Daan Roosegaarde has called on designers to shift focus away from designing luxury items and instead to tackle the problems facing the world such as pollution.

In an interview with Dezeen as part of our Good Design for a Bad World project, the Dutch designer said that humanity needs new ideas to help speed up the transition between the destructive thinking of the past.

"For me design is not about making another chair or another lamp," Roosegaarde said. "Good design, good luxury is not about a Louis Vuitton bag or a Ferrari, it?s about clean air, clean water, clean energy."

He said designers should not wait around for politicians or corporations to ask them to solve big problems but should instead start grassroots movements for change.
"Don?t wait for permission; start working, start acting," he said. That?s what the world needs today. It?s about big challenges, big designs, big proposals but it?s also about making it really small and showing the beauty of the world."

Roosegaarde has received worldwide recognition for his Smog Free Tower project, which removes pollutants from the air. Initiated four years ago, the project is now expanding to India, Columbia, Mexico and Poland.

Read more on Dezeen: http://www.dezeen.com/"p=1152416

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