Designers rethinking waste is the theme of the first event marking the road to Gentler Futures Festival in 2024.
Expect an informal night of ideas, talks and exchanges addressing new design approaches beyond the “take-make-waste” model. If being local material means being locally widely available, then there isn’t more local than waste. How can we design with what has already been designed, used, and discarded? What is the role of recycling in making cities locally productive (again)? And how can a neighbourhood become self-sufficient by taking advantage of its waste? Ultimately—can anything be really defined as waste?

During the evening, we will invite Post Paper Studio, Irena Übler, Novonovo and Matterpieces to share work, stories and perspectives on designing with, from and against waste. Join us in Lisbon, Portugal on May 26 and watch for the following activities.

Free entrance upon registration: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/bytheendofmay/882689

Why we need a Gentler Futures Festival

Suppose you search “futuristic city” on the web. In that case, a cohesive aesthetic will emerge: tall skyscrapers, flying cars, metal, glass and mainstream sci-fi movie vibes. From the image results, it seems like the future is already written. But who got to decide that? And what if we don’t want it?

In our case, we long for a “gentler” future—or many. To be gentle means that a relationship is going on: between you and me, between us and other communities, between humans and non-human species, between the man-made world and nature. What would a future based on respectful relationships look like? What would it mean for humankind to become gentler? And how do we design gentler cities, worlds, and futures?

In an attempt to answer these questions and ask some others, we are going to gather designers, artists, architects, students and policymakers in the first edition of Gentler Futures Festival: a collective series of events meant to explore what it means to “design for tomorrow”, what are the challenges that twenty-first-century designers face and which legacy they hope to leave behind. By delving into all the different facets of the practice—from material design to architecture, from distributed design to biomimicry—we aim to celebrate projects, initiatives and movements that are shaping a type of future we would like to live in planet-centred, local-based, non-linear and post-consumerism.

Gentler Futures Festival is organized by BY THE END OF MAY in partnership with Distributed Design at IPL – Politécnico de Lisboa, in collaboration with Mouraria Creative Hub and A Bairros.