The opening began with a children’s singing and dancing performance about protecting the Earth and saving the future. Then a 91-year-old vegetarian doctor gave a talk about environmental protection and design, focusing purely on climate and planetary survival. Later I found out that it was Jane Goodall.

After that, the host made the opening speech, which was very business-like but not boring.

The first speaker was a designer from the Makuru slum who became a mother at sixteen. Her two-year-old daughter was burned by cooking fire, which made her decide to change the way local resources were used through design and innovation. Her idea was that design is for use. Now she calls herself the CEO and founder of the Makuru Clean Hob Company. Her design is driven by environment, survival, and community. The medium in essence is external and passive, so how can design actively become a medium? I actually felt that, apart from her, most of the talks on the first day were very grand in scale. Many things were deeply connected with industrial systems that I could barely understand. To sum up, design is about the future.

The first talk on the second day was by an Australian teacher who spoke about environmental protection. Her teaching ability was impressive. She knew how to engage the audience and the stories she chose were emotionally powerful. But I realized that giving people fish is not as good as teaching them how to fish. When we emphasize environmental protection to people, they may have the idea in their mind but not care enough about it. Is that possible? Or maybe people have not fully understood it, but they are emotionally involved, similar to the way extreme political fans react. Could that be it? Or maybe everyone there was just smart enough to know better.

I feel that, at its core, what is needed is a method of education, a way of expression and connection. Maybe what we design is exactly that. But if we overemphasize the theme or the background itself, the expressive and connective aspects will inevitably be weakened. I mean when one thinks about the overall process of a project. Of course, we can always spend money to create a large-scale event, but is that the only way? And in that case, projects tend to become commercial or homogeneous. So in fact, everyone needs to reconsider things from the perspective of connection, even to put connection itself in the most important position. If the main focus of a design project presentation is its background introduction, it might be better to invite scientists instead. Or if we force students to buy books in schools, is that useful at all?

A famous architect shared the idea that architecture should not only consider the people inside but also the pedestrians outside, who outnumber those inside by many times. Ugly architecture is not scary because people can still laugh and talk about it. What is truly frightening is boring architecture. That was a very interesting and philosophical point.

Regarding a new book about collaborative design for the future, the authors believe that by 2030 everyone will become a professional in self-care skills. It is a good form of education, but I feel it is driven by crisis. Yet if we exclude health and only talk about care, when will people start to learn it on their own or be educated about it? What would that moment look like? I cannot imagine it right now. But indeed, this topic appears too often in current design discussions, including the idea of connection. We already know many valuable truths, some that were known even a thousand years ago. But when will everyone finally take action? I always feel that, historically, such moments are usually passive in nature. So where does this passivity come from?