” philosophy, radically sustainable design and transcultural experiences can create awareness and new cooperation projects. All participants will receive a description of the concept. If possible please let us know if you can come, so we have an idea of how many plan to attend. Write to oleg@gravitations.org or call 0045-30 28 66 21

Sustensively

The “Bærekraft” team

Guro, Oleg and Niels Peter

waiting for you…….and if you want to read the entire

THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

concept please come back on Tuesday August 26th 2008…..here in this site….. believe it or not - it might be real…..

THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

will take you to the top….. to the top of what….????

THE SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

might show some new ways……have a look http://www.baerekraftfestival.dk/

The first course at the Micro Macro Monde Center - about perma culture design related to a fictive garden city development project called WORLDBY.

“Permaculture is the conscious use of ecological principles for designing sustainable and productive human habitats” David Holmgren

A Permaculture Design for the Micro Macro Monde Center at Moulin De Planchette, Cormes, France

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Dates: starting at Friday September 26th and finishing Saturday Oct. 4th.

This will be the first course to be held at the Micro Macro Monde Center and we are all very exited and looking very much forward. The course will be over ten days and includes the MMM-event also. It will be 10 days packed with new in-puts and lots of nice food, exiting talks and extremely interesting learning. Please sign up as soon as possible we cant really accommodate more than 20 persons.

What will the course be about:

The aim of the course/workshop is to make a master plan for the mill - seeing the mill as a platform in the WORLDBY structure as envisioned by Niels Peter Flint - please see the images elsewhere here on the site or click here.

The WORLDBY TENT VILLAGE.

You will be living in a kind of experimental “temporary tent village” - an experiment in living in a “micro space with a macro impact” - imagine it being on one of the platforms of WORLDBY. The tents have been used in similar projects in India - however never documented. We will document life here in various ways too in order to gain experience on “micro living”.

The Perma Culture aspects:

The course will give a basic introduction to permaculture design principles, using the mill as a case study. This means creating sustainable connections between people and the place.

Niels Peter Flint is the client, and wants to develop the mill as a laboratory for exploring natural sustainable systems as part of the WORLDBY project. He is obviously not going to build a WORLDBY on this plot, but he wants to “perform” or “simulate” what it could be like on a platform in WORLDBY.

The vision for the course is that you will help develop and materialize the first MICRO MACRO MONDE Center – a place where innovative thinking and doing can take place. A kind of experimental lab, retreat and possibly developing into becoming a test-zone for the WORLDBY project. Please read more about what an MMM center and WORLDBY is on www.exdl.com.

Participants will work as a team, using holistic participatory design methods, contributing to an overall master plan that can be developed further by Niels Peter Flint. The course will give participants an opportunity to learn essential social and practical skills for designing sustainable habitats.

The day will have a mixture between theoretical lectures, practical design work, practical work on the place and of course recreation! The practical work will be planting trees, creating gardens, composting, natural building techniques like clay plastering, natural paints etc.

The following themes will be covered:

- Client parameters: functions, social and practical resources – connections to the local community, economic possibilities, financing
- Site analysis: understanding the site, observation skills, climate, aspects, sectors, available resources, natural cycles
- Zones and sectors: using the available natural resources, placement of functions, initial design principles
- Fire/energy cycle: available renewable energy resources, harnessing natural resources, systems and possibilities
- Water cycle: local water sources, local sewage and grey water systems, water conservation
- Earth cycle: Materials: available local building materials, existing buildings and building renovation. Food production: placement and selection, integrating animals.
- Air cycle: Indoor climate, natural ventilation techniques. Health aspects, spiritual and visionary connections

The Micro Macro Monde Party:

Friday Oct. 2nd there will be a big party where locals will be invited to see the outcome of the course.

Inspirators:

Frederica Miller, architect and permaculture designer, has her own practice as part of Gaia Architects in Oslo, Norway. She was born in England. Her main experience and focus is with planning from large scale to small scale, participation processes, urban ecology, housing projects and ecological farms. She has written the book “Living Houses” (in Norwegian) and is much used as a consultant, lecturer and permaculture teacher.

Julio Perez, is an architect in Gaia Architects Oslo, Norway. He was born in Chile, and is one of the pioneers in developing sustainable building and gardening techniques in Chile and Latin America. His main experience and focus is permaculture design, instant gardening techniques, urban agriculture, the use of clay as a building material, self build techniques. He has written many articles and pamphlets (in Spanish) and is much used as a consultant, lecturer and teacher in Europe and Latin America.

Niels Peter Flint, is primarily a designer, specialized in sustainable development, however NPF has also worked a lot developing sustainable architectural concepts. He has worked globally as a consultant in architecture and design, but also as a workshop leader, lecturer etc. Please read more at www.exdl.com/nplint.

Practicalities from the host:

In order to keep a low price for the course we will experiment with many exiting things when it comes to eating and drinking, but it will still be a feast everyday and will get new exiting dishes served under the open sky or in the barn (in case of rain) or under the trees or maybe somewhere completely different – all organic produce and mostly vegetarian. And everyone will also be part of helping with the cooking which NPF otherwise is in charge of – and it will NOT be conventional and boring food.

When it comes to sleeping you will have be able to sleep on strawbales in or outside or on air madrases in Indian organic cotton canvas tents (if they arrive in time) or regular tents. No matter what sleeping will be relatively simple but yet very exotic. And so will bathing and toilets – all communal, but wait and see it will be an experience. The setting is beautiful – it’s a bit like being in a giant magical wild garden.
You will need to bring a sleeping bag. In case you need bed linen, towels etc. an extra 5 € a day will be added.

If you don’t want to stay at the MMM Center then you can stay close by at some very nice typical French type of bed & breakfast. In case you want to do this please contact Niels Peter Flint directly for more info. The prices start at approximately 60 € pr. Night for a double room at the local places. Or alternatively have a look at the site from the local Tourist Agency in La Ferte Bernard. here you can also find information about the area in general.

Please bring rubber boots and work clothing a sweater might be a good idea too.

Prices

100 Euros pr. Day based on 20 participants. This means the entire course from Sep. 26th to Oct. 4thwill be 8 nights and therefore 800 € pr. Person. This includes a madras, food (not alcoholic drinks), party, materials and of course teaching.

You pay 50% before Sep. 1st and the rest when you arrive – or all at once if you want. In case you have to cancel a 25% will be kept in case its less than 1 week before the course starts.

Students and others who might need a discount please send a mail and let us know why you should pay less.

You can pay to banks in UK, France and Denmark. Please let me know what you prefer.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Niels Peter Flint
Copenhagen May 19, 2008

- and if you want to know more please see the videos below:

- we are all looking very much forward to seeing you at this first course at the MMM center.

Frederica Miller

Julio Perez

Niels Peter Flint

and to get to Gaia Oslo homepage click on logo (primarily in norwegian)

By Niels Peter Flint

The world is full of people and tomatoes. And the people all want tomato ketchup and concentrated tomato and tomato sauces and peeled tomatoes in cans and sun dried tomatoes and a few fresh watery red tomatoes to put on top of their burger or salad covered in tomato dressing.

Tomatoes are produced mainly in Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain) and the US (Florida, California). Huge land areas are covered in plastics and tons of pesticides and other agro chemicals are used to satisfy this lust for the red watery veggie. The pluckers are mostly severely underpaid, in fact, paid below the minimum level of existence. Most often they are illegal immigrants, who cannot complain since they have no official papers and they live under horrible conditions – almost like slaves, surely worse than pigs in modern pig farms. And tomatoes are dirt-cheap. The total world production of fresh tomatoes is not more than at most 1 billion USD. The total world value of tomato sauces on the other hand is app 50 billion USD. So the processing is creating the value, which the consumers evidently are willing to pay.

Right now the between 1 and 2 billion “haves” can enjoy a material superiority, however often a lousy life quality some would say, but we get our tomato ketchup cheap. The currently 4 billion “have-nots” wants tomato ketchup and cars and fridges and automatic pet feeders and electric toothbrushes etc. too. Can they have this? Just like so many other things that we take for granted in today’s world tomatoes has become a modern commodity, using vast amounts of resources in order to be available for the consumers everywhere at any time – at extremely low and totally unrealistic prices based on slave labor and a completely exaggerated agricultural economic support from various governmental structures.

Tomatoes are fragile and have long been packaged in all sorts of ways mostly in order to be protected and keep fresh as long as possible. Approximately 10-30% of tomatoes in underdeveloped countries decay during transport, due to rot, rats etc. You can easily genetically engineer the long-lasting tomato.

Nowadays tomatoes don’t taste of anything when they are out of season. The flavory tomato having a high taste has been genetically engineered, and sold by Sainsbury, UK. However, the producers had to withdraw due to consumer reactions. Millions of euros, yens and dollars are put into research in genetically manipulating tomatoes so that they last longer, taste better etc.

Tomatoes today like so many other things cost nothing due to massive in-direct support systems, which allows a totally hopeless ecological non-acceptable but also in the long run economically totally unsustainable development.

Imagine designing “the good tomato experiences” which would be about satisfying our need for this red substance in the most appropriate way according to the season. Why not have your own peeled and preserved “basil and honey with chili glassed tomatoes” out of season and fresh vice versa. Well because you don’t even know how to peel a tomato and by the way you don’t have time to do those kinds of silly time-consuming things - and then they are SO cheap in the supermarket anyway (well wait till you have to pay the real prices).

We tend to believe that it’s impossible to make people stop something that they already have gained access to like having access to consume tomatoes all year round. However considering the bad quality mostly being delivered in the winter and the consumer maybe starting to understand the real implications of something as banal as “the tomato need”, maybe many customers would love the following experience in case the below scenario was designed and developed. And imagining that the subsidies for tomatoes will probably not exist in some years from now, it might not be so unrealistic.

Scenario:

THE TOMATO EXPERIENCE year 2010

- in the Food Experience Place (FEP) you now have completely different, inspiring and beautiful fruit and vegetable / home cooking departments. They look like a mix of former vegetable markets with a kind of kitchens with high and low tech machines which in almost magical ways transforms veggies and fruits into all sorts of interesting semi- or ready-made products – designed either by the customer or by various chefs.

In the kitchens experimentation can happen and own recipes can be tested, etc. There are recipe-bourses where you exchange or sell recipes and ideas. You can grind your own coffee and add cinnamon – or mix your own tea from fresh end dried tealeaves, herbs etc. You can design your own mayonnaise or sandwich crème, mix your own yogurth, and blend your own shampoo - and you can make your own tomato ketchup and other tomato products. On the spot or by order. You can smell / taste your own creations as an artificial simulation is made in a computer, which gives you an indication of how the chosen combo of fx. tomatoes and pineapple will taste or smell like..

Tomatoes are still sold by the piece in the supermarkets but only when in season. Bulk gets to our doorstep ordered by your personal avatar via the Internet. You go to the foodexperience-places (FEP), to get inspiration rather than just to shop. In season there are numerous different kinds of tomatoes and just as many byproducts of the preserved tomatoes. When the tomatoes are getting too old, they are simply made into fx. tomato-ketchup or other products, either in the store or at other centrally located micro-food processing factories.

Heinz has designed this sophisticated system where they “satisfy your tomato-need” in the most (sustainable) appropriate way.

IN the FEP Heinz and other food processing companies provide you with various services based on what is in season. The left-overs are processed and can, as described, be “designed” by the customer, in case the customer has not been foresighted enough to by his or her tomato products off-season. Obviously, in case a customer desperately needs fresh tomatoes off-season – it can be delivered, but then you pay the real costs.

In the FEP tomatoes etc. are bottled or canned or put into newly developed eatable packaging that adds the spices, salts etc. when cooked (the packaging contains starch and aromas for the tomato soup). You can also bring your own container and you can of course buy loads of different kinds of fabulously designed recyclable or disposable or eatable containers, which are all made from best available materials.
The “new” and freshly made (but preserved) tomato-products are now sold either directly in the shops or on delivery since many order via Internet). Due to the RFID-tag development each tomato product is registered – if you as a consumer want that. This means that the tomato products you are designing and ordering – in season – will be available to others on the local “FEP-virtual (Tomato) bourse”, where the FEP sell your products on for you in case you fx. have ordered too many Pineapple-tomato-ketchups or just in case you want to be a new Heinz - with the help of Heinz.

The tomatoes (and obviously many other products too) stay in the store until they finally are bought in some form or another, which means that there is literally no waste. And the waste that might appear is put into the local biogas system, which powers machines operating in the FEP.

In 2010 most tomatoes in the FEP´s are NOT packaged - in case they are, they are covered with a very thin layer of bio-film which in principal is eatable too. But most places the TOMATO-cascading-life-system has been introduced, also called THE (Heinz) TOMATO EXPERIENCE.

Before we were used to “tomatoes”, now we have green, and yellow, and Caribbean, and this and that kind of tomatoes - we have become aware that a tomato is not just a tomato. The consciousness about fresh food has increased drastically and the strong interest in fx. eating seasonal has allowed all these new (old) kinds of also tomatoes to be grown. Eating seasonal is not just because it’s better for the environment, and more healthy, but also because it’s more exiting. Seasonal food varies your daily eating. And the fact that the FEP-TOMATO EXPERIENCE project allows varied food, a lot of creativity and ecological as well as economic sense is probably what has made it very successful worldwide.

Why “the TOMATO EXPERIENCE” ?

This kind of project might sound problematical for some. However, it satisfies a need or trend, which we are seeing in the developed world today. Its not just about delivering tomatoes - its about delivering quality food experiences which, if designed the right way, will be sustainable too.

Why this would become a sustainable solution I could write a whole thesis about. My claim is that this concept will make economic as well as ecological sense - AND - it will create something new and better for both the consumer, but – if designed the right way - also for the farmer, the pluckers and many others.
It’s in many ways a radical solution, and then yet just one out of thousands of new ways of making projects that satisfies our basic “modern” needs in our daily lives.

Obviously this sounds as if it would become a very expensive solution. Well, considering the more than 50 billion USD turn-over in the tomato-biz every year, I’m pretty sure (when legislation is changed) and designers start developing concepts which really show how the world is working (the designer becoming the “eco-cascading expert”), at that time, which hopefully is as soon as possible, I’m pretty sure that a concept like this will make a hell lot of economic sense.

I’m proposing these kind of scenarios because I believe that we have to invent entirely new ways of consuming in order to survive. Basically EVERYTHING we do and design today needs radical change. Designing new bio-degrable walkmen does not save the world, neither does it make any real contribution, it just makes us continue to consume in a little bit less totally unsustainable way – and the traditional comment to this is that its not my responsibility, nor the responsibility of my company, to clean up the world; well who the hell should then – the MARS men????
We are all in this together, so lets get our fingers out and get going.

Designers should become a kind of “CREATIVE Overall-solution developers or designers.” If we combine that with being “eco-cascading experts”, then designers could come up with valuable solutions to the problems or challenges the world is facing (so I wrote 15 years ago too).
It might seem inadequate to target an issue as marginal as the production, distribution, sales and consumption of tomatoes. However its just one of thousands of daily commodities which we consider having no impact. But when seeing this in a broad context and knowing that if you apply the same thinking to all sorts of other “daily-commodity-issues”, developing extraordinary and beautiful, sexy and emotionally functional solutions. This could have a major effect on a prosperous, creative, sustainable development on the planet.

Having been the first O2′er I find it scary of course that nothing much has happened the last 15 years that O2 has existed. The same issues are still discussed. We need radical solutions. The TOMATO experience is of course only an example – and actually not that radical. But I hope that we will see much more powerful and radical – realistic – concepts being developed in the O2 network the coming years. O2 should worldwide be the voice of radical sustainable visions, especially designed by the young generations – if you dare. Or dare you not to………As Claude Fussler says (president for WBCSD) we need 4 planets in 30 years in case we don’t make drastic changes in the way we live and consume. The future is up to you….it can become hell; it could also become paradise. But one thing I can guarantee – it’s a lot of fun developing these concepts, it’s a lot harder to make them real.
Text by Experience Design Producer Niels Peter Flint
October 2003 – written for O2 Netherlands - 10 year anniversary magazine

Get yourself a robot lover - solve overpopulation??

-lectures and workshops on sustainability and new technology.

Is this part of a sustainable development or not? Most will say no, but I personally dont think the answer is that simple. We need to acknowledge that technology has “come to stay”. We wont be able to live with the commodities we have today if we did not have technology. Obviously there are parts of technology we simply ought to avoid developing, we are simply not mature as human beings to handle some of the very sophisticated technologies being developed - if you ask me. We are still amazed by technology and hardly asks any critical questions - and thats not healthy. However developing robots and robot lovers is pretty innocent compared to what we are also developing in terms of new technology when it comes to fx. nano technology. The problem is that there are a lot of fusions in the new technologies and it will in the long run become extremely complicated to find out what is what and why its developed and for what. Virtual worlds similar to those seen in The Science Fiction movie The Matrix could according to Fx. Ray Kurtzweill (see next chap) become reality within very few decades. We already now see very real virtual worlds where humans from all over the planet are buying land, products, services etc. and living together in virtual worlds - see second life fx.

Its not at all unlikely that we will be suspended in chairs and live for possibly long periods in virtual worlds. we might even go on holliday laying in a chair and getting nutrients pumped directly into our veins though an automatic system. Yes brave new world is just round the corner.

The entire robot development is expected to become BIG BIG BIG business and therefore billions of yen, dollars euroes etc. are put into research and further development. Honda who is one of the big commercial developers of Robots and expects a market worth hundreds of millions in the near future.

Robots will become more and more relevant due to the further development of AI - Artificial Intelligence, which is getting embedded in more and more products, software etc. everyday. One of the fathers and also extremely interesting and charismatic scientists in this field is Ray Kurtzweill whom I read material from basically everyday when his newletter arrive.

Kurtzweill has developed RAMONA (find a link - open, depending on whether you are on Mac or not - Ramona will chat with you). RAMONA is as far as I know the first virtual pop artist also. She performs still only virtually but mind you it might not be long before she will perform live on stage - and there might be many of here - same version (could save lots of jet fuels transporting popsingers around ;-).

Ramona is certainly not stupid and she is learning every split second - thats how AI works. So there is no doubt that Ramona will become “something” in the future. Ask her how many she can chat with and she will tell you a 100 at the same time - I have before experienced much bigger figures (maybe its because its sunday ;-). No matter what Ramona is here and she will be even more helpful in the near future with numerous things. We will all have avatars who will help us doing all sorts of things from restaurant bookings to controlling our health. In some more totalitarian systems this might be enforced on us simply due to make us not spend the state budget on healthcare - and this might not be the way to go at all, but this is maybe also an extreme. However there will lost and lots of extremes in the world of tomorrow.

What we ned to do is to get things under control and develop with appropriate ethics. I personally dont see anything really evil in fx. having a robot taking care of me when I grow old. It might actually be a fantastic solution - HOWEVER still not a simple one, since what kind of status will a very intelligent robot have - a being which due to its access to fx. the entire internet will be able to access and be able to appear as super intelligent, and also having been developed using AI and having learned fx. from me - my Robot-oldie-nany will probably have personality and character that will be so much alive that it will be really hard fx. to “turn it off” or destroy it when I die - also it might be difficult to hand it over to someone else. Complex issues and just to mention few of them.

Im always in my lectures and workshops dealing with new technology from various points of views. If you are interested in a workshop specifically in new technology and sustainability Id be happy to discuss. Otherwise the lecture and possible workshop to follows RADICALLY RETHINKING DESIGN AND THE WORLD - AND NEW TECHNOLOGY will cover many perspectives on new technology and sustainability from AI to new alternative energy technologies - WE AINT SEEN NOTHING YET.

IF YOU WANT TO TO BOOK ME FOR LECTURES OR WORKSHOPS PLEASE CONTACT US VIA THE CONTACT PAGE WHERE YOU FIND PHONENUMBERS, EMAIL ETC.

NIELS PETER FLINT

Niels Peter Flint, June 2008

[video 9101 w=400][video 9098 w=400]

Blue text is NPF

Black boxes info from internet

Green text is caption

DEEP LIVING - the creatives and our planet:

Radical rethinking design and the world A collection of thoughts about the future of design [video 8959 w=400]

[video 8954 w=400] Looking at our planet’s current state of destruction, one cannot help but wonder: What are millions of creatives thinking and doing? Imagine! The sun is rising. Through the shades the light is drifting in. Soft music is filling the room. Amber is slowly waking up. Her favorite morning sounds are coming from the MP3-system, hooked up to her NTD (NETTODO)-personal music selector: It is Zeo in action. Finally Amber wakes up and sees Zeo, her NTD-Personal Dream Avatar (PDA). He is telling her to take it easy. There are no urgent appointments until lunchtime. Amber is once again charmed by the rich voice and the amazing shapes on the screen of the PDA. Zeo is her personal butler, her private dreamboytoy, she had especially designed for her needs when she became part of the NTD community. Now Zeo proposes to press reply for having “the local baker bring up fresh organic rolls to celebrate a new beautiful day.” Zeo pops up all the time with suggestions for Amber’s wellbeing and comfort. He is an animated character, an abstract being. Amber thinks of him as a kind of spirit. After having ordered the rolls a screen comes up and tells her how much money she has spent the last week. She does a bit of banking, enjoys the music, checks her schedule for the upcoming week until the rolls arrive, together with the flowers, Zeo has suggested. Amber has chosen to use the mix of private/business NTD-model which is allowing for as much personal use of her time as possible. For this reason her NTD is her portal to the net as well… Image: the garden – a collage – a dream…….. In my vision for the living-compound in the future, you design and create your own spaces. You can choose from a variety of modules, using sophisticated technologies and fully sustainable materials. Designers and architects will act as a kind of midwife who will help you to materialize the dreams and imaginations you might foster about your way of living. Designers and architects will be able to provide you with all the modern commodities, like Spa, garden and recycling facilities – but they might look completely different than they do today. Radical rethinking design: An introduction The world is full of stuff. THE big spenders on the planet can have everything they dream of, everything that makes life comfortable. THE big spenders cannot really want more and yet - they always want more. But is it NEEDED? Do electronic gadgets, bigger and faster cars, intelligent houses etc., do these things make us HAPPY?? <!– D([”mb”,” We will continue to create, we cannot stop. Creating is part of our human genes. Creation is probably a part of the evolutionary process. Imagine ancient Rome fx. or Cuzco in Peru. These cities must have looked completely different: no plastic bags, no chimneys spitting out black toxic and ugly smoke, not a single parked car…..there might have been other disturbing issues such as smells or sounds or other kinds of “pollution” we are not aware of today. But generally - I think - it must have been very pleasant and harmonious to walk around in Rome 2000 years ago. The aesthetics, the materials, the whole life probably worked better together…and today… \n \nAt this point into my long announced book I would like to make a statement: I firmly believe there are no definite truths available in today’s world, there is only one truth: \nEternity exists; everything else is open for discussion. \n All life on Earth is going through eternal cycles. Things do not simply disappear. We have to understand what we are doing; we have to understand that we cannot simply throw garbage in the ground. It will come back to haunt us, an eternal nightmare. Eternity shows itself when we look at well known facts of reality with an open mind. You see yourself reflected in eternity looking in two mirrors, which are hanged exactly opposite each other. Or you can see infinity in the root of the number 2 or in the number Phi, complex numbers which elude an exact definition. “,1] ); //–> We will continue to create, we cannot stop. Creating is part of our human genes. Creation is probably a part of the evolutionary process. Imagine ancient Rome fx. or Cuzco in Peru. These cities must have looked completely different: no plastic bags, no chimneys spitting out black toxic and ugly smoke, not a single parked car…..there might have been other disturbing issues such as smells or sounds or other kinds of “pollution” we are not aware of today. But generally - I think - it must have been very pleasant and harmonious to walk around in Rome 2000 years ago. The aesthetics, the materials, the whole life probably worked better all together…and today???…At this point into my long announced book I would like to make a statement: I firmly believe there are no definite truths available in today’s world, but there is something which we could call a common denominator for life: Eternity - everything else is open for discussion. All life on Earth is going through eternal cycles. Things do not simply disappear. We have to understand what we are doing; we have to understand that we cannot simply throw garbage around. It will come back to haunt us, an “eternal nightmare”. Eternity shows itself when we look at well known facts of reality with an open mind. You see yourself fx. reflected in eternity looking in two mirrors, which are hanged exactly opposite each other. When I grew up in Denmark my father, a professor for journalism, used to expose me and my sister to various sources of information. He did not tell us what to think, he expected us to draw our own conclusions. In this spirit I am writing this book: I present my point of view which is based largely on intuition. What I am stating is my own, personal opinion, influenced by 20 years of work in the field of developing sustainable concepts and designs. So, please, take my opinion as what it is: An opinion. Although I am presenting my point of view in a very explicit and passionate way, I would also like to enable you to make up your own picture by providing various sources of and links to information. At this point I, or better we, should mention that Kornelia Santoro, a German journalist and writer, helped to bring this book to life. She edited the text, contributed to the research and added in this way her own tint to the material. For the book we visited numerous websites and we gathered material from all over the world. To make reading easier for you we took the liberty to shorten the text we found on these websites. After each citation we added the link to the website and the date, when we downloaded the material. If you want to see the original text, please visit these websites. We did our best to present only material from trustworthy sources. But it is impossible for us to control everything. We present to you, what makes sense for us. It is up to you to draw your own conclusions. Image:big ugly houses and chaotic situations I guess the images speak for themselves… On the other hand it could look like this… Image:Various very nice places such as Nilaya, INdia, Bedz, UK, NMB bank, Holland, Gurken UK, solarcell boat, airship (find utopian), Renzo Piano in Brazil, What I am saying in this book is: The world could do with change, and we - the 150 million or more so-called creatives - basically have to unite and get our act together. It is our responsibility to help transform the old world into a new sustainable one – a world that understands and lives together with nature. Especially architects and designers face an ever growing responsibility: They define how housing and products look like. They define largely by their choice of materials, energy sources etc., how people are living and how heavy is their footprint on the environment now and how heavy it will be in the future. <!– D([”mb”,” My point is – the world is getting more and more ugly and inefficient when it comes to resources. \n \n To satisfy our greed we are developing more and more ugliness around us – all for the sake of profit. \n \n We are developing technologies at a pace never seen before in history – and we have NO idea where the technology is taking us… \n \n At this stage we are driven by technology. We are allowing technology to steer us due to lack of direction. [9] \n \n We have little vision and few ideas about what we really want to do. Where do we want the world to go? There is a good chance, new technologies, one of them Artificial Intelligence, will take us over within the coming 20 to 30 years – UNLESS we get our act together and create the fundament for a relevant, creative, sustainable development, NOW.”,1] ); //–> The world is getting more and more ugly and inefficient when it comes to resources. To satisfy our greed we are developing more and more ugliness around us – all for the sake of profit. We are developing technologies at a pace never seen before in history – and we have NO idea where the technology is taking us…We are allowing technology to steer us due to lack of direction. We have little vision and few ideas about what we really want to do. Where do we want the world to go? There is a good chance, new technologies, one of them Artificial Intelligence, will take us over within the coming 20 to 30 years – UNLESS we get our act together and create the fundament for a relevant, creative, sustainable development, NOW. <!– D([”mb”,” \n \n Currently we are steering our planet and ourselves towards a gloomy future. The planet cannot cope with more exploitation. We as humans probably can. But we should ask ourselves the question: Do we want to? However, right now it seems more exploitation is what we want. \n \n Humans today are living in an amazing situation: If wealth would be spread to all the people it would be possible to evolve PARADISE. Something close to what we are all striving for in our various religions. However we are doing the opposite. At the same time we are claiming that it is evolution and that it is unavoidable. “Humans are greedy”, “humans are only following their instincts”, “this is the way the world is, you cannot change it” – you hear phrases like these over and over again. Do they matter??? Are they true??? Well, GOD DAMNS IT…if you want them to be true they are. During the early 80s, when I was living in the Chezk Republic, everyone said the same as well. NO ONE believed the wall between east and west Europe would break down…and yes, it seemed COMPLETELY impossible, but in the end it was not. It actually happened. That is what we should remember. Whenever we consider things impossible - remember all the things that seemed not possible and yet happened. EVERYTHING is possible. \n \n The suicide bombers \n \n “,1] ); //–> We could create Paradise Humans today are living in an amazing situation: If wealth would be spread to all the people it would be possible to evolve something we could call PARADISE. Something close to what we are all striving for in our various religions. However we are doing the opposite. At the same time we are claiming that it is evolution and that it is unavoidable. “Humans are greedy”, “humans are only following their instincts”, “this is the way the world is, you cannot change it” – you hear phrases like these over and over again. Do they matter??? Are they true??? Well…if you want them to be true they are. During the early 80s, when I was living in the Chezk Republic, everyone accepted the Iron Curtain. NO ONE believed the wall between east and west Europe would break down. It seemed COMPLETELY impossible, but in the end it was not. It actually happened. That is what we should remember. Whenever we consider things impossible - remember all the things that seemed not possible and yet happened. EVERYTHING is possible. The suicide bombers Look at the world today: We have some suicide bombers from various fundamentalist groups blowing themselves up around the planet. Are they just sick symptoms of an even more sick development? Do we really not understand what they are about? Do we not – after all - profoundly understand their misery? I think, we do – otherwise we are blind. And I think we are all in the same boat. We just do not want to acknowledge it. Considering all the facts there is, at least for me, only one conclusion: We are all suicide bombers; we are all just a bunch of hypocrites who do not even dare to look at things in new ways. We communally accept the global destruction by not doing anything. We communally have decided to go to hell because we feel powerless. We communally have decided to find scapegoats for the misery of the world. Today’s Muslims are Hitler’s Jews, blamed for everything. We are repeating history. AND THE MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD SUPPORT IT. The global cruiser Mother Earth is full of “out of choice blindfolded passengers”. They are steered by a greedy staff run by immoral and ignorant captains – the ship is sinking since it has no more fuel and is choked by pollution. The ship has maybe 2 minutes more. The passengers are blindfolded, but they still sense and they instinctively know that things are not right. They are afraid to take any initiative though. Rules, regulations and laws have destroyed their creativity and their ability to understand what a human being is all about. Red stop-signs have killed their ability to use their intuition or to act according to their feelings. Imagine! Historians in the future might consider the most creative souls of this time as the real suicide bombers of the world! They might view us as the lazy creatives who did not really want anything but fame, glitter and money – in short a totally superfluous lifestyle…These breed of creatives – maybe we might even call them the “destructives” – live from their ability to make the world look different by introducing new and sometimes wonderful products, services and ideas. Unfortunately their commercial creations are in most cases seriously eco-problematical products. Dr. Richard Florida (www.creativeclass.org) has coined the expression the creative class and he considers these millions as the ruling class of the world. These people have the potential to change the world since they have access to all the tools needed to do so - namely the possibility of shaping matter. They have the possibility to manipulate public opinion and “transform” our way of thinking for good or for bad. However the cultural creatives mentioned at the beginning of this chapter are citizens concerned with the future of the planet. They are often the same kind of people – they are mostly middle class or upper class individuals from all over the planet. Unfortunately their point of view does not influence their creative output yet as much as is needed. If we, the creatives in this world, make a conscious choice to turn the ship around, we will have to reinvent ourselves and our ways of living. If we work together we can develop the most beautiful ship in the universe. This is the intention for writing this book. I would like to present ways, ideas and suggestions which make it possible for anybody to take action. I consider this book as the base for a platform, the base for a “Think tank”, which can initiate and enhance more radical solutions towards a sustainable future.

THERE IS NO BEING JUDGMENTAL HERE: There is only LET US GET GOING… The end of our current civilization??? We need a serious discussion about where we want to go with this planet. Supposed we humans would manage to bring just a fraction of our nuclear weapons into action. Image:Smoky nuclear winters and mushroom clouds – drastic destruction The much scarier and much more complex scenario is the one that is already happening - the devastating effects of the misuse of our planet and its resources. Image:Smoggy winters and pollution in cities – gradual destruction The planet and maybe we as humans are in an advanced state of destruction: We can see now what our over-exploitation is and has been doing – there is no excuse for not doing anything – we all know it is happening. IMAGE:…MAYBE MOVIE…for web version…The world is made of contrasts. In India, the cycle-rickshaw is an economic necessity, of compact design influenced by congested inner-cities and availability of materials. It is meant for urban and rural dwellers that cannot afford fuel driven transport and is locally assembled as a small scale industry. In Germany on the contrary, the cycle-rickshaw is a new “old” better way of getting around. It is not solving vast problems right now. It is designed to be attractive for hip urban dwellers and made of hi-tech materials. This luxury rickshaw has an electric motor built in for steep hills etc. It is not a revolution but it shows that it actually is possible to do what many Europeans would have thought impossible just a few years ago.This new exciting German rickshaw would not be possible to use in the narrow, congested inner lanes of Indian cities. But it could inspire some rich Indians to do the same if they seriously want to be part of the solutions. The world consists of conflicting and contradictory situations and the rich, the decision makers, the designers etc. or should we in general call them “the role model-makers” could do a significant difference ALSO in India. But do they want to, do they care? Millions of “creatives” WORLWIDE can make a change by thinking holistically and exploring radically new, sustainable and innovative ways??? Here are some of the issues we are battling with and which I believe are the foundation for lots of the problems we have. It is not just about pollution or about technology as I have already mentioned. There are much more profound and yet very complex and less tangible issues which cause the problems. The hunt for meaning of life – coping with ETERNITY? In 2003 an Australian astronomer claimed to have completed the most accurate calculation ever of how many stars shine in the visible universe — some 70 sextillion, or 70 thousand million million million. Simon Driver of the Australian National University Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics said the number was more than every grain of sand on all the beaches and deserts on Earth. (http://www.redorbit.com/news/stories/1/2003/07/22/story004.html, 21.11.2006)

Ancient civilizations understood the earth and eternal principles and developed HOLISTIC PHILOSOPHIES of dealing with the concepts of life and eternity. Science, too, is now proving that ETERNITY DOES EXIST. Eternity shows itself in many areas of our life; we just have to look a bit closer to find it. In Mathematics you find eternity in the root of number 2 or the number Phi, complex numbers, which elude an exact definition.

Scientists may have to look beyond the functional systems of order that were being used to understand the universe. They have to LOOK BEYOND ORDER TO “DISORDER” to get a better picture. <!– D([”mb”,” \n “According to a computational study conducted by physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder. While working on their model — a network of interconnected pendulums, or “oscillators” - the researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. This was unexpected –shouldn\’t synchronized forces yield synchronized pendulums? But then came the real surprise: When they introduced disorder — forces were applied at random to each oscillator — the system became ordered and synchronized.”[11] \n Image: \n Crazy pendulum oscillation paths (just the paths) maybe superimposed on chaotic traffic images or Brownian motion in heated particles pic – displaying random movement – slow mo movement path required to show chaos \n \n very large text \n Will disorder lead to Anarchy or is it a natural system of Cosmic Chaos containing always a method to the madness?…After all, Nature may seem chaotic. Further analysis shows, there is always an underlying system that makes the chaos possible.”,1] ); //–> “According to a computational study conducted by physicists at Washington University in St. Louis, one may create order by introducing disorder. While working on their model — a network of interconnected pendulums, or “oscillators” - the researchers noticed that when driven by ordered forces the various pendulums behaved chaotically and swung out of sync like a group of intoxicated synchronized swimmers. This was unexpected –shouldn’t synchronized forces yield synchronized pendulums? But then came the real surprise: When they introduced disorder — forces were applied at random to each oscillator — the system became ordered and synchronized.”(http://www.kurzweilAI.net/news/frame.html?main=/news.html?cat%3D1%26d%3D0, 19.11.2006)Image: Crazy pendulum oscillation paths (just the paths) maybe superimposed on chaotic traffic images or Brownian motion in heated particles pic – displaying random movement – slow mo movement path required to show chaos Will disorder lead to Anarchy or is it a natural system of Cosmic Chaos containing always a method to the madness?…After all, Nature may seem chaotic. Further analysis shows, there is always an underlying system that makes the chaos possible. <!– D([”mb”,”\n\nAnarchy versus cosmic chaos???\n\nSo can we live in total order and completely organized systems? Well, like Nature, we probably can but only if the system is a part of the chaotic cosmos. India, where I live part time, is a country where people live in this fantastic chaotic cosmos and where everything still seems to work – almost…\n\nComing from, what is probably, one of the most regulated and systematically organized and designed countries Denmark, one could think that it would be more or less impossible to adapt to “the Indian way”. \n\nImage:\n typical cliché Indian traffic chaos, cows, cycles, cars, trucks, buses, people, dogs AND Image of some Western Highway with lots of wide grey concrete road and only two cars on it“,1] ); //–> Anarchy versus cosmic chaos??? So can we live in total order and completely organized systems? Well, like Nature, we probably can but only if the system is a part of the chaotic cosmos. India, where I live part time, is a country where people live in this fantastic chaotic cosmos and where everything still seems to work – almost…Coming from, what is probably, one of the most regulated and systematically organized and designed countries Denmark, one could think that it would be more or less impossible to adapt to “the Indian way”. It is like a wildflower field – it is beautiful, but maybe you cannot find exactly what you are looking for. But then you find something else that satisfies your needs. Nature as it is “for real” is this treasure chamber of possibilities or “fruits for thought” – you can find anything. If you want, you can always survive as long as you are NOT constrained by recipes, regulations and extreme ideas about how things are or rather how you think they should be…because who knows what things really are. Image:typical cliché Indian traffic chaos, cows, cycles, cars, trucks, buses, people, dogs AND Image of some Western Highway with lots of wide grey concrete road and only two cars on it <!– D([”mb”,”\n\nBut then it is sometimes like being in my backpack – or maybe like inside many women\’s handbags…. everything is there, it just takes creative thinking and intuition to find anything. It is like a wildflower field – it is beautiful, but maybe you cannot exactly find what you are looking for. But then you find something else that satisfies your needs. \n\nNature as it is “for real” is this treasure chamber of possibilities or “fruits for thought” – you can find anything. If you want, you can always survive as long as you are NOT constrained by recipes, regulations and extreme ideas about how things are or rather how you think they should be…because who knows what things really are. \n