David Stairs
Auroville’s “symbol of the Divine’s answer to man’s aspiration for perfection,” the Matrimandir
Pondicherry, former French colony of India, has an interesting history. Like the former Portugese colony at Goa, now one of the most chic destinations in India,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
The central idea of old Indian civilization, or Indo-Aryan culture, was that of, dharma, which was something much more than religion or creed: it was a conception of obligations, of the discharge of one’s duties to oneself and to others.… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
My Mother used to shop at five different places, less out of vendor loyalty, which disappeared in America in the ’60’s, than to get the best price. Most of her retailers had grown to large conglomerates; gone were the independent grocers,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“If the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land. It may be considered a heresy, but I am bound to say that it were better for us to send money to Manchester and to use flimsy Manchester cloth than to multiply mills in India.”… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Motorcycles are the primary means of personal transportation in Bangalore. Every intersection is clogged with dozens of bikes and scooters impatiently waiting to break away when the light turns green, and when it does… off they roar like a swarm of angry hornets!… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“The search for form demands an investigation into values and qualities that Indians hold important to a good life.” —Charles and Ray Eames, The India Report, 1958… Continue Reading →
An Xiao Mina
In "The Texting Culture of the Philippines," a recent article for Design Observer, I explored some of the design strategies centered around mobile phone culture in the Philippines. It’s a well-known fact to anyone who’s visited the country–… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Febin standing by a pile of rope
I just returned from a week in Kerala. On Monday morning April 2nd I was passing through Alleppey when I noticed a coir mill, or rope-making factory. Remembering that this was a rope-making region,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“Indeed, staying silent on explicit religious topics while oozing a Jesus-y pheromone has allowed Invisible Children to tap an entire spectrum of Christian charities, philanthropists, and celebrities, from the most liberal to the most conservative.”
—Josh Kron,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Gone, but not forgotten (image courtesy of Deepa Mohan)
Although the idea of reincarnation may have arisen independently in several places, India is justly famous as the land that most fully embraced the concept. All of the major Indian religious traditions embrace some form of the idea…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I thought I knew trucks. After all, growing up in America, land of monster 56′ long behemoths, every boy wants to be a truck driver at some point. I vividly remember a trip along Interstate 80, the most intense truck route in the U.S.,… Continue Reading →
Sumandro
“Commons are forms of direct access to social wealth; access that is not mediated by competitive market relations.”
– Massimo De Angelis, The New Commons in Practice: Strategy, Process and Alternatives, Development, 2005, 48(2), 48-52
Men gathering cattle fodder,… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
Two articles of significance appeared in my morning papers recently, one in The New York Times, a lengthy obituary for the courageous publisher Barney Rosset, and the other in the Business section of the Chicago Tribune, describing how Amazon has yanked 5,000 titles that belong to the Independent Publishers Group from its e-book library…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I thought it was malaria. I had all the symptoms: headache, chills, fatigue, fever, sweats, dry cough. My first three weeks in country I’d been living near a swamp, and the incubation period seemed right. No matter that Bangalore is not in a malarious zone,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
“Indians do not have the same civic sense as, say, Scandinavians. The boundary of the space you keep clean is marked at the end of the space you call your own.”
—from Maximum City by Suketu Mehta
The Commons are a topic of concern to contemporary Indians…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Anantapura Road
Demarcating property lines, that most European activity, has taken over the world. When I was a child in the ’50s, the adjoining backyards of my neighborhood were open. I remember running with my friends through the neighborhood like wild horses,… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
Two of the major trends that have driven product design in the past twenty years are connectivity and sustainability. The desire to be in frequent if not constant communication with others has spawned a variety of devices from cell phones to almost lighter-than-air tablets and laptops…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Cement trucks parked along Doddaballapur Road
Every environment has its signature building material. In Africa, rammed earth and thatch were, for centuries, the default until they gave way to bricks and mortar. I’ve always thought of North America as the wood construction capital of the universe,… Continue Reading →
David Stairs
Editor’s Note: With this posting we launch our Indian Journal category of D-A-P
India. For over thirty years, ever since seeing Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy in the 70’s, I’ve dreamed of being here…. Continue Reading →
An Xiao Mina
They’re a colorful, familiar sight all across the Philippines. Converted from old US army vehicles and personally decorated by the drivers, jeepneys have been transformed into viable public transportation vehicles. They zip through dense traffic much more easily than a bus but they can still fit at least a dozen people…. Continue Reading →
David Stairs
I’ve been writing about altruism at this blog for so long it all begins to blend together. My inaugural essay spoke about the biological/memetic basis for altruism. The year before I had published an essay at Design Issues that was a prelude to D-A-P…. Continue Reading →
Ed. note— This interview of Daniel Drennan ElAwar was conducted by Nabil Chehade at American University of Beirut, where Mr. Drennan has been teaching.
Series of four posters for the Return to Palestine March, May 15, 2011…. Continue Reading →
We’re pleased to observe that our friends at Terrestrial Design in Pretoria, South Africa recently won an award from the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), that country’s design oversight body, for their safe Arivi paraffin stove. 2009 INDEX Award finalist,… Continue Reading →
Victor Margolin
Let’s be clear. The folks on Wall Street and others who work in the financial and banking industries don’t make anything. They create pieces of paper that encode the bad deals they have foisted on American consumers or they buy and sell these pieces of paper among themselves…. Continue Reading →
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