The world is on fire. Can design help save it?

“In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically, and chemically, the best and simplest thing that architects, industrial designers, planners, etc., could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely,” wrote designer and educator Victor Papanek in his 1971 book, Design for The Real World. Fifty years later, there’s still a truth in Papanek’s critique that rings true to me. In this moment when it seems every system is collapsing in on itself—the rise of artificial intelligence,...