Ockham Lectures Pocket Edition: An embodied practice: Creating the urban infrastructures we need

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Established in 2020, the Ockham Lecture Series commissions a rich breadth of voices to write about ideas that matter for craft, design and architecture. It and the Pocket Series are supported by Objectspace's extraordinary lead partner, Ockham Residential.

In Issue 05, our first Ockham Lectures Pocket Edition of 2022, Dr Gradon Diprose looks at how community collaboration and urban wellbeing initiatives can help intervene in the climate and biodiversity crisis we are currently facing:

"To me, it feels like many things are shifting at the moment. Some of this is due to Covid-19 disruption and the ambitious local government, health and environment reforms our current government is pursuing. But it also feels like the underlying social contract and narrative about what ‘the good life’ is, based on twentieth-century ideas of the productive and consuming citizen, are also shifting. In Aotearoa we can see some of these shifts playing out in debates around housing, climate change, reducing waste and moving to a circular economy, ensuring equitable access to green space and nature, addressing food security, and the mental health crisis."

Dr Gradon Diprose is a geographer working as an environmental social science researcher at Manaaki Whenua—Landcare Research. His current research is exploring human nature relationships, climate resilient urban infrastructure, and how communities come together around shared concerns to sustain their livelihoods and wellbeing.