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via a document that reported on developing global warming. Their announcement shocked the public and prompted many to take action against this pervasive threat. A year later, the Design Museum founded Future Observatory - a scheme dedicated to the green transition. Our recently opened display, Solar and our tri-wall, Fables for our Time, provided inspiration for this article: the August instalment of our Book Club. 

 These four educational, nature-loving publications consider three aspects of sustainability: social, economic and environmental recultivation. Our eco-specialists approach this through material innovation, object repair, consumer consciousness and future proposals. Daniel Liden teaches you about the weird and wonderous ways materials transform, Nick Harper explores resourceful techniques to mend your prized possessions, Redress considers how we can consume clothing consciously, and Alice Rawthorn and Paola Antonelli deliver concepts on cultivating a thoughtful, visionary and viridescent world. As always, you'll find a bundle deal here with 10% off, free delivery and a gift on us. Read on below.

Daniel Liden's inventive, brand new title explores material futures. Two hundred pages are divided into seven chapters - six explore a medium group - plastics, textiles, metals, ceramics, wood and paper - with the final segment tackling ecological technologies. Interviews, photographs, charts, statistics and material properties accompany each section to frame its subject. In this work, Liden cultivates better honesty on renewability in product design for practitioners, manufacturers and consumers. Are you a full-time designer searching for a summer pastime? Shop our Sunography kit and spend a sunny afternoon experimenting with the avant-garde art of cyanotype: a technique invented by astronomer John Herschel. 

Harper released this circularity step-by-step manual amid the COVID-19 lockdown. He provides apt advice on how to rethink, reuse and repair your homely possessions through ingeniously practical, crafty and thrifty solutions - which challenge a product's intended lifespan. Turn breakages into rebirths, and experiment with the traditional Japanese mending technique of Kintsugi with our Repair Kit - use aureate gilding to restore your broken ceramics and glassware. We have two upcoming talks related to Solar - listen to Susan Schuppli and Freya Spencer-Wood on August 12th and Thomas Thwaites and April Barrett on September 20th. 

- Donna Harroway

We must reevaluate our relationship with the fashion industry and interact with it more carefully to reduce its role as a global polluter. This Redress how-to guide probes garment circularity - it is our prescribed treatment for overconsumption. The handbook features advice from fashion industry experts - stylist Denise Ho, designer Johanna Ho, entrepreneur Ash Black and editor Annie Georgia-Greenberg. They provide practical tips, tricks and hacks on how to buy, wear, care and dispose of your pieces more responsibly. Do you fancy giving a new lease of life to a preloved piece? Couple this book with our Stitch Kit to make your clothes more ornate and sentimental.

In response to climate chaos, Alice Rawthorn and Paola Antonelli produced this incisive manifesto - which envisions a more optimistic outlook on the future for ourselves and new generations. This title approaches futurity by splitting it into four concepts – technology, society, communication and ecology - these sections include discourse from activists, artists and scientists. Featuring varied cohorts provides broad, nuanced and solidary perspectives - on how we can collaborate, invoke productive change and heal the world. These sentiments are the cornerstone of our Growing Together project - you can read about this here, learn how to get involved and get your fingers green. Also, don't miss our just launched Future Observatory journal. The latest entry focuses on bioregioning.