LIVING BEAUTIFULLY
Living Beautifully by beautiful.business is a regular newsletter to share and inspire a different way of looking at the world. What would our world look like were we all to make it a little more beautiful?
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Join us, at The Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking, for our next immersive six-part course - How to create a business the world needs.
For more information see Beautiful News below.
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01. Beautiful Conversations
Werner Herzog speaks with such depth of humanity. This is a two hour interview that consistently holds a jewel like quality of ideas which explores what it means to be a human being in all its complexity.
Herzog quotes a Peruvian saying, “perseverance is where the Gods dwell”, my advice, persevere and dwell.
“The technology utopia will not happen,'' says Herzog. He continues, “going to Mars, I dont like it. This (earth) is our home, and it is glorious, wonderful, miraculous. A blessing upon us”. he also speaks about making with “vehemance”, what a word! Lastly, “the hardest thing is to see what is really there, the world reveals itself to those that travel on foot”.
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As four researchers embark on an expedition to drill ice cores in subzero temperatures of the Arctic, Utuqaq - ice that lasts year after year - witnesses the presence of these visitors.
With a memory that extends millions of years into the past and a present form that shapeshifts in intricate patterns over the surface of the vast white landscape, this beautiful and vital Arctic ice is facing an increasingly uncertain future as the world warms.
Poem narrated in Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) by Aviaja Lyberth. Thank you Richard Brophy.
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02. Beautifully Made
How do we make and create? Making is a creative act, sometimes it requires a group to materialise a thing. Jazz drummer Billy Cobham’s suggestion: start as simply as possible. “We are communicating. But it starts with the simple”. Cobham underlines the importance of listening to each other. “It’s paramount. Every musician needs to listen to himself in relationship to his colleagues. Only then we move on to areas never thought of.”
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Exploring India's Vibrant and Idiosyncratic Truck Art. The drivers go to great lengths to beautify their trucks, which are also their homes.
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Climate change is "a design project needing lots of attention" says William McDonough. Everything is designed, so why not bring the good, the restorative and regenerative into the world? Also checkout Cradle to Cradle Certification.
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A Life's Work: The Philosophy of a Craftsman. A film about Peter Korn, founder and Executive Director of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, discusses the challenges and rewards of craft.
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03. Beautifully Restorative
Sylvia Alice Earle is an American marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer. Otherwise known as ‘her deepness’. Listen to her extraordinary insights describing the life of our oceans and why we need to love them.
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Radical Collaboration Can Save Coral Reefs – The Nature Conservancy. We've already lost half the ocean's reefs—now the fate of the other half depends on governments, local communities and the private sector.
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“We are now climate neutral,'' says CEO Frederik Ohlsson of Haglofs, speaking about his company's quest to reach net zero. What is important is Haglofs carbon neutrality is measured through the entire supply chain. End to End – And, And. Not everyone does that. Do you?
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04. Beautifully Built
As a means to inquire how we design and build a beautiful business, two of the design questions posed in my new book Do Build: how do we create joyful experiences? and, how do we create legacy?
Which is why I would like to share the Kadokawa Culture Museum, Designed by Kengo Kuma. The building houses a spectacular library with shelves standing eight metres high and lined with almost 50,000 books.
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The Venice Biennnale Architecture Exhibition asks the question, How will we live together? Curated by architect and scholar Hashim Sarkis, he states, “more than ever, architects are called upon to propose alternatives. As citizens we mobilise our synthetic skills to bring people together to solve complex problems. As artists, we defy the inaction that comes from uncertainty to ask ‘What if?’ And as builders, we draw from our bottomless well of optimism to do what we do best. The confluence of roles in these nebulous times can only make our agency stronger and, we hope, our buildings more beautiful”.
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The Straw Bale School by Nuru Karim in Malawi, East Africa. The design is based on modular solutions of timber and straw bale. It follows an intricate technological process, ensuring an innovative structural system related performance and use of materials. Designed with elegance using the simplest of materials.
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Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have come up with a way to store energy in cement that could turn entire buildings into batteries. Could this be a way to reduce the carbon footprint of future infrastructure? Via Anthropocene magazine.
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Image Annie Marie Musselman
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05. Beautiful Reads
An Unbroken Grace – Barry Lopez
Barry Lopez was internationally acclaimed as one of the foremost nature writers of our time, but his vision encompassed all of humanity and the planet he knew as a sacred home.
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Helgoland – Carlo Rovelli
A poetic meditation on quantum theory. Rovelli states, “that everything should be based on what we see, not what we assume to be the case”, or as Werner Herzog says in his interview, “the hardest thing is to see what is really there”.
What is really there? Is there a base level structure to our universe and world, or is it more fluid? Does reality exist within objects or in fact in their relation to each other? The Buddhist doctrine of sunyata offers the idea that nothing exists entire unto itself but only in relation to other things.
This is what Rovelli argues. When the world of enduring objects dissolves, to be replaced by one of processes and interactions, we are left in a world not disenchanted by science, but even more magical, beautiful even. Rovelli writes, “Precisely because of the absence of any absolute, the now has meaning and is precious”.
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Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence – Kate Crawford
A landmark book which challenges the glib way in which ‘AI’ (a polite and misleading term for machine-learning) is regarded as an abstruse abstraction. Interview of her by Zoë Corbyn, the Observer.
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06. Beautiful Food
Farmers in the UK, for the first time, are getting the chance to co-design research to determine the benefits of integrating more trees on their farms.
A farmer-led agroforestry project launching this month will spend the next twelve years investigating whether the practice is a viable way to address the climate and nature crises while maintaining productive farmland. The new field lab, involving seven farms in Devon, will be the largest participatory research project to date looking at silvopasture – a practice of integrating trees and livestock.
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If you are into growing, Roots and All Podcast is for you.
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Joost Bakker talks about why he built a fully sustainable house in Melbourne’s Central Business District.
“To grow delicious, nourishing food using the world’s most abundant waste at its source. A productive building that is a zero waste ecosystem - an idea stolen from nature. If embraced could radically reduce the land required for agriculture, enabling restoration and rewilding of the world’s damaged soils. This concept has the potential to tackle food security, malnourishment and environmental degradation … all whilst turning our urban areas into the most biodiverse on earth.”
If you are interested in a longer walk through watch Future Food System website.
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Imad’s Syrian Kitchen, London: ‘Represents all the good things’ writes Jay Rayner.
This moving story is so much more than a restaurant review. Beautiful things are prepared with love is something I believe, so why not choose love with all its life enhancing properties.
Imad’s Syrian, Kitchen, Top floor, Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, London W1B 5PW. (020 7434 2448)
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07. Beautiful Experiences
The Great Humbling is a podcast that asks “How will they look in hindsight, these strange times we are living through? Is this a midlife crisis on humanity's road to the Star Trek future – or the point at which that story of the future unravelled and we came to see how much it had left out? What if our current crises are neither an obstacle to be overcome, nor the end of the world, but a necessary humbling?
This episode is about prayer and it's very good.
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According to acclaimed photojournalist Sebastião Salgado, paradise on Earth exists in the Amazonian forest. And despite the fires, farming and habitat loss that afflict the region, much is still intact and must be preserved.
Keen to focus on the beauty of the region, Salgado spent extended stays with a dozen indigenous tribes including the Yanomami, Yawanawá, Zo’é and Korubo people. Through their eyes, he witnessed humans living in peace with the planet. A lesson for us all, he says. “I believe that we must have conscience of the alive Amazônia in order that you have a conscience that we need to protect all of this”.
Amazônia by Sebastião Salgado, published by Taschen. Exhibition at Philharmonie de Paris until 30 October.
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The Impossibility of Repetition is a meditation on making. Human existence is based on the pulse of repetition; the beat of a heart, the rhythm of the day, the cycle of seasons, though these innate relationships are strained in modern life.
For the ceramicist, making can be contemplative; there is solace in the creating of an object, remaking, and refining. With each reiteration comes a relaxed fluency and accomplished confidence, an increasing sensitivity to subtle variations. To the human eye there appears an exactness, but can a form, surface texture or decoration be replicated with precision?
Go see at Hauser and Wirth.
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08. Beautiful Insights
The future is quantum. There are times in our lives that are accompanied by total, absolute clarity, uninterrupted by anything other than the experience of the moment.
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This is a design challenge: How the World Ran Out of Everything. Global shortages of many goods reflect the disruption of the pandemic combined with decades of companies limiting their inventories. Via NYT.
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To survive climate change, we’ll need a better story – via Bloomberg.
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The actor Mark Rylance, argues the arts should tell ‘love stories’ about nature to tackle the climate crisis. I agree.
Now is the time for the bards, poets and storytellers to offer up a new story. Doom + Dystopia are really easy.
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Ever laid awake at night and wondered ‘what is waste valoraisation?’ Here’s your answer: Waste valorisation is the process of reusing, recycling or composting waste materials and converting them into more useful products including materials, chemicals, fuels or other sources of energy. Via AIChE
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We built an ‘Apple Car’ from old iphones, this is what we learnt – via Wall Street Journal.
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Coding is not ‘fun’, it’s technically and ethically complex – via Aeon Magazine.
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Synthetic biology companies received $7.8B in private and public financing in 2020 – via SynBioBeta.
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Becoming a net zero economy by 2050 will require a complex effort over the next thirty years. How can the UK deliver that transition? Via Equinox at the FT.
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Consumerism as we know it isn’t the planet’s biggest threat. Rather, it’s the actions of very specific, very identifiable corporations. Just 100 companies are responsible for upwards of 70% of all emissions.
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Industrial carbon emissions can be captured and turned into useful materials on a vast scale, according to Sophia Hamblin Wang, chief operating officer of Mineral Carbonation International – via Dezeen.
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Big Sustainability Challenges Need Broad Coalitions: Efforts to Get Detroit’s Water System Back on Track Provide a Model for Collaborative Change.
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Why we need a global ESG standard. As investors focus more on sustainable investing, some companies are tempted to oversell their ESG credentials. Corporates as well as investors must adopt a consistent global standard of ESG definitions and characteristics. Via Fidelity.
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Time: The clock is a useful social tool, but it is also deeply political. It benefits some, marginalizes others and blinds us from a true understanding of our own bodies and the world around us. Via Noema Magazine.
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09. Beautiful Leadership
What would a new story of human progress look like if we reconnected with nature and worked with nature as a partner? Andres Roberts shares his experiences of guiding people on nature quests; formative experiences of observation and listening to nature that restore a sense of belonging and release us from culturally dominant patterns of separation. Go for a walk. Listen in.
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Bianca Pitt writes, “when UK COP26 leadership was announced, we were utterly astonished that we didn't see a single woman on the team.
How, in the 21st century could this have happened? For me this is a WTF moment.
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Beth Thoren, Patagonia’s environmental action director for Europe and the Middle East, discusses climate activism at the corporate level and the initiatives she is spearheading. Listen in.
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10. Beautiful News
Did you know you are a part of a community of over 30,000+ people, from all over the world?
You tell me of your growing appetite to remake, reimagine, redesign, rebuild, recreate, regenerate, rewild our world to be more beautiful than the one we currently have.
Here at Beautiful Business we have a belief in beauty, and faith in its power to create good, this is what the world needs. So the more people we can inspire and engage through this simple yet powerfully optimistic idea, the more our world and humanity’s relationship with it will transform for the better.
We need as many beautiful leaders and makers as we can possibly get. As leaders and makers, you come in all shapes and sizes, from all over the world.
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Join us on our immersive six-part programme - How to create a business the world needs:
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Session 1 – Sept 1st
Beauty + Nature. A re-framing for all life to thrive
Session 2 – Sept 15th
Biomimicry + Design. Regenerative business design principles
Session 3 – Sept 29th
Values + metrics. Building a new framework, definitions of success
Session 4 – Oct 13th
Generous leadership. Understanding and applying its power and potential
Session 5 – Oct 27th
Advanced studio. Building a beautiful business
Session 6 – Nov 10th
Embedding. Making it real in the everyday
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To book your place, and for more information, please either contact Hawkwood College, or send me a hello.
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