Viriditas & Areophany and Design

Just wrapping up reading   The Mars Trilogy  by Kim Stanley Robinson. I walk away from the series with two words burned into my brain. “Viriditas” and “Areophany“. I wonder how do these concepts apply to our appreciation of design and design systems.

from Wikipedia: “Viriditas (Latin, literally “greenness,” formerly translated as “viridity”[1]) is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth.   Kim Stanley Robinson used it non-theologically to mean “the green force of life, expanding into the Universe.”

In the Mars series a new belief system is created called the “Areophany“. The system is devoted to the appreciation and furthering of life (“viriditas”).

I’d like to think we as designers have a Areophany about design and want to further the most delightful experiences as possible.

mars