13. Implications and applications¶
Research & Concept¶
Building the Collective from Plant Thinking¶
Contemporary society is organized around the individual as its basic unit, fragmenting shared experience and weakening the capacity to think and act collectively. As a result, the notion of the collective has become diffuse and fragile. Recovering it demands a radical shift in how we understand life, agency, and our relationships with others.
The so-called plant turn offers a critical and poetic framework to reimagine the collective through forms of life that have been systematically rendered invisible. Plant thinking challenges the foundations of anthropocentrism by questioning what it means to think, act, and exist beyond the human. Following Jacques Derrida’s interrogation of “what is proper to man,” this perspective unsettles traditional hierarchies that separate and rank living beings.
Rethinking our relationship with plants also requires revisiting our bonds with animals, materials, and environments. The colonizing logic of human dominance has produced a world structured by exploitation, utility, and control. Rather than seeking external alternatives, this project proposes opening heterotopias within everyday life—spaces grounded in co-presence, care, and non-appropriative relations.
This shift leads to a biopolitical question: can we articulate the collective around life in a broader, more-than-human sense? The condition known as plant blindness reflects not only a perceptual failure but an ontological and political one, rendering vegetal relations and modes of existence invisible and inferior (Lima, 2021).
Concept¶
Building the Collective from Plant Thinking proposes a shift from individual-centered systems toward a relational, more-than-human understanding of community. Drawing from plant life as a model of existence—networked, non-hierarchical, and interdependent—the concept challenges anthropocentric assumptions about agency, intelligence, and value. By learning from vegetal modes of relation, the collective is reimagined not as a sum of individuals, but as a living network sustained through co-presence, care, and mutual affect. This perspective opens everyday heterotopias where human and non-human lives coexist without domination, expanding the horizon of the common beyond the human.
Additionally, this approach invites reflection on our relationship with nature, which we have traditionally used as mediators of nature. The project presents a protest in the form of interaction with technology that rehumanizes our connections with devices while simultaneously critiquing the role of animals and nature in our lives, leading to a new way of thinking about our responsibility in creating a more sustainable and ethical future.
The Goal¶
To design and activate a relational framework—material, technological, or experiential—that makes interdependence tangible and fosters collective awareness through plant-inspired logics. The objective is to counter individualism and anthropocentric blindness by enabling shared, embodied experiences that reveal how communities can grow, sense, and sustain themselves collectively, without possession or hierarchy.
References & Inspiration¶
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Critiquing Anthropocentrism This book challenges the traditional human-centered design approach, pointing out how it's tied to capitalist thinking, much like the work of Jalali and Gholami and Design Research Works. It argues that we need to move away from anthropocentric design, not just as an idea but as a moral obligation to address the unsustainable, colonialist design practices we’ve inherited. Jalali and Gholami also push for frameworks that recognize non-human agency, while Design Research Works emphasizes designing alongside natural systems to create more balanced solutions.
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Expanding Design’s Role The book suggests that design should go beyond just creating products—it should be a tool for making the world more just and sustainable. This connects with what Jalali and Gholami focus on: tools and practices for living in harmony with non-human entities and using more-than-human design (MtH) to challenge harmful systems. Design Research Works also encourages designers to rethink how we relate to nature and our environment, showing how design can drive change in society and ecology.
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Bridging Theory and Practice The book dives into newer areas of design like speculative and critical design, which are non-anthropocentric. This fits with Jalali and Gholami’s ideas of using methods like sound sketching and scenario-building to put MtH principles into action. Design Research Works adds to this by encouraging new narratives and tools that can help us make this shift in practice, bridging the gap between theory and real-world change.
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Ethics of Coexistence One of the book's key points is about adopting an ethics of "more-than-human coexistence," which fits perfectly with Jalali and Gholami’s focus on respecting non-human agency. Both works argue that we need to break away from unsustainable design practices and push for more ethical, collaborative approaches that put equity and environmental responsibility at the forefront.
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Download reference
- Planetary Design
- Iohanna Niceboim
- Zahra Jalali & Kimia Gholami
- Interspecies Play
- From human-centred to interspecies design
Why, What, Who, When, Where?¶
WHY¶
- Individual-centered systems fragment collective experience
- Anthropocentrism distances humans from non-human life
- The wearable emerges as a way to feel interdependence, not just understand it
WHAT¶
- A plant-inspired wearable network
- Translates environmental signals into shared bodily sensations
- Builds the collective through relational, non-hierarchical interaction
WHO¶
- Human bodies as nodes, not users
- Non-human life (plants, environments) as active agents
- A temporary community formed through connection
WHEN¶
- In the context of ecological and social crisis
- During moments of collective presence and attunement
WHERE¶
- In everyday urban spaces
- At the intersection of bodies, plants, and environment
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Within a distributed network rather than a single site
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Two images side-by-side
