How to: deconstruct your favorite meal and reconstruct it as an ecosystem?

While using design research to familiarize ourselves with systems thinking, complex ecosystems, and planetary boundaries, it is important to stay grounded and tangible, so as to not be lost in the complexity and scale of things. Starting with something as familiar and personal as our favorite meal gives us the grounding to understand complexities. The goal was to envision a future where we can source and cook a meal together without destroying half the biosphere and to critically reflect on why that isn't possible today.

The students analysed a wide variety of plants, from Asparagus and Avocado to Olives and Saffron. Some of the design solutions proposed included creating an ad campaign to make Potato mainstream in European diets to shifting corn production in the USA to help with the energy transition.

This was an incredible experience to formally teach some of the underlying concepts around systems thinking we use at PosadMaxwan strategy x design every day in an accessible manner.