World in a Box

Shannon Mattern

Cardboard’s ubiquity rests on simple claims: I can hold that, and I can go there. But cardboard boxes hold within them a world of meaning — a global apparatus of commerce, consumption, and reuse. Hailed as a promise of progress, cardboard packaging has also come to represent economies of waste, inequity, and exploitation.

Cardboard’s ubiquity rests on simple claims: I can hold that, and I can go there. But cardboard boxes hold a world of meaning — a global apparatus of commerce, consumption, disposal, and reuse.

Read

Galleries

Series

Repair Manual

How might the design professions adapt to the paradigm shift from building the world to repairing the world?

 Read
Stone wall dividing pond with view of greenery, palm trees, and blue sky.

The Oregon | Places Prize

In collaboration with the College of Design at University of Oregon, the Oregon | Places Prize supports public scholarship about power and place, and the relationship of the design disciplines to larger structures of equity and justice.

 Read
Our Commitment to Public Scholarship Summer Workshop