Last April we saw Notre Dame on fire and, shockingly, very quickly many designers begun to share their proposals on how it should be refurbished as though it was for them to decide. (If you missed it, Google it because some are pretty ridiculous)
A week ago, as we stood in front of it I was both reassured that it was still there as a reminder of our European history and sad to see how long it will take to bring it back to life.
During the fire many criticized the expense of the refurbishment as though we were talking about a stadium which would last 30 years rather than a building whose foundations were laid in 1163 and this, to me, is a sign of the times we live in where fake news are labelled as alternative facts and where people think their opinion is above scientific facts ... did you know that there is a group who believes the earth is not "round"? To me, all the above is a waste of time, human time, which we could be using to get on solving more important questions to move our society forward. And if we are to even attempt to do so, before AI does this "for us", we should recover the concept of long term thinking and start planning.
And so, that is my plan for 2020.
What is yours?
