Doors of Perception

Doors of Perception is a network of designers, teachers, policy makers, who conceive global projects on a local city scale with communities who imagine sustainable futures. Beginning in 1993 as an international conference based in Amsterdam, Doors became an independent company to produce festivals and support grassroots initiatives under the direction of John Thackara in 2000. The Doors of Perception blog began in 2001, followed shortly by a monthly newsletter (newsletter link) in 2001.

Doors of Perception acts as a producer for people and communities to realize projects that support sustainable futures. Bringing together the necessary resources to instigate change, Doors utilizes innovative approaches such as watershed planning, sustainable farming, alternative trade networks and seed banks.

The directors of Doors of Percetion are John Thackara and Kristi van Riet.

John Thackara is a writer, speaker and design producer, and director of Doors of Perception. In addition to this blog, he is the author of twelve books including In The Bubble: Designing In A Complex World and Wouldn't It Be Great If….

Newsletter

From March 2002 to September 2010, John Thackara sent out a monthly email newsletter: Doors of Perception Report. The newsletter contained short, opinionated texts about social innovation and design.
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Does the world need a professional development program to support designers, architects and design professors making a fundamental transition to a new kind of design? To explore that question, Doors of Perception has launched an enquiry with the working title xskool. An xskool encounter took place at West Lexham in the UK last weekend. It was a wonderful experience, but a question remains open: was last weekend's positive energy, attention, and mindfulness a happy fluke? Or could one reproduce the conditions that nurtured them? In which ways might xskool be an intentional part of 'the change we wish to see in the world'? A next discussion is in New York City on the morning [09-12h] of Wednesday 8 June. It's hosted by hosted by Cameron Tonkinwise at Parsons. If you would care to join us, email me at: john at doorsofperception dot com

Recent Essay

Paranoid But Pretty

A review of Matthias Megyeri's new show at the German Architecture Center, and a review of the question the exhibition inspires: "Are we safer?"

Recent Book

In the Bubble: Desiging in a Complex World
John Thackara
The MIT Press, 2005
More books by John Thackara >>

Design Observer Essays

04.26.13

A Roof, A Skill, A Market

The Nubian Vault Association has evolved a unique approach to housing in West Africa that creates three kinds of value within local economies: a roof, a skill and a market.

04.17.13

Big, Hairy, and Agile

The UK government’s digital services platform, gov.uk, has won the Design of the Year award.

03.20.13

The Ecozoic City

How humans are reintegrating their endeavours into a larger ecological consciousness.

03.13.13

Artefact as Campfire: Where People and Living Systems Meet

Overview of the August Doors of Perception workshop at the FuturePerfect Festival in Sweden.

02.04.13

Cycle Commerce: The Red Blood Cells of a Smart City

Dehli's many millions of bicycle and rickshaw vendors embody the entrepreneurship, sustainable mobility, social innovation and thriving local economies, that a sustainable city needs. How can that be traslated to European cities?