Reminder: you can join the biggest Service Design conference remotely

The biggest Service Design conference of the year happens next month and it's organized by the lovely community Service Design Network.

Taking a flight, paying for a hotel and all of that might be over your budget. But you still can benefit from all the learnings of that conference without that big of a budget.

With the remote ticket you get access for much less. Students get access for 90€, members of the SDN get access for 120€ and others for 350€.

I don't get any kickback when you register, I just appreciate the very hard work done by the Service Design Network Dallas team and all the Service Design Network volunteers that make this happen for the wider community.

Interview with Alexia and Damien Schneider

How can we host services in sustainable buildings and offices?

That’s what we chatted about with Alexia and Damien Schneider in an interview for my next book on how to create services that serve both humans and planet.

Alexia and Damien are two Swiss architects who founded Physalide, an architecture studio in Nyon, Switzerland that is focused on Sustainable Architecture. Both are extremely lovely people always there to give a hand to friends, NGOs and churches. We’ve know each other for years and it’s a real pleasure to get to share a bit of who they are with other people.

This conversation with Alexia and Damien inspired me 11 early Service Design Principles to use the buildings that host services in a more sustainable way. Here are my five favorites ones:

• Number 1: Renovate don’t start from scratch: in terms of resources, it’s much more respectful to improve the buildings and spaces you already have than building new ones.

• Number 2: It doesn’t have to be brick to be solid: Concrete and bricks are not the only materials that will create long lasting buildings. Straw, dirt, wood and many more materials are as long standing and come with many other benefits.

• Number 3: Budget the side effects: The side effects on biodiversity, carbon emissions, energy usage, etc, are often not shown in the price of an architecture project. Creating a budget that takes into account these elements changes the final bill drastically and can totally change which option looks better (this idea has been mentioned in other interviews in this series too).

• Number 4: Don’t speak too much about sustainability, do it without a choice: Talking about why a specific way of working is more sustainable can make people think that there is a choice to be made between going with an unsustainable way and a sustainable way. Just propose the more sustainable way and package it as the best solution for the given challenge. Don’t make sustainability a cost line in a budget that can be easily crossed.

• Number 5: Heat 1°C less: During winter times, heating just a tiny bit less, doesn’t make your office less comfortable but it uses much less energy. WWF UK says “If all households in the UK turned their heating down by 1°C, it’s estimated that we could save £1.4 billion a year.”

Thanks so much to Alexia and Damien for this lovely conversation in French.