Explore Quotes on Design

I'm sure it's not any wish of mine that I'm born with inclinations for better things. If I could be born again, and had the designing of myself, I'd be born the lowest and coarsest-minded person imaginable, so that I could find plenty of companionship, or I'd be born an idiot, which would be better still.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

There's no such thing as designing the perfect utopian city. Everything is subject to change. There are no final frontiers.

In the future, in a saner system, we would design products not to wear out and break down; to last as long as possible, so that the responsibility of the service sector would not be overloaded.

You cannot advocate decency and ethics, you must design the conditions that eliminate the problems. In scarcity, people will tend to steal. If you make things available, people tend not to steal.

You can't exceed the system with language. You can only exceed the system with events; recommended procedures that are better. You can't exceed the system by telling people to be good, be kind, be considerate... You have to take away the conditions that makes it necessary for you to be kind. And to be kind, you design highways that aren't slippery; where no accidents, or less accidents, occur. In the future, everybody becomes an innovator - a creator.

The fact that cultures are failing all over the world means that they don't know how to operate a society to make it work. Politicians have no real knowledge of technology; therefore, they are not capable of increasing food production, designing transportations systems that are safe… They have no knowledge in that area. Therefore it's senseless to talk to them about anything of significance.

There's no way to design a society that's optimal or utopian. It's better than the one that was. Systems always undergo change.

The social designs that are proposed in [The Venus Project] merely provide the opportunity for individuals to develop their fullest potential in whatever endeavor they choose without the fear of loss of individuality or submission to uniformity.

In our society, we move people out of government. It's all operated by machines, meaning – not the people, just the products: the farming, the agriculture, the production – it's all machine-designed and programming. But it does not program or design people. People are free to live whatever lifestyle they want to. If they hurt other people, they're helped – they’re not put in prisons

If there's a group like Amish people, that want to live their own lifestyle – they don't want to live in our city – they want to live out in the country, with their own projects. We’ll put up the buildings for them, design the buildings for them, design the food production systems for them – if they want us to. But we don’t control them.

We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design.

Living through the 1929 Great Depression helped shape my social conscience. During this time, I realized the earth was still the same place, manufacturing plants were still intact, and resources were still there, but people didn’t have money to buy the products. I felt the rules of the game we play by were outmoded and damaging. This began a life-long quest resulting in the conclusions and designs presented in The Venus Project.

A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure, and can be manipulated by whatever creative design humans can foist upon that critter, will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations, with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type mentality.

Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.

Traditional agriculture was labour intensive, industrial agriculture is energy intensive, and permaculture-designed systems are information and design intensive.

Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments...Permaculture uses the inherent qualities of plants and animals combined with the natural characteristics of landscapes and structures to produce a life supporting system for city and country, using the smallest practical area.

If we think about things having multiple lives, cradle to cradle, we could design things that can go back to either nature or back to industry forever.

To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things-products, packaging, and systems-from the very beginning on the understanding that waste does not exist.

If design is the first signal of human intention.

I think as designers we realize design is a signal of intention, but it also has to occur within a world and we have to understand that world in order to imbue our designs with inherent intelligence.