Craft 3.0: Positioning Craft and Design Practice(s) within ‘Reduction’ & Nature-Based Design

Extractive industries and excessive production are furthering ecological collapse. In the age of the planetary climate crisis, impactful new approaches to ecological practices are imperative. Designers and creatives are not only accountable for innovative solutions, but their work is also intertwined with environmental collapse. By evading ecological implications, designers are complicit in (potential) created problems, requiring a deeper comprehension of their decisions, actions, and their ‘craft’. Our next paradigm (around design) must be nature-based ‘design for planet’. As the world considers this impact, we examine the designer’s role (as a practice of their craft) considering the earth and non-human species. It is within this expanded notion that we see ‘nature-based design’ and Ecological Citizenship as a timely planetary-scale, multi-species contemporary craft. Authors characterise Craft 3.0 as reducing ecological impacts, positioning it as a discourse of: reduction, considerate to its surroundings, contexts, beyond human species, supporting skills to contextualise within environments for positive benefit. Craft 3.0 seeks to differentiate tactics to prioritise ecosystem(s), intent on mitigating against negative consequences. The Craft 3.0 position is mapped through; interviews and insights from contemporary literature, creating a contemporary approach to craft and tacit skills. Craft 3.0 establishes trans-disciplinary skills nurturing knowledge of materials, their cultivation, application and growth/regeneration. In turn this impacts: usability, ecological issue(s) and ‘craft practices’, working contextually within environments for ecological remediation.