Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm a little late to this conversation, and I have to ask forgiveness
because my schedule hasn't yet allowed me to read much of the book in
detail.

But I haven't yet found what I, specifically, was looking for - a
discussion of design as a process of creating something other than an
"artifact."  

I should explain, by way of background, that I am a landscape
architecture student who also works for a mid-sized landscape
architecture firm.  And I'm in the final throes of my thesis project,
hence the schedule problems.  

My personal feeling is that discussions about design among the lay
public tend to be somewhat limited to discussions of design as a
process of creating consumer products.  The popular press about design,
for understandable reasons, is very focused on buying stuff.  

Discussion of architecture in the book is fairly limited and (as far
as I could tell) seems to lump architecture together with other ways of
creating an "artifact", i.e., a building.  Which in itself seems to me
a very limiting way of looking at architecture, and it is even less
useful as a way of looking at landscape architecture, urban design, and
the other interrelated fields in which I work.  

There's a very short few pages in the book on "public design", which I
found a bit disappointing.  It seems to me that so much else in the
book represents a critique and a plea for design to be more mindful of
contextual issues that are not valued by the marketplace, but the
discussion of stakeholder ownership, public design, etc. takes place
only over a few short pages.

(And I just have to say the constant repetition of the word
"landscape" throughout the book really confused me on first glance
until I realized it was a title for a sidebar and not really a heading
for discussions of actual "landscape"!)
  

    
And I just have to say - I LOVED the ecological literacy quiz (i.e.
bioregional literacy)  on page 172.  I think I got a passing grade -
barely! - and I've spent years up to my eyeballs in learning about
these kinds of issues for the place that I live, Los Angeles.  That
quiz is not something I've run across elsewhere.

As a follow-on to that comment, I was wondering if you are familiar
with the efforts to develop "LEED for Landscapes," what is now called
the Sustainable Sites initiative.  As you may be aware, LEED ratings
are not currently available for landscapes, only for buildings (there
we are back in the "thing" problem again.)   The Sustainable Sites
initiative, among other goals, is seeking to develop a set of
guidelines that will be bioregionally appropriate.  I'm not familiar
with initiatives in the UK that are comparable, and I suppose you don't
have quite as many bioregions to deal with as we do!  But I'd be
curious to know whether there are similar efforts going on in other
countries.
  

    
Oh oh, now I'm a bit behind on the responses, so let me try to catch
up...
First to Robert's question about skills, and the revolutionaries who
identify and flag wave about the problem versus those who actually get
on with solving the problem. Are they different skill sets? This is an
interesting question. I’ve been thinking about it over the past day and
trying to think of some cases, such as William McDonough. He seems to
have been successful at naming the problem, but also engaging in a lot
of “solutions” work. 

The same could be said of some of the more nameless in-house designers
at Nike (regardless of what you think of them overall, they are doing
some interesting work) or Patagonia. I also see design nonprofit groups
springing up, such as Design that Matters or Architecture for
Humanity, that both raise awareness of problems while also presenting
design solutions, sometimes mobilizing other designers as well. Victor
Papaneck also designed solutions, as did Buckminster Fuller, so I’m not
sure the division of skills/labor really holds in the field of design.


Were you thinking of some specific design examples?

The bigger question you ask remains: exactly what skills make one
suited to raise awareness of the issue effectively and productively
present solutions?

 
  

    
It seems to me, at least in architecture, that the top designers 
don't get where they are without being what they call in Hollywood
"being good in the room."  They have to be able to talk about their
process and their vision, in a word, be able to sell themseles, in
order to get the job in the first place.

Further to the skill of being able to sell yourself and get the job is
the job of managing the actual process for the best outcomes, which is
both technically and politically complex.  So there needs to be both
an effective interdisciplinary design team and effective leadership of
that team.

But I would expand the question even further and ask, not just How do
we get that juicy job and do it well, but how do we make sure the kinds
of jobs we want are on offer?  Then you're getting into the area of
public advocacy.  If we want to design (for example) parks that have
multiple cultural and ecological functions, but the requests for
proposal that we see are all for limited and conventional scopes, how
do we create that kind of work in the first place? 

I am not sure how all of the above might apply to product design,
except to say that it seems to me the question might be not just How
can I build and sell a better mousetrap to meet consumer demand, but
How do I as a designer help shape consumer demand and how might I
channel it in a more positive direction?
  

    
Yes and there are the elements of "consumer" at both the individual
consumer level and the "client" level. There is also, in the book, the
central debates about sustainability, one of which is "who is
responsible" (p. 196 likely suspects are government, designer,
producer, consumer).

and I agree that making sure there are the kinds of jobs you want
(sustainability-wise) on offer does involve advocacy, indeed activism.
This is my current area of research and I've written some more about it
on my blog http://designactivism.net.
  

    
Regarding the term conservation – is it a cornerstone of designer’s
understanding of sustainability? It is in part. I think if we look at
nature’s model, then we see that sustainability stems from the ability
to both conserve and innovate. In the book I say, “nature sustains
itself by conserving its ability to adapt to change.” This is not the
notion that many people would have of “conservation” – it has a more
static connotation along the lines of conserving a supply by not using
it. What is your interpretation of the term?

I discuss (from about page 48) the idea of living systems in which
conditions for “life” may vary and yet still be viable, as well as how
some ecologists think of ecosystems in four phase cycles, one of which
is destruction. 

As to using the term, I guess I try to use more specific terms when I
can, so perhaps if the meaning is to conserve by not using, then I
would say preserve, but sometimes the meaning might be to conserve by
reducing impact, by restoring or by being responsive (eg passive
cooling instead of mechanical cooling). This may be why it doesn’t turn
up so much in the book, and because it doesn’t turn up that much it is
not indexed (oh but we did try hard with the index but it’s not
perfect!)

I was conscious of avoiding jargon and trying to use accessible
language, for example not using terms like “environmental externality,”
but I don’t recall consciously avoiding the word “conservation.” 
  

    
Back to Anne's comments...Thanks for all those comments from a
landscape architecture perspective.  I realize that landscape
architecture is at the very boundary of the audience for this book, and
urban design and planning are generally outside the boundary of the
audience. Architecture is also probably not at the center, but not as
far out on the boundary as the others. 

The book is admittedly artifact-focused since that is the focus that
many designers have and the one I am familiar with. I did make a
conscious decision not to get in to either “systems design” on the one
hand or into “service design” on the other. (The movement in product
design is somewhat toward the idea of replacing individually owned
products with services that those products deliver eg who actually
wants a drill? most of us just want the hole). 

Are those—systems and services-- what you are thinking of when you say
“a discussion of design as a process of creating something other than
an artifact." ?

Although I think these areas (systems and services) are important, I’m
not in the school that thinks artifact designers can automatically
design them. Artifact designers get little if any training in
hospitality or customer care, for example, two elements central to
service design. 

I’m not sure what training they would need to design systems, but
beyond perhaps seeing a building or a product as a system, I don’t
think they are getting “system design skills” as part of their training
now. This is not to say they can’t do it, only that they are not
necessarily more suited to it. What do others perceive?
  

    
In re conservation, I think William McDonough makes a pretty crucial
point there - that "be less bad" isn't useful (or attractive) as an
ideal.  Especially since you can only follow it down the road so far
before you start getting to the logical conclusion that we really ought
to get rid of ourselves entirely!  Versus the ideas of "upcycling,"
"technical nutrients," etc. - that maybe there's a way for us to have
stuff and do stuff that doesn't inevitably lead to a more or less
negative conclusion.

With regard to landscape architecture, urban design, landscape
urbanism, regenerative landscape design, etc. etc., a somewhat more
user-friendly word that we toss around a lot is "placemaking."  Which
is not just laying out a site design that responds to specific site
conditions, and is not just creating artifacts, and is not just
creating systems or "services", but combines elements of all of these.

(And really, properly considered, architecture works this way too - or
it should.  I don't think Le Corbusier's ideal of an architecture that
is completely free from the shackles of local conditions is in keeping
with today's ideas of sustainable architecture...)
  

    
LEED for Landscapes interests me. Might one of you, Ann or (nitpicker), say
more about sustainability standards for place/space, rather than buildings?

It strikes me that the USGBC made early inroads, and makes inroads still, in
urging LEED adoption by arguing, "Really, it's in your interests as the
owner. A LEED-certified building is more efficient, hence, cheaper to run
and maintain, so you get paid back for any premium in the near term. And
going for actual LEED means you *know* you're getting the efficient building
and can (maybe) measure the return."

But, whereas in building, "green" = "efficient" kinda sorta, for land use,
the green benefits are more likely to be externalities. In which case, the
"it's in your interests" persuasion won't fly.


Is that right? If so, how does LEED for Landscape get traction? If not, wise
me up.
  

    
I have to say I have not followed the LEED for Landscapes development.
In the UK we have a building rating system BREEAM which I perceive to
be slightly less good than LEED (at least that is what some colleagues
say but I don’t know the intricacies). I should point out that I am
American and was involved with the Northwest chapter of the USGBC back
in 1999/2000.

I have so far not heard anything of BREEAM addressing landscapes.
Bumbaugh has a good question though—my guess is that there are still a
lot of cost savings to capture in terms of going with the environment
rather than against it (eg less watering, less chemical treatment, less
maintenance, less brute force infrastructure such as culverts, more
synergism with strategic shading, with people’s health and so forth..?)


RE placemaking, it is a useful term and it does capture that "je ne
sais quoi" of the architecture scale of design. It works less well for
smaller, shorter-life artifacts. Sometimes people talk about needing to
design these artifacts for "experience" (eg the user's experience),
but that seems to fall short of what "placemaking" captures. 

This points out how our terminology can be an issue. People don't like
the term sustainability, or conservation, etc. I've said in the book I
don't think the terms "user" and "consumer" are that helpful in moving
toward sustainability.

The terms can frame the debate, in the way McDonough has "framed"
efficiency as "being less bad." We can look for other ways to do this--
the other day I was talking with some people about fair trade products
and someone said it creates the picture in your mind that "fair trade"
is on a higher plane and all other products are "normal." Whereas if
you think about it, fair trade should be the "norm" and all other
products should be viewed as exploitative, unfair trade. 

I suppose this is sort of happening with the climate change issue,
where people are beginning to talk about goals of climate stability and
climate leadership. The reframing needs to happen on many more issues,
and more broadly, I think.

(I haven't forgotten P. Starck, more later)
  

    
> The book is admittedly artifact-focused 

I have no facts to back this up, but I get the feeling that it's
artifacts in the form of consumer goods and clothing and lifestyle
that are the biggest problem with sustainability.  Example: My
neighborhood is mostly 1950s brick houses with the original
single-pane windows and central air/heat.  Nothing about these houses
is "green" except for the moss.

However, my neighborhood is filled with SUVs that probably get 15mpg
on a good day and most of my neighbors drive those a few miles into
the city instead of taking the bus.  Every week I see heaps and piles
of consumer goods that can't be recycled -- broken kid furniture made
of plastic, crappy home furnishings that can't be repaired, and all
sorts of stuff made of plastic that's going straight to the landfill.
(Some times it isn't plastic crap.  My wife, ever the observant
thrift-store skimmer, came home with a beatup wooden chair the other
day.  "Look what I found that someone left out for garbage!"  "Uh, a
crappy department store dining chair?"  "No, A REAL Stickley dining
chair!")

So on the one hand, I think LEED and the like are very important for
new buildings, but on the other hand, I think it's planned
obsolescence and product design -- clothing, automobile, consumer
electronics, etc -- that's destroying our environment.

Ann, am I off-base here?  Or is there data somewhere to back up my
speculation?
  

    
wouldn't it depend on which yardstick of "green" you're using -
buildings account for say 65% of energy use, 30% of raw materials use,
30% of waste output.   those numbers are for the US and are from the
USGBC; dunno where you'd find comparable numbers for consumer goods. as
for what accounts for more toxic contamination of our environment -- ?

bumbaugh, you can find out more about the Sustainable Sites initiative
at <www.sustainablesites.org>.  it's several years off from becoming
part of LEED but that is the ultimate endpoint of the process.

what Ann is calling "going with the environment instead of against it"
pretty much sums it up - another way to put it is a commonly used term
"nature's services", or as an acquaintance of mine calls it, green AS
infrastructure rather than greening infrastructure.  part of it is
"being less bad" - wasting less water, using fewer chemical inputs -
but another and more interesting part is harnessing the beneficial
functions of landscape for things like getting stormwater runoff to
recharge aquifers, harnessing the ability of healthy soil systems to
sequester carbon, and recognizing the benefits to human health of
landscape features.

I know I keep harping on that handy little phrase "be less bad" but to
me it's so useful as a way to express the limitations of the way we
often understand sustainability.  is human ingenuity the problem or the
solution?  is our desire for cool new stuff original sin or is it
something that can be actively beneficial?
  

    
I think of conservation as more of a practical management of resources, one
facet of which is recognizing limitations of resources and controlling
consumption to prevent depletion. This definition is, of course, very close
to some definitions of sustainability. The static definition of not using a
supply in order to conserve it is a subset of the management definition in
cases where the supply is being over-exploited, and needs to be used in
conjunction with other managerial tools such as technological evolution.

It seems, though, that conservation has been redefined as a negative (not
unlike other words such as "liberal" or "feminist" in some circles) even as
consumption has changed from a destructive term to a neutral or even
positive description.  That's unfortunate, as the word "conservation" could
itself be a bridge to true environmental conservatives who have been
silenced on the right over the last couple of decades.

Starck's  comments at TED, which I learned about in this topic, make me
wonder if he realized that both the managerial and static interpretations of
conservation are incompatible with the current economic/cultural system he
designs for. I have had a similar epiphany in my own career, and I will soon
quit and return to school in order to realign my professional life with my
personal ethics.
  

    
>Were you thinking of some specific design examples?

The bigger question you ask remains: exactly what skills make one
suited to raise awareness of the issue effectively and productively
present solutions?<

I was actually looking down stream, beyond the presentation of
solutions to execution, particularly on a large scale.  When large
numbers of people need to be educated, mobilized and managed over a
long period of time implementations skills are needed.  

I think that an argument can be made that the future is dependent more
on implementation skills than on ideas and designs.  The core of the
argument is that implementation skills are largely responsible for what
what we have now.  Replacing the now with something better will
require those with implementation skills.  These skills exist in most
developed form in producing the now and maintaining same.  

Can these skillful implementers be attracted to sustainability or can
those interested in sustainability be developed into skillful
implementers?  Keep in mind that the skillful implementers of the now
will be a significant aspect of the challenge for the skillful
implementers of sustainability.


 
  

    
Ok let me catch up a bit...It does seem like Starck has had some sort
of  epiphany, although admittedly I am still trying to make time to
look closely at what he said. I like this thread about the skillful
implementers so let me come back to that after i have a chance to think
a bit (overnight here).

At the moment I am prepared to go back to that issue of building
versus product...I haven’t seen numbers on how much buildings
contribute to environmental impacts versus how much products/vehicles
and other, ostensibly shorter life artifacts contribute. This is a
difficult question. As Anne says it depends on how you measure it (eg
are you looking at toxins or carbon? Loss of topsoil or solid waste
floating in the sea?). 

I think it’s not surprising that industrial designers would see
products as the biggest culprit and architects/built environment people
would see that as the biggest culprit, since each knows best the
“awful” truths about their own field.

I think the bottom line is that it is essential that we address both
types of artifacts—in synergistic ways where possible. In some ways
they’re not so different. If you think about it, buildings are
assembled from “products” like door handles, wall board and light
fixtures etc. Some of the pre fab and prototyping work going on today
suggests that buildings will become increasing like products, for
better or worse (there are some good opportunities associated with pre
fab)

I’ve heard some recent figures in England that suggest new build is
going to overtake existing stock, in areas like housing, within the
next 15 or 20 years, which really surprised me. I’m not sure what the
numbers are in the US.

On the other hand, from a “lifecycle” perspective, we would expect the
“use” phase of a building to be much longer than most typical
products. I’ve seen arguments that a lot of mid to late century
buildings are not lasting anywhere near the length they should given
the resources that go into them. We might also expect buildings, with
their hunks of materials such as wood beams, steel beams etc. to be
much more harvestable at end of life than a typical product.

In product terms there is often an argument for retiring energy-using
products (such as appliances) when more efficient models become
available, but we don’t view buildings this way. It seems more common
to look at retrofitting them as much as possible, and then when that’s
done, add some home-generated renewable energy to bring down to carbon
neutral. 
  

    
>managerial and static interpretations of conservation are incompatible
>with the current economic/cultural system he designs for.

A few months after giving that talk at TED, Starck effectively "gave
notice" as a designer.   He'll spend the next two years fulfilling
contractual obligations (or getting out of them entirely) and then do
something else with his life.
  

    
I do think the retrofitting model changes things a bit for buildings
-- it's much harder to change the motor in my blender for a more
efficient one, for example, than it is to have the windows in my house
replaced with more insulatory ones.

I suspect there's a market opportunity for upgradeable,
cradle-to-cradle house components: buy our windows, and when you need
to replace them, we'll consume the old ones in production of new ones.

That probably doesn't make as much sense for products that typically
last a while (like Jet's neighbors with their 1950's single pane
windows) but surely furnace filters could be consumed.

In that case it doesn't seem like the design or manufacturing problems
are so hard to solve; what seems to be harder is convincing consumers
to become, what, stewards of the products?  To expand Ann's comment
about drills -- I don't actually want windows, I want something that
lets in light and keeps in heat.
  

    
Ah, consumers is another good topic, but I've just got here to the
skillfull implementers. (By the way, Wiggly, I’m glad you had your
epiphany and came into this discussion.) I think perhaps Wiggly’s and
Starck’s epiphanies may suggest a further comment on the topic of
skillful implementers. 

I’m not convinced, actually that implementers all think the way things
are now is that great, even if they are good at implementing it. A lot
of designers I talk to would love to be working on social or
sustainable design agendas, but they are trapped in implementing our
current system—often because they are good at it.

It strikes me you’re really talking about models of change and I tend
to think of systems and networks.  I’ve recently looked at the
implications of digital networks for sustainability and design (my
“bibliography” is at it at
http://www.designers-atlas.net/expandedbook.html in the link “resources
on sustainable design and open source”). And it’s a good case study
for “change.”

People initially assumed that because the internet made it possible
for anyone “produce”/participate, it would transform society and make
sustainability more easily achievable—the ideas, proposals and
infrastructure all showed the potential. A few key examples such as
open source software were the harbingers. 

But parallel to that, in the same way that society at large seems to
privilege one particular vector (economic growth), the internet is also
tending to privilege that vector—and quickly. As someone put it, we
are just paving the dirt road we already travel rather than
transforming our mode of travel. 

But to replace the “now” with something better… if you look at
Barabasi’s work on networks, you realize the serious consequences of
power laws (the 20/80 rule) in which only a few of the nodes (20%) on
the network are really well connected (80% of the links). These are
typically the large commercial networks such as Google, Amazon, Ebay or
Yahoo. We do have Wikipedia...

We are lured into thinking the web is a whole new democratic territory
but really, as in the other parts of the economy (where we “vote” with
our wallets) most of us are too weak (either in dollars or as network
nodes) to be heard. We are largely beholden to commercial search
engines. 

So anyone who wants to implement something better than what we have
now is up against this systemic inertia. So how do we overcome it -- by
BOTH the ideas people and implementation people. Some people might do
both (Linus Torvald?) 

Your description sort of suggests we have a period of “ideas” and then
down the road we have the implementation.  I guess I see the whole
thing as more messy and mixed up, with lots of iteration, cross
fertilization and localization. 

What disturbs me is that if we are led to believe the internet is
primarily a democratizing force, then it may be tempting to “let the
network decide,” that is, assume that good, useful or original
sites/content will become popular, or at least find viewers, on their
merit. But the network is not inherently aligned with sustainability
values. If we want to pursue sustainable development, then we need to
make sure the 20% top hubs are aligned with sustainability values, not
the business values that currently dominate. 

This being the WELL, I’m sure there are some much more informed
insights to be had on this topic, so please set me straight…
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
Also, wanted to add that in the book I do look specifically at this
issue of "change" starting roughly on page 184, where the "levels" of
change start with "system" then go down to "profession" and on down to
individual.

I also look at bit at design inspired by open source methods, starting
roughly on page 144 (raw v cooked)...
  

    
David mentioned consumers and the theme of consumerism/consumption is
turning up in few posts. I mentioned before that there is tension in
the debate of the "reponsibility"...should we rely on the consumer
demand to demand sustainable design? should governments require it?
many designers don't feel empowered to push for it...should activists
lobby for it? Should producers step up and take responsibility? Which
is most important?

There's a lot of interesting work on sustainable consumption going on
here in the UK, with a recognition that we have to move beyond
"informed choice." We can't just improve products, inform consumers of
the better products and hope that they'll choose them. Consumer goods,
and even architectural goods (possibly landscapes too) have
psychological and importantly sociological implications. They provide a
lot of "social meaning" in the absence of other vehicles for meaning
(in the book I discuss this around page 128).

see some of the UK's sus dev commission reports here:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?cats=yes&cat_id=4

To the extent our identities and social relations are tied to consumer
goods, reducing "consumption" becomes much more complex than the
typical public policy recommendations of greening the supply chain and
educating consumers. I recommend Tim Jackson's book, The Earthscan
Reader in Sustainable Consumption, for this topic and I agree with his
analysis that reining in consumption ultimately means finding more
noncommercial means of creating personal and social meaning.
  

    
>Your description sort of suggests we have a period of “ideas” and
then
down the road we have the implementation.  I guess I see the whole
thing as more messy and mixed up, with lots of iteration, cross
fertilization and localization.<

My linear thinking may have been in control for a moment. Sorry.   
  

    
I feel I'm giving overly long responses--sorry for that. I'm not quite
used to this style and the time difference makes it a bit disjointed.
  

    
They seem thoughtful and readable to me!
  

    
Ann, I think long-form replies are perfectly fine given the time
delay.  Some people use the well in realtime almost like AIM/IRC,
others check in to conferences once every day (or two).