Urban Energy Commons
Building Sufficient Futures Across Theory and Practice
What happens when you flip on a light switch? Inequitable systems, energy grids – power flows with little resistance. Frictionless – everything out of sight, out of mind. Sleek visions of urban energy futures flash forward without connecting top-down systemic change to material implication. Gaps amid discourses, gaps in design, delayed desired realities. That is the context of my design inquiry into sufficiency policy, bridging human geography and industrial design. I propose the concept of an urban energy commons alongside boundary objects made-in-process: video, printed matter and a waterclock. Because the switch? More complex than you think.
