A Question of Design (2002)
William McDonough and Michael Braungart
- The Industrial Age (Titanic) – a potent rep of technology, prosperity, luxury, and progress
- Infrastructure, powered by brutish and artificial sources of energy that are environmentally depleting – nature vs. science
o Attempts to work at own rules, contrary to those of nature
- Design of production in Industrial Revolution results in harm to the public and environment – not mutually beneficial
- Industrialists, engineers, and designers tried to solve problems against nature not with nature
- Textile Industry – crafts people working individually as side venture to farming
- Industrial Rev lead to new institutions – like fine artists doing design as a side venture
- Rise of amateurs – master/apprentice lost – trade schools, one task jobs – also like design
- A fear for a civilization whose aesthetic sensibility and physical structures were being reshaped by materialistic designs
o A call for good, community and environmentally friendly design
- Production of luxuries before Industrial boom
o Now mass production for masses
- Centralization – everything including production under one roof
o The Assembly Line
- Natural “Capital” – ore, timbre, water, grain, cattle, coal, land – raw materials for the production
- Factory locations
- “Built-in Obsolence” – to last only for a certain period of time
o Industrial design linear – use resources, produce, waste
- Architects – International Style – reaction against ornate – reflect meaning/good aesthetics
o Today – does not reflect space – loss of content/abstract
McDonough and Braungart examine the rise and influence of the Industrial Revolution and how it’s design has affected consumers and the environment. They view the achievement of infrastructure as artificial source of energy that are environmentally depleting. The industrialist designers used natural resources to create artificial chemical and materials to overcome the issues we faced with nature. Because they came up with solutions that contradict nature instead of coping with nature, we have created an unhealthy environment detrimental to nature. Also according to the article most manufacturers create products with a “built-in-obsolence”, which causes the product to last only for a certain period of time. This encourages a “throw away” culture that persuades consumers to compete to obtain the “newest” (often slightly altered) product.
The industrial revolution has lead to a lifestyle of convenience has lead companies to take advantage of the consumer. Designers have the opportunity to create more adherent to the environment needs. Designers stray away for convenience and start to design using the environment to positively encourage the public to consume smart and in an environmentally conscious fashion. If companies work with designers to make specifically environmentally friendly/recyclable products then consumer will want to spend money on expensive products that are actually useful and long lasting.
Speculative Prehistory of Humanity (1981)
Buckminster Fuller
- Gossamer Albatross – use of new materials allows a feat in production
- Average house-house lifestyle inefficient
o Wastes 95/100 units of energy consumed
- Geometric shapes allow for maximum efficient energy capacity – Bauhaus!
- Accomplish greater performance with less materials – “less is better”
- Energy invisible to human eye – less conscious
- The Invisible Revolution
o Feasible and can take care of everybody on Earth at a “higher standard of living”
- Livingry – human-life advantaging and environment controlling
- Bureaucracies’ strength derived from false promises
- Humanity does not understand the language of science
- Nature always economical and beneficial
- World’s powers keep humanity divided to hold power and create competition – of consumption
Fuller describes how innovations of new materials used correctly can lead to extraordinary feats, unfortunately the consumer lifestyle if flawed and environmentally inefficient. Fuller exclaims that the average household wastes 95/100 units of energy consumed. This shocking statistic is not the consumer fault but the design of industrial materials and production. The products being built today are made to obtain the greatest amount of energy for maximum performance, but not all of the energy is used or conserved. Fuller claims the issue of energy being invisible has created a less conscious consumer. He calls for an Invisible Revolution that would allow production with the use of fewer lbs and volumes of material, ergs of energy, and seconds of time to create a “higher standard of living”. Fuller strongly believes that “less is more”. With innovations of new materials and technologies factories should be able to produce energy and environmentally efficient products. This Bauhaus mindset of creating good quality and aesthetically pleasing products with bare essentials can lead to a revolution of production. He stresses the need for humanity to understand the language of science to create environmentally conscious manufactures and consumers. We should begin to work with nature in order to overcome social issues.
The Sincerest Form of Flattery: On The Virtues of Imitating Nature (2009)
Janine Benyus
- NJ native (1958)
- Book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997)
o Created a new path for industrial designers
o Teaches engineers, scientists, and inventors how to “consult life’s genius to create sustainable designs”
- “Biomimicry” – the practice of borrowing nature’s design principles to create more-sustainable products and processes
o Look for solutions in nature first
- AskNature.org, resource of anyone looking for nature’s answer to a design problem
o Designers can use to contact biologists
- “Nature-inspired sustainable technologies”
o Made affordable and available in developing nations
- “Foraging life style”, sharing resources with neighbors and obtaining nearly all food locally
- Industrial Ecology, looks at ecosystems as models for new economic patterns
- Nature’s non-toxic ways of adhering
- Language as lyrical as possible in order to adequately describe it
o Try to know all scientific languages and be a good translator in order to communicate with clients – designers
- Do NOT need more energy – need a change in behavior
- Life and nature operate on small amounts of energy
- Organisms use forces of nature to solve problems – why can’t we?
o Flies – resin; hawks – vortex
o Whale flipper turbines
o Solar cells based on photosynthesis/moth eyes
o Coral and shells for cement/adhesives
- “Co-evolutionary loops”, relationships that increase both species’ rate of adaptation
- Lotus Effect, self cleaning
- “Green Chemistry” – an alternative to industrial chemistry
o Uses a small and friendly subsets of elements and employs elegant recipes to combine them
o Water as solvents vs. sulfuric acids
- “Green Architecture” – determine function of building, refer to nature with how functions are solved naturally
o Building should deliver same level of ecological services as the intact ecosystem that it’s displacing
o Plant root structures for building foundations
Janine Benyus explains how her book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997) has inspired industrial designers to design more environmentally. She describes “biomimicry” as the practice of borrowing nature’s design principles to create more sustainable products and processes. The idea is to use nature’s answers and apply them to our own social, environment, and scientific issues. She explains how our issues and ideas are not necessarily new and have been solved before cooperating with nature. The goal is create a new revolution of “nature-inspired sustainable technologies”, which is being done by biologists and designers today. With websites like AskNature.org, which brings designers and biologists together to solve issues and create new products using natural design, the production of adhesives and cements are being created using non-toxic chemicals like those found in coral. The methods are using “green chemistry” to use those elements and combinations of elements that will have little to no effect on the environment. We as designers and consumers should being to live co-evolutionary with our surrounding environments, our fellow humans, and other organisms. It is time for us to become consciously aware of our affects on the environment and become more responsible. We should put aside competition of good and begin to consume to help one another and to fully understand the environment. The goal is to, “know all scientific languages and be a good translator in order to communicate with each other,” this concept is directly in relation to designers who have the upmost ability to examine and fully understand ideas and concepts and to communicate these ideas to the masses. Every consumer can become an well-informed designer and begin to understand the necessary functions of issues and use only products that are not frivolous or detrimental to our health and environment.
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