Sustainability
Welcome to session 5 of our introduction to design. This week we are looking at my favourite topic – sustainability. And I thought I would introduce it with a building project that I worked on a few years back.
For more information on the project go to https://www.feildenfowles.co.uk/lee-centre/ where the architects have posted some lovely photos and more information.
Warm-up exercises
Now before we go further it is important to get warmed up. In every session there are three parts to this process.
1 min – draw straight lines
1 min – circles
4 min – now pick a house hold item near by and draw it but this week with the added challenge of keeping your pencil in contact with the paper at all times.
Whilst warming up watch the video.
Design and the Climate Emergency
So now you are warmed up – lets go back to todays subject – sustainability.
If you want to know more about the climate emergency I watched this video today and found it interesting and helpful (it’s about 40 minutes long) – https://youtu.be/8Nbt5umq55U
I also love the ‘information is beautiful’ website (and book) and they have some excellent info graphics on the climate here – https://informationisbeautiful.net/subject/climate/
For too long we have considered the climate at the end of the design process. But we need to think about it much, much earlier. In fact we need to consider it at the very start of the design process.
The 6Rs (or 7Rs – I added an extra one) are a useful tool for thinking about the whole life of a product. There is more information here https://practicalaction.org/
Want to find out more?
In each session we will highlight some further resources where you can find out more – these are not essential but if you are interested you might find them interesting.
Book Suggestion
‘Toaster Project’, Thomas Thwaites, Princeton Architectural Press, 2011. I have saved the best till last and want to say firstly that this is my favourite book of the last decade. It’s brilliant. It is also about engineering but it’s written by an artist, Thomas Thwaites. Thomas tries heroically to build a toaster from scratch. The book is very funny, lot’s of fun but also asks some really important questions. If you read just one book from the five I have listed this should be the one.
Watch this
This week’s video is much longer at 30 minutes, but it’s worth it as Professor Stephen Evans discusses sustainability and thinks about it in a much broader sense than most people do (we call this systems thinking – which is emerging as one of the main skills required for sustainable design)
Watch this
Netflix have run two series on the Art of Design – the first series is now also available on YouTube – I recommend watching a different episode every week. This week I recommend this video about Platon. Platon is a photographer and what I love about this episode is the stories he tells. If you have access to Netflix, I would also recommend the series 2 episode on Neri Oxman and Bio Architecture. https://youtu.be/BDpqt-haLLM
Time to have a go
In every session there will be activities to try out.
Activity 1 (1 hour)
Pick a household object and think about it in the context of the 7Rs
Draw it.
Now around it write down the 7 headings and answer the following questions:
Rethink – do I need it? How could I live without it?
Refuse – what’s it made from? Could it be made from something less energy intensive or renewable (does the material it’s made from grow on trees?)
Reduce – how could I achieve the same job using less?
Reuse – when it’s no longer required can it be reused as something else? What? How could the design be changed to make it easier to reuse it?
Repair – if it broke can it be repaired? If so how easily? By you? By a trained technician (I refuse to use the word engineer here – hope that’s OK) – and how cost effective will this be?
Recycle – If it can’t be repaired or reused can the materials be separated and recycled? And if so how easy will it be? Or is it easier to just throw it away (note there isn’t really an away – we live on one planet and we only have what we have)?
Recover (energy) – If we can’t recycle the materials can we as a minimum extract back out the locked energy to make energy for other purposes – could we burn it in a waste to energy plant?
Now pick one of the 7 Rs and come up with a new design which improves on this aspect of the design. Draw the solution. And add notes to explain how it has addressed the question you asked.
Activity 2 – Keep a creative scrap book (1 hour)
Hopefully by now your sketch book should be feeling quite full. Have a flick back through the pages. Maybe add some notes. Maybe you notice things about the design and drawings you didn’t notice at the time.