About this site
Thanks for your interest in my work! My name is Adam Greenfield, and I’m an endurance athlete, heavy-music appreciator and compulsive greeter of cats — originally from New York City, and resident in London since late 2013.
Over the past quarter century, I’ve read, thought, written, designed, consulted and taught pretty widely about a set of issues that arise at the intersection of technology, politics and culture, with an increasing focus on how these things interact in (and condition our experience of) everyday urban life.
I’ve been fortunate enough to explore these issues from a wide variety of angles:
– As an information architect for notorious Internet consultancies marchFIRST and Razorfish in Tokyo, and later as Nokia’s head of design direction for service and user-interface design (say that three times fast), I helped build systems that have been used by millions of people — and saw for myself just how the world’s largest corporations understand the technology all around us.
– Just on the off chance I could successfully jump back across the gap separating theory and practice, in 2010 I founded Urbanscale, a New York-based firm dedicated to “design for networked cities and citizens.” Urbanscale has been on hold since late 2012.
– I’ve taught or co-taught graduate-level courses at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and in the MArch Urban Design program at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Having finally earned my PhD last August, at the age of 57, I’m currently Visiting Professor in the Cities Programme of the Sociology Department at the London School of Economics.
– With my partner, Nurri Kim, I co-founded the undisciplinary design collective Do Projects, which publishes books, pamphlets, and editions, and otherwise underwrites explorations into space and experience. Since 2009, through Do, Nurri and I have conducted “walkshops” in cities around the world: participatory walking tours in which we look for and try to understand the physical appearances of networked informatics in urban space.
– My writing has appeared in Architectural Design, The Atlantic, Cityscapes, Dezeen, Dialogues in Human Geography, e-flux, Foam, The Guardian, The Journal of the London Society, Los Angeles Review of Books, New Geographies, New York Review of Architecture, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, SPIN, Volume, Wired, etc. etc. A full list of publications can be found here.
– Over the years, I’ve been involved with a number of autonomous, self-organized, leaderless groups, including ACT/UP Philadelphia (1989-1990), the Berkeley Free Clinic (1990-1992) and New York’s Occupy Sandy effort (2012). This current of activity, more than just about anything described above, is where my heart lives.
– I’ve written a bunch of books, which you can learn more about here.
– I host Lifepod, the podcast about taking care of ourselves in a world on fire. Lifepod extends the arguments and inquiries of my book Lifehouse, in conversation with people from around the world who can help us understand how we might organize as individuals and communities to survive our time of climate-system collapse. It’s dedicated to the proposition that we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
– I give talks on these and related topics fairly often, and all over the planet; if you’re interested in having me speak at a conference or other event, please do get in touch via the contact form at the bottom of this page. (I’m also available for consulting, and if that’s something that interests you I encourage you to inquire the same way.)
– Finally, if you’re really curious about my day-to-day, what I’ve been reading and so on, you can subscribe to my irregular dispatch (always free) or follow my public accounts on Instagram or Mastodon. I look forward to seeing you there.
Miscellany
Unless otherwise specified, all material on this site is licensed under a Peer Production License. You are free to reuse it for noncommercial purposes only, but you must attribute Adam Greenfield as the author.
This site is currently being produced to the sounds of Agriculture, AUN, Barn Owl, Bathypelagic, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Alice Coltrane, Deafheaven, Dhyana, Earth, Floor, Krallice, MMMD, Mogwai, Neptunian Maximalism, NOH, Panopticon, Prostitute, Pharoah Sanders, Scarcity, Senyawa, Sonny Sharrock, Sumac, SUNN O))), Swans, Thou, Wrekmeister Harmonies, Yellow Eyes and YHWH Nailgun.
Suiting by the late George Dyer of Threadneedleman Tailors, Walworth Road, London SE17, and blessed memory. Chakra alignment courtesy of Dalston Curve Garden, Hackney. Adam Greenfield uses and endorses Philz Coffee Jacob’s Wonderbar Blend.