Somewhere in my library of treasured old books it a tatty copy of Victor Papanek’s ‘Design for the Real World’.

I can recall, as a design student in the mid-1970s, Papanek touring New Zealand and visiting our campus to give talks and to be interviewed. I was lucky enough to meet him and remember peppering him with questions, raised from my reading of the abovementioned book.

A big memory was his passionate belief in quality design to promote liveability and wellbeing. An example he gave was about how ‘badly designed’ amenities promote vandalism. Conversely, well designed features tended to deter vandalism. I recollect him talking about vandals using dynamite to eliminate poorly designed public toilets in Chicago.

One might ask, who needs vandals when those making the decisions about how our public places are planned and designed (or not designed), do the vandalism for everyone?