Desire: Designing the irresistible circular society

Imagine the feeling of meeting someone that you have an immediate connection with. You get the instant feeling of being interconnected and at the same time curious to getting to know more about this person. Their story is like a long road running through the landscape making turns and loops, and your road was just lucky enough to cross and merge with theirs. Imagine a longing for knowing their past, everything that has been, and the urge to become a part of what is to come. Now that your roads have crossed, you are already written into their story. Even if it is just for a little while, why not leave a positive impact? Who knows, maybe you will meet again. Imagine that this is what a circular mindset feels like. It is not only knowing the story of your surroundings. It is knowing that you are part of the story and wanting to contribute to a positive change.

This is how we work with circularity

• We work to make circular processes visible and accessible for all local actors
• We work to create a collective narrative about circularity and not just profit as a fundamental value
• We design to encourage circularity in everyday life and commit to challenge and break down our own biases in order to be humble to our surroundings

Imagine the feeling of a parent’s warm embrace. Imagine laying your head against their chest, following the movements of the deep and calming breathing as their chest raises and lowers. You feel the bound-aries from where they end and you begin dissolving. You become one. You do not question your place in the world at this very moment. You feel like you could run through the forest at night, not scared of the dark, because you have a fundamental trust in your right to be in this place. Imagine that this is the feeling of belonging. It is when you feel that a place physically and socially allows you to just be and at the same time invites you to shape it and gives you the courage to leave your mark. We are shaped by places and they are also shaped by us, which is what makes us belong.

This is how we work with belonging

• We put life at the center of all our place-making activities and design places that prosper connection to both the material and immaterial things and the humans and non-humans that surround us
• We make our senses like hearing, tasting and smelling just as important as rationality
• We create opportunities for dialogue and cooperation through which beings can connect with each other

Imagine, sitting in a courtroom, defending a tree in a rainforest about to be beheaded and thereby po-tentially disturbing a delicate balance that has been developed throughout the last 3.8 billion years. How would you favor the ruling? Imagine if we knew nature rights as we know human rights. Today, there are only human rights. What if we extended principles of justice, participation, involvement and inclusion so vital to our human race to all other species that work to keep us all in balance on a thriving planet? That is what embracing a planetary perspective entails.

This is how we work with biodiversity

• We represent all human and non-human species when we make decisions that concern the place we live in
• We use the means of art, architecture and design to ensure that spaces have an aesthetic quality that enables all species present to live and flourish
• We ensure a holistic perspective, where the individual well-being can only be measured in relation to the collective well-being

Imagine standing in a big choir listening to all the voices together, leaning into the collective movement of the group and then noticing your own voice. When all the voices come together you feel uplifted, like the voices are carrying you off the ground and giving you the courage to sing louder and more confidently. Imagine the breeze of a collective voice surrounding you, making you feel that you are not alone. Imagine that this is the feeling of acting towards an irresistible circular society. You have a voice, but you are not alone, you are part of a movement.

This is how we work with movement

• We empower everyone to feel that they can join the DESIRE movement by creating democratic access to the means and outcomes of our activities
• We work with transparency and make visible all of the invisible actors, factors and structures that affect and bring about urban development
• We work for a sense of collective responsibility by exploring collaborative forms of governance that can support collective management of shared urban assets

Imagine running your fingers down the wall of the building you live in. It is all warm from the sun. You feel its comforting embrace. Imagine wanting to hug the building, leaning into its soft curves and inviting colors. You feel drawn to it. Connected to it. You catch your own reflection in the window. Instead of see-ing a body shape, you see curves of a mountain landscape you once drove through. You see fingerprints in the wood veins of the window frame. You suddenly hear the sounds of the forest your grandmother used to take you to as a child. You see yourself caressing the wood of the window frame and it makes you smile. You live in the materials of the building and they live within you. Imagine that this is what aesthetics is. It is a sensory experience that brings forth images, emotion and reflections of ourselves that we want to lean into.

This is how we work with aesthetics

• We work with the disciplines of art, architecture and design through all phases of our work process
• We integrate aesthetics in our processes and not just in the end products
• We expand the value of aesthetics by including sensory and tactile experiences