how do the energy and materials we use connect to the
ecosysems around us?

With each passing year, I hoped that my university students would turn up with more ecological literacy. After all, isn’t sustainability being introduced in elementary and high school curricula? The answer is surprisingly, not that much. Few of my college and even graduate level design students, whether in architecture or product design, had eco-literacy. I found I was often in “catch up” mode. Here’s how I approach it using my book, The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability.

Eco-literacy has two dimensions (at least) with one being based on scientific and systems knowledge. The other dimension is more spiritual and psychological.

In the book  I profile the science/systems side of ecoliteracy in part two, with short, heavily illustrated chapters on “design and the ecosphere.” (for a further glimpse inside, see “inside the book“). I describe how designers can relate to the science behind unsustainability — speed, scale and location of resource use–and the science behind nature’s ultimate sustainability–eco-structures and functions and their resilience.

a diagram from The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability, showing the makeup of the ecosphere

In my teaching guide for the book (download it free here) there’s a range of design briefs and exercises that help students digest the ideas in real terms. For example one exercise asks students to research answers to a bioregional quiz that deepens their knowledge of their ecological surroundings. Other exercises asks students to examine how materials are “invisible.” Students research and then find ways to visualize the normally invisible chemical or material footprint of a typical artifact found in their discipline (e.g. a shirt, tool, structure or landscape).

a diagram from The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability, showing what we take out and put in to each component of the ecosphere

The book deals with the second dimension of eco-literacy in part four, in a chapter on nature and culture. The theme here includes how nature is woven into culture but also how nature is woven into our psychological makeup and serves as a core element of mental health.

The teaching guide offers a set of exercises in which students attempt to forge a personal, even mystical, connection to nature through some of the practices of deep ecology. The aim with these exercises is to recognize that design might separate us from nature but that we can take experiential steps to rebuild our own connection with nature in order to better use design as a process for helping others reconnect to nature.

So if you have to offer a crash course on eco-literacy use part 2 of the Designer’s Atlas and the chapter on Nature as Culture from part 4. Then choose a few of the exercises and briefs from the teaching guide and you’re on your way.

Have you ever had to give an eco-literacy carsh course? What was the biggest challenge? Share in the comments.

If you find these Thursday posts useful, please pass them on through email, facebook, twitter and other channels.

Also, I’m currently looking for examples of successful “live projects” or “design interventions” that you’ve seen written up, either online or in print–your own or other peoples’. Email me or leave a note in the comments.

UPDATE 25 May 2013

Aha…I just picked up on this NYT article that explains:

“Educators unveiled new guidelines on Tuesday that call for sweeping changes in the way science is taught in the United States — including, for the first time, a recommendation that climate change be taught as early as middle school.”

Further explanation…”States are not required to adopt them, but 26 states have committed to seriously considering the guidelines.” Seriously? Just Considering?

Crash courses in eco-literacy at the college level destined to continue!

Twenty eight “light eyes” in the proposed Stuttgart main station, designed by German Ingenhoven Architekten, multi-task by providing daylighting to the underground station, expelling exhaust air, and passively removing smoke in an emergency.  (Architectural Record covers this and several other projects aiming for zero carbon)

photos Ingenhoven Architekten

INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE

The central staircase in Korean architect Moon Hoon’s house is “a multi-functional space which is a large staircase, bookshelves, casual reading space, home cinema, slide and much more…” (see Lloyd Alter’s Treehugger article for a view of what’s under the stairs)

An example arises in another station proposal: The Express Rail Link – West Kowloon Terminus by Aedas, which will connect Hong Kong to the National High Speed Rail Network (Thanks again Lloyd at Treehugger!)

This post lays the groundwork for you to get them talking and thinking about Living Buildings: given the history of the green buiding movement, what have we learned about moving forward constructively? Living Buildings are the cutting edge now, but where do we go after living buildings? City wide approaches? What about the retrofitting problem?

Stay tuned to the end of the post to find a bonus question about a central component to Living Buildings that often isn’t talked about.

Living Building Certification

The Bertschi School Science Wing, Seattle

Despite its name, the challenge is actually a performance system like LEED, the US Green Building Council’s rating system for energy and environmental performce in buildings. Here’s an article from Curbed that talks about both systems. Students will have to juggle both legacy rating systems like LEED but also handle current and emerging certifications like Living Building.

Living Buildings goes further than the top LEED rating requirements, calling for the building to generate all its own energy through renewable sources, capture and treat all its own water and incorporate only sustainable (in the widest sense of the term) materials.

The International Living Future Institute that oversees the Living Building Challenge is based in Seattle). No coincidence, perhaps, that two Seattle-area buildings are involved with Living Building certification:

1. Bertschi School Living Building Science Wing
achieved Living Building Status–the world’s 4th fully-certified Living Building and the first on the West Coast
architecture: KMD Architects Restorative Design Collective
construction: Skanska
news article in Digital Construction

2. The Bullitt Center

The Bullitt Center courtesy Miller Hull Partnership
building opened on Earth Day 2013, but must operate one year with full occupancy to acheive Living Building status
architecture: Miller Hull Partnership
construction: Schuchart
article in the New York Times

Living Building Tech

So far attention on the Living Building Challenge has been strongest in the US, but recently BIQ House in Hamburg Germany opened as the world’s first algae-powered buliding (news article: inhabitat). Designed by Arup (in conjunction with Splitterwerk Architects and SSC Strategic Science Consultants) to use bioreactors, the buiding launched as part of the International Building Exhibition in Hamburg.

Hamburg’s BIC House powered by algae

What technologies will be next in green buildings? Arup’s report, “It’s Alive!” documents other ideas about the future of living buildings. Construction Manager has a few ideas in the article “Innovation Special: Creating the ‘living’ building.” Alongside algae powered bioreacotors, the article cites solar panels built into building materials, surface materials as air filters, and new materials to replace plastic as its source material of oil and gas become scarce. Think transparent concrete…

These new materials and new buildings offer a lot of inspiration, but still leave us with a huge stock of existing inefficient and often poorly constructed buildings.

Bonus question: the social side of living buildings

What is the social side of Living Buildings and where is the designer’s role in that? Do living buildings fit into the “social design” terminology discussed in the last post?

Let me know how in the comments how your students are preparing for Living Buildings and beyond.

Easier to identify what it isn’t.

Recently we’ve seen the rise of “social” design and there’s a struggle over how to define it. John Carey and Gilad Meron recently compiled a glossary of what they call “social impact design terminology” and it leads to a great question for students: in what way, if any, are struggles for these types of definitions useful?

Does it get you thinking about how design can contribute to social or cultural sustainability? Or does it bog you down in unhelpful, murky detail?

The illustration is by Jessica de Jesus

As students start to think about the higher levels in the chart above, it quickly becomes apparent that the best place to address re-use is at the beginning of the design process. Terra20 also features a number of recycled consumer products. The “rebound” effect suggests a dilemma, that we sometimes consume more if we feel the mode of consumption is greener–in some cases this increased consumption might be fueled by “eco- savings” (such as through energy efficiency) but in others it is as though we’ve somehow earned the “right” to consume more if our consumption is greener.

In applied terms, there are some interesting examples in the architecture and building arenas. For example, House of Card is an Australian company making portable buildings from “entirely recyclable cardboard, plywood and shipping pallets.” The design started out as shelter for disaster relief but has evolved to serve artisanal brands at festivals and other events. 

Going higher on the reuse scale, Public Architecture has produced a downloadable Design for Reuse Primer that profiles 15 successful reuse projects.

In another inventive project, Re Rag Rug, Swedish students make modern style rag rugs out of “T-shirts and woollen sweaters from the Salvation Army’s chain of second hand stores.” The group declares “By working in a free and experimental manner the goal is to create rag rugs so innovative in design and technique, that the fact they are made out of re-cycled materials is a bonus.”

My next lab is definitely going to be wind up power and I think these images will show you why:

Taiwanese Pega D&E showed this Windup chair with USB charger at the 2012 Milan furniture fair

Wind up-powered products arguably came to popularity with the freeplay radio in the early 1990s and since then flashlights, chargers and lanterns have been designed.

In my biomimicry lab there were a series of stations that students rotated through. In my windup lab I would have a series of stations as well, but I’d start with everyone getting their hands on a simple windup device (possibly toys) to be studied from the inside out. This would be accompanied by an introduction on how it works, including conversion to electricity. From there my stations might include:

1. a few more complex wind up mechanisms, such as the freeplay radio shown below, with working parts exposed. Students might diagram these in terms of how they work.

An older verion of the freeplay radio

2.  wind up mechanisms available for students to hack together very basic windup chargers.

3. a “science” station where various level of power are examined in relation to how much power can be gained from windup mechanisms. For example there might be a hair dryer, a radio, a mobile phone, a hand blender and an electric mixer. The idea would be to explore how much power is generated by different windup configurations and which variables you can affect through design.

4. a “global” station that brings examples from the developing world showing the particular relevance of windup to that context (ideally this might be a 10 minute video that students watch)

4. brainstorming station where students explore where windup technology might go next –particularly in their own country contexts–and consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of different applications.

Would this kind of lab work for you students? If this kit were available to borrow or buy, would you be interested?

Another example is Professor Manu Prakash’s  $0.50 microscope—the “Foldscope” that is printed on paper, shipped flat, and folded into shape in minutes. Professor Prakash is committed to frugal science. The foldscopes will contribute to the infrastructure for attacking diseases like malaria, which strike areas where few resources are available for testing and treatment.

Stanford Professor Manu Prakash and the
“foldscope” Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Flat packing and flat microscopes both preserve functionality but make goods more accessible. That accessibility can be important in sustainability terms for improving well-being and possibly reducing ecological damage Although if accessibility speeds up consumption, ecological impact might not be reduced.

This topic would make a good essay subject, class discussion or brief. With these examples you could start by investigating “flatness” but the broader discussion might consider the question of “cheapness.” When is cheaper better and how do designers achieve “good” cheapness? What are the tensions between cheapness and accessibility on the one hand and increases in the pace and scale of consumption on the other?

Please let me know in the comments–what cases can you think of where redesign made something cheap in a good way?

Maybe seeing inside enables you to repair and maintain these things for longer. Maybe seeing inside shows you what can be salvaged if something breaks or gets outdated. Transparency, we hope, adds new layers of meaning that ultimately change behavior.

transparent speaker by People People

So why not run an exercise with students asking how they can apply the idea of transparency to a current design problem. In a literal example, Swedish company People People’s transparent speaker shows that a transparent casing can have aesthetic as well as environmental benefits.

Ask students to think about where else this literal transparency is beneficial, but also how design decisions add transparency. An example might be the decision for a designer to seek a certain label or rating, such as a building rating, or a system that lets end users track materials and processes that went into production.

In the Designers Atlas of Sustainability there’s a section on the many ways that materials are invisible, for example through the sheer scale of material use that we don’t see, and through the lack of knowledge we have about what materials are made of. Thinking about invisibility can also help guide students on where we need more transparency.

When I was doing a lot of teaching I faced constant pressure to find relevant materials and approaches to use in my class. There was never enough time to search through or vet as many resources as I would have liked.

What would have been helpful was to have someone feeding me consistent, regular news and ideas that I could grab as needed. It often doesn’t help when people present you with a whole program or an integrated approach, becuase let’s face it, your teaching materials have to fit into uniqe time frames and learning objectives. You’ve got to put your own spin on it. Usually you just need kernels you can work up as needed.

So here’s the first installment…

I read recently over on Inhabitat about a new card deck that helps you learn about sustainability. It’s the latest deck in a history of design-oriented card decks. I’ve written about them as activist tools, but here I’m suggesting them as a teaching resource.

Here are three to consider:

1. Eco Innovator’s Design Play Cards are aimed at helping people learn about sustainabilty for design by taking “players” through defining the problem, exploring solutions, and applying strategies for sustainability.  You can download the cards for free, or order a printed set. These could be used for a short exercise, or as prompts through a longer brief.

2. Dan Lockton’s Design with Intent toolkit contains 101 Cards, each with a pattern for influencing behavior through design. Here the aim is to become more conscious of how designers can influence behavior to address social and environmental issues. These cards are available for free download, but you can also order printed cards. The cards offer 8 lenses through which to see influence, ranging from architecture and errorproofing to interaction and cognitive. As an example, the strategies under “architecture” include:

Angles | Converging & diverging | Conveyor belts | Feature deletion | Hiding things | Material properties | Mazes | Pave the cowpaths | Positioning | Roadblock | Segmentation & spacing | Simplicity

Like the first set, these could be used for a short exercise, or as prompts through a longer brief. In an exercise, different groups could work with different lenses on the same brief and report back to the group.

3. Jane Wolff’s hand drawn Delta Primer Playing Cards available from William Stout Publishers analyze and describe the competing interests among water, land and people in the delta, where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers meet in California. These cards (I’ve written more detail here) would suit a class exploring urban and rural landscape and long term landscape evolution and environmental conservation. They could work well as a guide for students conducting their own layered, complex analysis of a site or landscape.

Have any card decks to recommend? Let us know in the comments!

1. Future-fit Framework An introductory guide to teaching and learning for sustainability in HE, by Professor Stephen Sterling from the Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University

–    some guidance on the nuts and bolts of ESD;
–    a digest of key ideas;
–    some pointers on next steps and resources.

Trying to answer the question–what’s in it for me? and why bother?

2. Education for sustainable development and holistic curriculum change: A review and guide (Ed-for-sust-HEA) by Dr Alex Ryan, Associate Director of Sustainability at the University of Gloucestershire, is based on an international review and three UK case studies of work towards curriculum change in this area.

The guide is for educators and managers who want to improve teaching and learning institution-wide on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).