When María Gonzáles de Cossío first contacted me in August 2023, it was both a surprise and an honour to be invited to contribute a chapter to a book planned for Gui Bonsiepe’s 90th anniversary in March 2024.

Among others of his generation, Gui remains for me one of the key figures in design theory and practice, as well as one of the people who laid the foundations for design to become an academic discipline and one that is actively engaged in academic research. It has therefore been a real pleasure to contribute to this book, which has been published in a private edition, and I would like to thank María and all the other authors who have contributed to making it possible.

And as is often the case, writing about things makes you think about them in a different way, and so the text I wrote about my various encounters with Gui, his partner Silvia and their work also gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own career as a design researcher and educator. The result is the following text with the provocative title “Blowing up the Alps – and other ways to change perspectives in design”. Enjoy the reading.