Becoming Human by Design
Ebook
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Overview
The last in Tony Fry’s celebrated trilogy of books continues his radical rethinking of design. Becoming Human by Design’s provocative argument presents a revised reading of human ‘evolution’ centred on ontological design.
Examining the relation of design to the nature of the human species - where the species came from, how it was created, what it became and its likely future - Fry asserts that current biological and social models of evolution are an insufficient explanation of how ‘we humans’ became what we are.
Making a case for ontological design as an evolutionary agency, the book posits the relation between the formation of the world of human fabrication and the making of mankind itself as indivisible. It also functions as a provocation to rethink the fate of Homo sapiens, recognising that all species are finite and that the fate of humankind turns on a fundamental Darwinian principle - adapt or die. Fry considers the nature of adaptation, arguing that it will depend on an ability to think and design in new ways.
Tony Fry’s Becoming Human by Design is the last part in his ground-breaking trilogy of books that re-examine the relation between design and humanity. It argues that traditional models of human evolution fail to explain in full how we came to be what we are. Instead, it demonstrates just how vital the role of design has been in shaping human life - and humans themselves - and how recognising its significance in this respect is key to our survival.
The author is one of the most influential and highly respected thinkers in design globally
This is the conclusion of Tony Fry’s pioneering trilogy of books that recasts the landscape of design thinking
Preface
Introduction
Part One: First Pass
End of the Story
Start of a Story
Proximity: A Question of Distances
Part Two: Emergence Over Origin - A Relational Account
Coming into Being via Natural Selection
Coming into Being via Un-natural Selection
Coming into Being via Design
Part Three: The Leap
Why Make the Leap
The Passage from ‘Here and Now to Then’
Part Four: From ‘Where We Where’ to ’Where We Are’
World-in-Being
Imagination in a Blink of an Eye
On the Subject of the Subject
Part Five: Now-ings
Living in Darkness
Post-Political Prospects
The Rise of Another Other
Last Words
Notes
Selective Bibliography
Index
- Title: Becoming Human by Design
- Author: Tony Fry
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 272
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780857853561, 9781350157705, 1350157708, 0857853562
- Resource ID: LLS:9780857853561
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:06:16Z
Tony Fry is Director of the sustainment consultancy Team D/E/S and Professor of Design, Griffith University, Queensland College of Art. He is also author of Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Berg, 2008) and Design as Politics (Berg, 2010).