Designer's Atlas: expanded book




	part 1: introduction further reading weblink: United Nations Development Program references web links new thinking definition of sustainability As sustainability works its way into the popular consciousness, more people are thinking about it philosphically, far outside the bounds of its origins. Most interesting to me is that two recent design books refer to it as a contemporary myth or secular religion (Stuart Walker, Sustainable By Design. London: Earthscan, 2006 and Jonathan Chapman, Emotionally Durable Design. London: Earthscan, 2005). This does not tempt me to abandon my own definition for sustainable design and I'm not yet sure whether the "religion" angle is helpful or not. part 2: ecology further reading weblink: United Nations Environment Program, Global Environmental Outlook (GEO) weblink: Worldwatch Institute, State of the World Reports NEW On biomimicry there is a range of books that cover patterns in nature etc. in a more scientific manner including: The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature by Philip Ball (Oxford University Press, 2001). On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition by D'Arcy Wenworth Thompson (Dover Publications, 1992) references web link: living planet report (latest issue is 2006) web links ecological footprints: Global Footprint Network The Natural Step The US Green Building Council The Biomimicry Institute The Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies Centre for Biomimetics at the University of Reading new thinking Biomimcry continues to be my main hope for an endpoint to eco-design, but my continuing research leads me to some concerns about it. On the one hand, much biomimicry at the molecular level tends to focus on genetic engineering, a practice that appears to be at odds with the whole notion of ecology. How much can we engineer life forms to get the desired performance characteristics? On the other end of the spectrum, if we accept biomimicry as an endpoint do we also accept evolutionary biology, where simple reproduction of our geners is the a priori goal? Interesting work by M. Csikszentmihalyi and E. Rochberg-Halton (The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Self. 1981, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press) suggests that we have to think of evolution itself as being affected by evolution. They note that real growth is the essence of the goal of evolution itself: the ultimate purpose of evolution is also subject to growth, and "Although the ultimate goal of other animals is to live, the ultimate goal of humankind is conditioned by additional evolutionary purposes as well, which determine us to live well... Thus human evolution consists in the cultivation of adaptive and creative ways of living."