Some confusion about the location...
So the week before this, I was in Venezia for the biennale. It was an amazing experience, and as always a beautiful city to be in. I'll write something about the trip soon!
This week, the initial plan was to visit the AVVN Landelijke Organisatie van Hobbytuinders. You can visit their website by visiting the avvn website. Of course...I didn't get the email saying that the trip was cancelled! So I trekked it out in the cold. Soon after I arrived, Wim and a few other unfortunate students who hadn't gotten the news joined me.
It was still very interesting to see, and the building itself was quite beautiful - simple but effective. The idea behind the organisation is also fantastic.
Since the excursion had been cancelled, it was time for us to head back to school!
Once back in class, we spent some time watching tv/film segments about sustainability and the consequences of humankind's actions over the past few hundred years on the world today. There was some very fascinating footage, including snippets from BBC's 'Earth', and Edward Burtynsky's 'Manufactured Landscapes' (Directed by Jennifer Baichwal). Both definitely worth looking up if you haven't seen them before.
Here are some stills from 'Manufactured Landscapes', Edward Burtinsky's photos.
Its hard to pick a definite standpoint, I personally think all aspects are important. But our task is to focus on a few points. In our group, we found the following points important (and I've added some notes of my own to help myself narrow it down to a statement):
Nature
- The obvious - the effect on nature, and how can we minimise this
- Look to processes in nature for inspiration - the life cycle, no waste
Process
- How we do things/produce etc. This has a huge influence on the product as well as its effect on the environment.
- Embodied energy - defined by wikipedia as "the commercial energy (fossil fuels, nuclear, etc) that was used in the work to make any product, bring it to market, and dispose of it."
- Think about he entire process/life cycle - design to decomposition
- Look carefully at the manufacturing/design process to ensure a product can be reused/recycled/reassembled and upscaled throughout its life cycle.
Energy + Materials
- From the standpoint of a designer, looking at how we use materials, what materials we use and if they're the most efficient materials to use.
- Embodied energy of materials
- Recycling, reusing, reassembling
- Reducing our energy consumption
- Reducing our material consumption
- Sourcing on a local scale - food, materials etc. This reduces the embodied energy of a product and supports local/community businesses.
Large Scale
- Looking at the bigger picture. We need to think about the future, and what our effect our actions will have in 10 years...or 100. Long term.
- I believe changes need to be made in all aspects of our life. They might only be small changes, but little act has an effect.
Anyway, just some quick ideas.
And here follow a few links to relevant blogs and films.
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