Design Shifts, A Poetic Journey Through Post-Normal Times offers a unique exploration of architecture and design's evolving role in an era of unprecedented planetary change. Through fifty evocative illustrated poems written over a decade, poet-architect-futurist Phillip Daffara examines how the principles, processes, and purposes of design are being transformed by the conditions of post-normal times—characterised by chaos, complexity, contradiction, and uncertainty.
Organised into four thematic chapters—Living Systems, Collective Futures, Human-Centered, and Designer's Journey—this collection traverses emerging paradigms from biomimetic architecture to urban metabolism, from neuroarchitecture to abolitionist design. Daffara's verses serve as both meditation and manifesto, reflecting on how designers might respond to our most pressing challenges while reimagining their relationship to place, materials, and the communities they serve.
Written in accessible yet thought-provoking language that will appeal to designers, architects, urbanists, environmentalists, and anyone concerned with how we shape our built environment, this volume offers wisdom for navigating our complex present while envisioning regenerative futures. At once personal reflection and global inquiry, these poems invite readers to consider how the spaces we create might better serve all forms of life on our shared planet.
