Toban Shadlyn

Polycene Design Manual

Welcome to the Polycene – an era to engage with the polycrisis.

The Anthropocene marked an era where human activities significantly harmed the Earth's climate and ecosystems. The Polycene Design Manual is an attempt to articulate a design standard to negotiate "big picture" systemic challenges like health care, education, and climate change.

In the Polycene, caring and relating will replace dominion, and mastery will be redefined as a balanced coexistence with the natural world. The Polycene encourages humanity to unfold its interconnective potential.

Here, design processes and frameworks can enhance our collective imagination. However, many of them require an upgrade to better support us in recognizing the growing complexity of biophysical realities and more-than-human relationships.

What can equip this upgrade?

The Polycene Design Manual is dedicated to this question. It seeks to highlight the potential of shared values and responsibilities, favoring aspirations for an expanded sense of self. It is an invitation to commune and collaborate, to seek identity in the collective, and to demand accountability and mutual flourishing.

In collaboration with RISD Center for Complexity, Horizon 2045, Dark Matter Labs and Politics for Tomorrow, this draft design manual is an archive of essays, activities, and project outcomes that have emerged from exploration of the Polycene — our proposed framing for an aspirational geological epoch where stewardship replaces dominion, and mastery is redefined as a balanced coexistence with the natural world. It encourages a multiplicity of approaches, ethical considerations, and community engagements to address the complex challenges we face in whats been termed the ‘polycrisis’.

The project is funded by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Skoll Foundation, under phase 2 of Horizon 2045.

The launch of the Planetary Civics Inquiry. “Beyond the National: Cities, Bioregions, and the Planetary” event. 

This work has since evolved and supported continued efforts such as the Planetary Civics Inquiry - an international alliance between RISD Center for Complexity, Dark Matter Labs, Politics for Tommorrow and RMIT.

The iniative launched on February 26, 2025, structured as a 12-hr relay of transcontinental events. I was invited to speak at the “Beyond the National: Cities, Bioregions, and the Planetary” event.