Beyond Being — Designing for More-Than-Human Futures
What if design stopped asking “What do humans need?” and instead began with a more challenging, more urgent question:
“What does the ecosystem need — with or without us?” For centuries, design has placed human comfort, speed and extraction at the centre. Yet the non-human world is always in the room: insects, microbes, soil networks, water systems, materials that degrade or regenerate, atmospheres that absorb or collapse. This panel explores how design might transform if humans were no longer treated as the primary beneficiaries — and if ecological systems and multi-species wellbeing became the starting point.
