David Harvey once evoked an observation attributed to Antonio Gramsci nearly a century ago: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters.” Whereas Gramsci orients toward political possibility, Harvey appears resigned to the existential reality of a hegemonic condition. This essay proposes a third formulation that embraces both Harvey’s acceptance of a dominant reality and a Gramscian stance

Practice-based design PhDs have gained momentum, but the integration of design practice into the PhD thesis lacks consensus. The PhD By Design initiative offers insights and reflections on approaches to enable productive collaboration among design practitioners conducting practice-based PhDs. The initiative includes events, publications, and an interactive database showcasing practice-based research in design.

We work at a train station. Not at the ticket counter, the bar, or the toilets, but at a grassroots community academy called La Foresta, located right next to the office of the railway police. We have worked here since 2017, first around and now in our local train station, as a group of actively engaged citizens, freelance educators, researchers in the wild, and change-oriented feral entrepreneurs.