We dream about escaping to - and debate saving nature, but rarely do we ask what ‘nature’ actually is. Where technology and nature are traditionally seen as opposed, they now appear to merge or even trade places. With our urge to design our environment, we cause the rising of a next nature that is unpredictable as ever; it seems that nature changes along with us.
The content
Update your image of nature with the Next Nature book
The book is organized as a collection of seven magazines. The eponymous first one offers a tasting of the vision at large — why and how we need to rethink the relationship between people, nature and technology.
‘Recreation’ studies how our image of nature is constituted and how much of what we think of as ‘nature’ is in fact a simulation. ‘Wild Systems’ invites us to embrace complexity and guide the growth of our man-made ecologies, while ‘Office Garden’ explores how these ecologies also domesticate us and what strategies we may employ to create more humane technology. ‘Supermarket’ takes us on a safari through our next savanna to explore how food production became radically technological and ‘Anthropomorphobia’ explores the twilight zone between people and products; how products are designed to imitate humans, while people are increasingly perceived as products. Finally, ‘Back to the Tribe’ conceals that new technologies not only separate us from nature, but may also revive ancient intuitions, propelling us forward rather than back to nature.
“Next Nature can give us a new vocabulary and a new philosophy to see and design the world”
Scientific American
Watch the trailer
Second Edition
Next Nature Book (2nd edition)
A compendium of thought provoking observations from nextnature.net, customized for print and supplemented by thematic specials and stunning graphics, as well as guest essays by Bruce Sterling, Kevin Kelly, Rachel Armstrong, Peter Lunenfeld, Jos de Mul and others.
— Edited by Koert van Mensvoort and Hendrik-Jan Grievink
— First sold out edition (2011) published by Actar, second revised edition (2015) by Next Nature
— 472 pages paperback
— Language: English
— ISBN 2nd edition: 978-90-824385-0-5