Eco and Environment

“the history of Earth spans approximately 4.6 billion years.”

https://www.britannica.com/science/geologic-history-of-Earth

‘Geologic History of Earth’. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/geologic-history-of-Earth. Accessed 4 June 2019.

FIRST DIAGRAMS / GRAPHS 

https://ourworldindata.org/forests

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46384067

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X02002205

https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0025326X02002205?token=9E31337636E181B3BB1026A5A1312855F1F73D280FA9DC641CA3DB4185E83C0448B80D9DD0BE52A74AE653A70221AA34

Definition “Mana Taonga–the value of the created world–through art and design.”

“Mana Taonga is as much about “living culture” as it is preservation, and that context needs consideration.”

“Identify one principle to focus on. Position this principle in relation to the issues it is responding to. Research this issue and identify a specific situation and its historical context.”

“Research the ways in which artists and designers have responded with either critiques or sustainable practices and assemble an archive of examples. Consider how approaches that extend from the Hanover Principles have been developed as responses.”

“Identify at least 4 texts from your class readings and own research. Open up a critical conversation between these texts to demonstrate your understanding of the issues and the kinds of practices that may begin to address them.”

“Develop a prototype design or art strategy that responds to these ideas within your field of practice.

(Photography) To do this you will need to identify a local situation to respond to and connect the principles and practices discussed in your essay to a practice based strategy/ articulation.

Principle chosen : Number 6. Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimise the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.

Structure

Intro - 200 words

4 Main Bodies - 500 words

“Whether or not we are interested in the environment or identify with the concept of being ‘an environmentalist’ each of us is entirely dependent on the air we breathe, the food we eat and the environment we inhabit for life.”

“We are embedded within non-human nature1 and dependent on ecological systems for life, but our belief systems do not reflect this basic relationship. Consequently, the world we have designed is deeply unsustainable. Fragmentary thinking is an obstacle to sustainability”

“Design serves a social and political function that is not always acknowledged within the design industry. While there are prominent movements in design working towards socially responsive practice, these efforts are hampered by the manner in which power relations are reproduced by design and the lack of analysis of these dynamics. Design is a practice that functions to mediate social relations. Typically, it reproduces the values and priorities of those who determine which design problems are to be addressed.”

“Part 1: Design introduces the role of design in society. It examines the ways in which design functions to construct and reproduce social relations. It reflects on the potential of design to be a form of symbolic violence. It considers the tensions between design as a practice for social and ecological good and the priorities embedded in the design industry. 

Part 2: Ecology explores the philosophical foundations of ecological thought, its history and exactly what it means to be ecologically literate. It describes how ecological theory informs the practice of design. It introduces ecological principles for design and the concepts of ecological perception and ecological identity. This is the largest part of the book. 

Part 3: Politics examines how the interests of powerful groups are manifested in design and how design can obscure these interests. It deconstructs the narrative of ‘doing good’ in design by examining the effectiveness of various initiatives. It reviews how social marketing, the green economy, technofixes and information visualization all do political things.”

“The three ecologies are reinterpreted in this book (design, ecology and politics). The ordering in the title is not true to type in an ontological sense – but pragmatic: it reflects the order in which I introduce the theory of design, ecology and politics. Designers have expertise in influencing subjectivities. Design is a field that mediates the subjective realm (the mental ecology). Politics describes the ways in which the social realm is organized (the social ecology). Ecological theory considers human relations to the environment (the environmental ecology).”

“By linking social theory and ecological theory to design theory and practice, this work critiques the ways that the design industry – and even many sustainability discourses within the design industry, perpetuates current unsustainable development regimes. When design does engage with issues of sustainability, this engagement typically remains shallow due to a narrow basis of analysis in design theory and education. The situation is made more severe by design cultures that claim to have no politics”

“Due to the scale of current challenges, new ecologically informed technologies and design practices (such as biomimicry, circular economy, renewable energy, life cycle analysis, etc.) must be incorporated into a larger project of political change. The insights from ecological theory can be applied to the political model itself. Design must be informed by both ecological literacy and social theory to help designers critically assess and navigate pathways to sustainability.”

“he design industry plays an important role in the creation of consumer desire – and of neoliberal sensibilities. While encouraging particular ways of thinking, design is also often involved in concealing the impacts of consumer capitalism and in obfuscating power relations. Situated at the hub of industrial production processes designers all too often have a cynical relationship to both consumerism and capitalism – as if there is no alternative.”

“ Climate change is already causing major disruptions in Earth Systems. Warming of the atmosphere and ocean system is unequivocal and associated impacts are occurring at rates unprecedented in the historical record. Climate change presents severe risks and these impacts will become increasingly expensive, difficult and even impossible to mitigate if action is not taken to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Industrial processes are dramatically impacting the Earth. Humankind has not yet learned how to use technology on scale in ecologically benign ways. Over the past forty years, the Living Planet Index (an indicator of the state of biodiversity) has fallen by 52 per cent (WWF 2014, 12). In ‘less than two human generations, population sizes of vertebrate species have dropped by half’ (WWF 2014, 4). At a global level, the yearly ecological footprint takes one and a half years of regenerative capacity or biocapacity to replace (WWF 2014, 9). Thus biocapacity continues to shrink while consumption rates continue to grow. Even the most basic analysis indicates the danger of this situation.”

“We are entering a new geological epoch, that of the Anthropocene, wherein humankind is responsible for altering the functioning of the Earth System (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000; Steffen, Crutzen & McNweill 2007; Zalasiewicz et al. 2015). This power over nature has not been accompanied with the foresight to use technological capacities wisely. In Science, Will Steffen et al. wrote: The relatively stable, 11,700-year-long Holocene epoch is the only state of the ES [Earth System] that we know for certain can support contemporary human societies. There is increasing evidence that human activities are affecting ES functioning to a degree that threatens the resilience of the ES – its ability to persist in a Holocene-like state in the face of increasing human pressures and shocks. (13 February 2015, 737)”

“The Capitalocene The concept of the Anthropocene draws attention to severe environmental problems – but it also does other things. Jason W. Moore asks: ‘Does the Anthropocene argument obscure more than it illuminates?’ (2014, 4). The idea has been critiqued as uncritically importing Western rationality, imperialism and anthropocentrism and thereby narrowing humankind’s options for developing sustainable alternatives (Moore 2014, 2015; Latour 2014; Haraway 2014, 2015). Specific activities are destabilizing climate systems and other planetary boundaries. The Capitalocene is a concept that asserts: ‘the logic of capital drives disruption of Earth System. Not humans in general’ (Solon 2014). Bruno Latour claims: The ‘anthropos’ of the Anthropocene is not exactly any body, it is made of highly localised networks of some individual bodies whose responsibility is staggering . . . this dispersion of the ‘anthropos’ into specific historical and local networks, actually gives a lot of weight to the other candidate for naming the same period of geohistory, that of ‘capitalocene’, a swift way to ascribe this responsibility to whom and to where it belongs. (2014, 139)”

“The Ecocene Beyond the hubris of the Anthropocene and the critique of the Capitalocene, new ways of understanding and organizing social and ecological relations are emergent. Critiquing the ideas, politics and technologies that have contributed to ecological crisis is only a starting point for the work to be done creating ecologically viable ways of living. Design theorist Rachel Armstrong coined the concept of an ‘Ecocene’. The Ecocene shifts focus from the problems to the solutions: ‘There is no advantage to us to bring the Anthropocene into the future . . . The mythos of the Anthropocene does not help us . . . we must re-imagine our world and enable the Ecocene’ (Armstrong 2015).”

“While ecology—in particular, its political dimensions—has received limited attention within academic studies of the visual (and particularly the art historical), in recent years the looming threat of manifold environmental crises, exacerbating sociopolitical and economic ones, has grown ever more evident world- wide. Indeed, there is an increasing sense of urgency within multiple realms of visual culture, including art exhibitions, social movements, and mainstream and independent media, as ecological concerns have been taken up in video, documentary photography, creative activism, architecture, and socially engaged art.”

“incompatible with any reasonable characterization of an organized, equitable and civilized global community.”

“As the scientific journal Nature explains in a recent issue on conservation and extinction, “Thousands of species are dis- appearing each year. If that trend continues, it could lead to a mass species extinction—defined as a loss of 75% of spe- cies—over the next few centuries.” Richard Monastersky, “Biodiversity: Life—A Status Report,” Nature 516 (December 2014): 159. Also see Dahr Jamail, “Climate Disruption’s New Record: Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Highest Point in 15 Million Years,” Truthout, February 29, 2016, http://www.truth- out.org/news/item/22521-climate-disruption-dispatches- with-dahr-jamail. “It indeed becomes difficult to imagine that a peaceful, or- dered society could be sustained (that is, where such a thing exists in the first place).” Kevin Anderson, “Climate Change Going Beyond Dangerous: Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope,” Development Dialogue, no. 61 (September 2012): 29. See the data of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, which puts the current global CO2 atmospheric levels at an alarming 403.94 ppm; accessed March 29, 2016, http://cdiac.ornl.gov.”

“Unlike nonrenewable energy and its ecosystem despoilment, biogenetic capitalism transforms life itself into a prospective infinite source of growth via biotechnology and financial speculation, representing further incursions of neolib- eralism, now directed at colonizing the primordial genetic elements and temporalities (including financializing the futures) of our material existence.27 This corporate-industrial and politico-economic onslaught has not gone unchal- lenged, however.”

“We reaffirm our responsi- bility to speak for the protection world’s natural resources and energy supplies.31 Political ecology necessitates engag- ing with these inequalities of our neocolonial present, just as centuries of colonialism initiated climate change”

“As we know from the 2014 IPCC report, 80 percent of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground if we are to remain under the critical warming threshold of two bottom half of the earth’s popula- tion combined (about 3.5 billion 28 people), just as around ninety cor- porations are responsible for run- ning the fossil fuel economy, and a much smaller number of govern- ments is accountable for the geo- political and humanitarian wars that camouflage control of the degrees Celsius (or more, if we keep it to 1.5 degrees, as recom- 31 mended at the recent COP21), equivalent, as eco-socialist Chris Williams notes, to writing off some US$20 trillion in assets from the largest corporations on the planet, including Exxon- Mobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.”

Beyond Anthropocentrism

As indicated above, decolonizing nature entails transcending human-centered exceptionalism, no longer placing ourselves at the center of the universe and viewing nature as a source of endless bounty. Fields of inquiry that have recently investigated the terms of such a move include speculative realism, new materialism, ecosophical activism, object- oriented ontology, elementary politics, and post-humanism, each variously proposing innovative methodologies of post-anthropocentric analysis.”

Agnes Denes -”pioneered the practice of creating land art pieces that involved functional ecological systems-restoration, as well as socially engaged, activist, community-based interventions.” “Wheatfield, A Confrontation (1982), the Hungarian-American artist planted an entire field of golden wheat on a $4.5 billion two-acre plot of landfill (today, this land is Battery Park City). Over the course of six months”

Mark Dion

“Museums... embody the values of their time. In the 19th century, the polar bear was presented as a fearful monster with sharp claws; nowadays as a vulnerable creature that needs to be protected.’’ “Science is an ever-evolving way of thinking... It’s important that the category of nature is not something the field of science has a monopoly on—that everyone has a say in what gets to be nature, at a particular time, for a particular group of people. In order to motivate people to care about the natural world around us, one of our chief tools is an aesthetic sensibility."

Michael Assiff

“For his show "Ozone Flowers" at Mexico City's Galeria Mascota, Assiff etched a pattern graphing the fluctuations of carbon prices into the drywall of the gallery. A sculpture in the form of a cake-cum-behive, emits an engineered fresh flower scent that scientists found to be more enticing to bees than the scent of actual flowers grown in high-ozone environments.” “ one sculpture in "Ozone Flowers" displays a certified receipt showing that the artist voluntarily purchased carbon offsets to cover his footprint in creating the show.”

Lucy Orta

“developing social systems of engagement for a better tomorrow since 1992 - Her wide-ranging practice includes projects like developing suits for urban lifeguards, emergency shelters for refugees, survival kits, and immense public feasts.”

Kim Laughton

“Using 3D imaging software, the Shanghai-based artist Kim Laughton creates haunting, post-apocalyptic tableaus that tell us of a near-future dystopia. These uncanny situations seem to posit a scenario: What if the world ended today? What would the archaeology of our time look like?”

Mark Dorf

“ In order to respond to the rapid melting of these natural time-capsules, New York-based Dorf travelled to the Pariacaca Glacier in the Peruvian Andes. There, he placed three waterproofed and concrete-cased USB drives containing photographs of the exact spot in which the drive is located, as well as instructions for use in five different languages. In effect, Dorf has created a time capsule for this time capsule, accessible to anyone with a corresponding device. The photographs stored on the drive are inaccessible anywhere else, making them exclusive to those who visit the site.”

 Lee Pivnik

“see biology and evolution to contextualize non-normative sexualities, adaptations, and presentations (the fact that homosexual behavior is found in most animal species contextualizes queerness among humans as a biological norm, rather than abnormality.) And using queer and feminist theory as a framework in which to understand our relationship to the natural world, IQECO produces exhibitions, publications and a yearly journal.”

Natalie Jeremijenko

“An essential step in this reconstruction will be further consideration of design as an extended ecological practice or process, rather than the previously narrow focus on the production, consumption and mediation of discrete, finished artefacts.”

“Manitoga is a largely forgotten proto-ecological design project of the 1950s. However, Manitoga is more than simply a historical site, and is reconsidered here as a project that combines Wright’s ‘creative living’ ideals and design processes, one that remains provocative over fifty years later.”

D. J. Huppatz © The Author [2012]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved. Advance Access publication

“Biophilic design is more than just adding plants to a space, or to frame it another way, adding plants can be a strategy for implementing one pattern, a Visual Connection to Nature.  There are 13 other ways to connect with nature in the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, each with a unique scientific backing and each supporting different psychological or physiological outcomes.”

“A good explanation of those elements or semantic content comes from the work of our colleague and mentor, environmental psychologist, Judith Heerwagen along with Gordon Orlens.  They are responsible for the Savanna Hypothesis, the idea that since the best evidence is that our species arose on the savannas of Africa, it makes sense that we would have a strong preference for places that replicate some of those conditions.”

“As designers, we all too frequently default to how things look, which makes sense as vision is our primary sensory system, however experiences have more impact if they can trigger multiple senses. Most notably, nature sounds have an uncanny ability to calm occupants and draw attention away from other distracting noises rampant in many indoor environments.”

“One very important point about the 14 Patterns is that unlike a traditional pattern language, they are not describing specific design techniques or objects.  Rather, these are 14 different ways of experiencing nature. Each of these patterns can be achieved with multiple different strategies, which can and should be adapted based on the culture and ecology of a specific location. Most importantly, they warrant and celebrate interpretation, through the lens of the designer in response to place.”

“Biophilic design can reduce stress, improve cognitive function and creativity, improve our well-being and expedite healing; as the world population continues to urbanize, these qualities are ever more important - design that reconnects us with nature – biophilic design – is essential for providing people opportunities to live and work in healthy places and spaces with less stress and greater overall health and well-being.”

“Biophilia is the humankind’s innate biological connection with nature.”

Nature in the Space

Visual Connection with Nature. A view to elements of nature, living systems and natural processes.

Non-Visual Connection with Nature. Auditory, haptic, olfactory, or gustatory stimuli that engender a deliberate and positive reference to nature, living systems or natural processes.

Non-Rhythmic Sensory Stimuli. Stochastic and ephemeral connections with nature that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.

Thermal & Airflow Variability. Subtle changes in air temperature, relative humidity, airflow across the skin, and surface temperatures that mimic natural environments.

Presence of Water. A condition that enhances the experience of a place through seeing, hearing or touching water.

Dynamic & Diffuse Light. Leverages varying intensities of light and shadow that change over time to create conditions that occur in nature.

Connection with Natural Systems. Awareness of natural processes, especially seasonal and temporal changes characteristic of a healthy ecosystem.

Natural Analogues

8. Biomorphic Forms & Patterns. Symbolic references to contoured, patterned, textured or numerical arrangements that persist in nature.

9. Material Connection with Nature. Materials and elements from nature that, through minimal processing, reflect the local ecology or geology and create a distinct sense of place.

10. Complexity & Order. Rich sensory information that adheres to a spatial hierarchy similar to those encountered in nature.

Nature of the Space

11. Prospect. An unimpeded view over a distance, for surveillance and planning.

12. Refuge. A place for withdrawal from environmental conditions or the main flow of activity, in which the individual is protected from behind and overhead.

13. Mystery. The promise of more information, achieved through partially obscured views or other sensory devices that entice the individual to travel deeper into the environment.

14. Risk/Peril. An identifiable threat coupled with a reliable safeguard.

Pattern as Precedent

“The descriptive term 'pattern' is being used for three reasons:to propose a clear and standardized terminology for biophilic design;to avoid confusion with multiple terms (metric, attribute, condition, characteristic, typology, etc.) that have been used to explain biophilia and biophilic design; andto maximize accessibility across disciplines by upholding a familiar language.”

“Christopher Alexander brings clarity to this intent with his explanation that patterns........describe a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice."

Understanding biomimicry

“Humans have always studied nature, drawing guidance and inspiration from it to better understand themselves and their relationship to the world around them (Vogel, 1998, pages 18–19). Leonardo da Vinci and Otto Lilienthal, for example are described as some of history’s most famous biomimics (Pawlyn, 2011, page 5). In the term ‘biomimicry’, ‘bio’ comes from the Greek ‘bios’ meaning life, and ‘mimicry’ is from ‘mimesis’ meaning imitation (Benyus, 1997). ‘biomimicry’ probably originates from the work of multidisciplinary scientist Otto Schmitt (1913–1998), who first used it in a published paper in 1969, though it might have been in use as early as 1962 (Bensaude-Vincent et al., 2002). ‘Bio- mimicry’ was popularised by the 1997 book Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature by biologist Janine Benyus. She described biomimicry in three parts: using ‘nature’s models’ as inspiration for designs that seek to solve human problems; using ecological standards to judge the effectiveness of innovations; and using biomimicry as a way to redefine how humans relate to nature (Benyus, 1997).”

“Mimicking organisms or ecosystems is an expanding field of research in both academic and design discourse. Rapid increases in biological knowledge have dramatically increased human capacity to understand and mimic nature in more meaningful and accurate ways and have been crucial to the emergence of bio- mimicry.”

“There are three main motivations behind using biomimicry. First, biomimicry can be seen as a source of innovation in the creation of new materials and technologies. Most biomimetic research and patents relate to this factor and are not necessarily concerned with improving the ecological performance of human technology. Rather, they are about novel approaches to technical problems, increased performance capabilities, or the ability to increase economic profit margins (Wahl, 2006). This is termed here ‘biomimicry-for-innovation’.”

“Second, there is a rise in interest in the potential of biomimicry as a way to create more sustainable materials, products, built environments, and engineering solutions. This is termed here biomimicry-for- sustainability. There is little quantitative evidence to suggest that the act of mimicking an organism in design is in itself a means to achieve greater sustainability (Reap et al., 2005)”

“The discussion of innovation as a means to increase sustainability is not, however, set within a wider context where it is understood that technological advancements on their own are unlikely to result in a human society with less negative ecological impact”

“Finally, the third and probably least explored motivation for exploring bio mimicry comes from researchers and designers who examine whether design based on an understanding of the living world could contribute to increasing human psychological wellbeing, due to its relationship to the concept of biophilia”

“Confusion between the first kind of biomimicry and the second is caused when examples of biomimicry that are cited by people advocating it as a method to increase sustainability have been sourced from researchers and designers who employ biomimicry only as a means of generating technical innovation. Some biomimicry related to innovation has resulted in products or materials that do not appear to be related to a larger sustainability agenda, but instead are more aligned with increasing the unsustainable exploitation of, or perpetuating dam- age to, both ecosystems and people.”

“It maps elements of bio-inspired design onto the three motivations for biomimicry described earlier: technological innovation; increased sustainability; and increased human wellbeing.”

‘Bionics’ is often a more technologically oriented approach to designing from nature not generally concerned with broader sustainability issues or positively changing the relationship between humans and ecosystems.

“Biomechanics ‘looks at the technology of life and the mechanical world of nature’) and relates primarily to the transfer of mechanical solutions in biology to an engineering context. This again denotes that ‘biomechanical’ solutions are typically innovative for the sake of technological advancement rather than for increasing the sustainability of designed artefacts and habitats. The term ‘functional morphology’ is also used to describe ‘biomechanics”

Biomimicry as part of regenerative design

‘Tools and technologies exist within the context of an ideology and are used generally to further or maintain its intentions advocating the use of the living world as a source of inspiration can have very different philosophical foundations and ultimately different ideological aims and political goals.”

“The anthropocentric view, cemented in westernised cultures over the past 500 years (Bosworth et al., 2011), seeks to understand nature in order to extract as many ‘resources’ as possible for human industry, and to control, exploit or con- quer its complexity and diversity rather than work with it.”

“Wahl (2006, page 290) explains the implications of such a view:

The root cause of the utter unsustainability of modern civilisation lies in the dualistic separation of nature and culture. It is in nature that all peoples and all species unite into a community of life. Yet culture is commonly conceived of as apart from nature, rather than a part of nature.”

“Allen (2002, page 125) points out:

Much as organisms are particularly comfortable and useable in biology because of their tangibility . . . buildings may have a similar role to play in concretising abstractions about the human social condition. Thus, build- ings may be a particularly useful intellectual device for furthering our under- standing of energetics and the interface between biology, sociology, and economics.”

“Approaches to designing with biomimicry”

 Approaches to biomimicry as a design process typically fall into two categories. The first is ‘design referencing biology’. This is when a human need or design problem is first defined, and then the ways other organisms or ecosystems solve this problem is explored for potential inspiration. The second approach is ‘biology influencing design’. This refers to biomimicry where a particular characteristic, behaviour or function in an organism or ecosystem is identified and is then translated into a human design context.”

“Biology influencing design”

“When biological knowledge influences human design, the collaborative design process is initially dependent on people having relevant biological or ecological knowledge rather than on determined human design problems. The translation from a biological context can be intentional or accidental.”

“Determining which aspect of ‘bio’ has been ‘mimicked’ is referred to here as a ‘level’. There are three levels of mimicry: organism, behaviour and ecosystem. The organism level refers to a specific organism like a plant or animal and may involve mimicking part of or the whole organism. The second level refers to mimicking behaviour and may include translating an aspect of organism behaviour, or relationship to a larger context into human design. The third level is the mimicking of whole ecosystems and the common principles that allow them to work successfully, or their actual functions.”

“The aim of this chapter was to clarify the various types of biomimicry that commonly exist or could be explored in the future, so that distinctions between different kinds of biomimicry and their potential sustainability outcomes could be made. In order to do this, a framework for understanding how biomimicry can be applied to design and what sustainability outcomes could be predicted from their application was devised (Table 2.1).

“The Nature of Biomimicry

The biomimicry movement emerged around Benyus’s (1997) publica- tion of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Although Benyus did not invent the term biomimicry, her book popularized it while articulating the initial principles of a biomimicry method”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry To paraphrase Benyus, if we look at the way living organisms exist, we find that nature has been building, processing cellulose, optimizing packing space, waterproofing, heating, and cooling structures. But unlike us nature has been doing these things with great elegance, minimum energy use, and without fouling the environment. One of the most often cited examples of biomimicry is the emulation of the kingfisher bird’s beak on the front of high-speed trains in Japan as a way of eliminating the buildup of atmo- spheric pressure as the train passes through tunnels”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry But biomimicry is not just about optimizing technological design. It presents itself as a social movement in every sense of the word. It insists that we become “nature’s apprentice,” with the emphasis not only on nature as a source of genuine knowledge of craft but, more importantly, as an ethical system. Biomimicry thus aspires to be not just a technique but also a new science of nature that will inform a novel and ethical political, economic, and social order.”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry At the same time, biomimicry distills the central theme of sustainability, which is that there is a “nature” out there that we can learn from, whose so-called intelligent design holds the secrets to the survival and future well-being of the human race.”

“The Nature of Biomimicry Biomimicry is thus not antiscience. Rather, it is against a Science (with a capital S) that Benyus perceives as an expression of Enlightenment thinking in which nature is treated as a field of competition and dominance.”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry Biomimicry distinguishes itself from these forms of political ecology in its attempt to develop a conceptual methodology and technological apparatus for discovering and mimicking organic design. Design, in this regard, is understood to encompass three Fisch 801 interrelated dimensions: the functionality of an organism’s morphology, its constitutive processes, and its mode of entanglement with its milieu.”

“The Nature of Biomimicry Benyus describes biomimicry’s object as mimicking an organism’s blueprints, its chemical recipes, and its ecosystem strategies”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry mimicking organic forms and processes does not necessarily guarantee an ethical outcome. Or, as Benyus puts it, one might use the taxonomy to derive an entirely biomimetic solution for producing a new kind of fabric and yet still have “missed the point” by exploiting sweat- shop labor to weave it and then “[load] it onto pollution-spewing trucks and [ship] it long distances.”

The Limits of Mimicry

“The Nature of Biomimicry While it is hard to find fault with biomimicry’s underlying intentions, its lack of critical reflection on its method and categories make it complicit on many levels with the very structures of dominance (social and natural) that it claims to overcome.”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry hile biomimicry reproduces the Cartesian dualisms that it claims to overcome, it conceals this in order to maintain (n)ature as an ontologically distinct and pristine domain divorced from human society— which it can then look to as an alternative source for (intuitive) design concepts and principles.6 Its assertion, in this regard, is that access to this domain must be unmediated by human reason and its corollary constructs of power and knowledge.”

Neomaterialism

“ The Nature of Biomimicry . While building on traditional materialism, the “neo” of neomaterialism denotes a postvitalist proposition whereby what animates matter is explained through theoretical physics rather than attributed to a spirit or essence.8 At the same time, neomaterialism wants to move beyond the social constructivist under- standing of matter offered by Marx as well as think in nondialectics terms that, in opposition to conventional historical materialism, allow for an emergence without the presupposition of a negative force. But at its core, neomaterialism is an ethical project that develops an alternative conceptual premise to civil liberal society that is founded on the valorization of reason and the agency of the autonomous rational subject who organizes nature into civilization”

Material Ecology

“ The Nature of Biomimicry After Benyus, Oxman was the second most anticipated speaker at the Bio- mimicry Summit. Combining fashion design with academic sophistication and flair, Oxman embodies her work.”

“ The Nature of Biomimicry Oxman described material ecology as an emerging field that treats mate- rials as living organisms. The focus of the field, as she told it, is to under- stand “the relationship between different materials, between matter and the environment, and between objects and other objects.” 

“ The Nature of Biomimicry We have the architects or the designers that are forming the form and we have engineers that are doing simulations or analysis, whether structural or environmental, and we have the fabricators or construction workers who are fabricating the actual piece, whether a 3-D printer, laser printer or what not. So the whole process takes place after form has been preconceived and after the engineer has done the calculations.”

Thinking Ethics with the Silkworm

“Oxman began her silk pavilion project with mimicry. The idea, as Oxman relayed it to the Biomimicry Summit audience, was to extract the silkworm cocoon design and reproduce it for a human scale as a concept architecture piece using a 3-D printer. Oxman and her team went about this by gluing a tiny magnet to the head of a silkworm in order to map digitally the pattern of its cocoon spinning process. Once mapped, the pattern was to be translated to the 3-D printer, which would then produce the cocoon for a larger human scale of habitation.”

“The Nature of Biomimicry What this [Oxman’s work] shows is that we are in process of learning from other fabricators and we have other fabricators making things for us. If you are wearing cotton, a plant made it for you. If you had honey in your tea, a bee made it for you. That’s bio assisted technology. If you go out and you harvest wild honey or you harvest wild silk that’s bioutilization. You are using something that something else made for you. The next step is for us in biomimicy is for us to learn to do it ourselves . . . . I think what you saw there in the silk pavilion is us learning from those organisms how to do that. There has to be a time when we make our own materials. And we learn their patterns, we learn their process. There’s got to be a day when we make those silk pavillions ourselves. But right now we have to be grateful to other organisms. The other thing is that we want to use their genes, in order to make stuff. I think we have to get away from that as well.”

https://www.core77.com/posts/67026/Designing-to-Eliminate-the-Concept-of-Waste

https://www.eonsolutions.io/blog/learn-to-identify-the-eight-lean-wastes-and-eliminate-them

https://www.setpointusa.com/blog/lean-systems-waste-elimination/

“The Concept of Waste and Waste Management”

1. Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.

2. Recognise interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognising even distant effects. 

3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.

 4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to co-exist. 

5. Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards. 

6. Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimise the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.

 7. Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use. 

8. Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve a l l problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not as an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.

“Quite how such socially and culturally malleable concepts come to be imparted onto particular commodities at particular times is one of the major aims of this chapter.”

“ the styles of the 1960s seem to be fixed in some consumer’s imagination as more classic than those from the 1970s and 1980s, and are seen to embody qualities of craftsmanship, design and attention to detail which were lost with the turn to mass production and large retail capital in the 1970s and 1980s.”

“Conversely, the development of new production processes can signal a downturn in commodity value, as (apparently) more efficient or effective means of production come on stream. Examples here would include the devalorization of hand-knitted and home-made clothing once mechanized industrial production methods were introduced into the clothing industry.”

“ In a rather different way the closure of a particular means of distribution can increase the perceived (and real) value of a commodity, the closure of Mary Quant shops in the late 1970s is a potent example here. And in a rather different way the death of an artist or producer can also have a revalorization effect – the example of Versace’s shooting and the value of Warhol’s Pop Art are cases in point.”

“Clearly here we are seeing the ways in which original commodities which, in their first cycle were bought as cheap throwaway fashions, are revalorized through memory and time to become meaningful treasured items, ciphers for particular memories of particular times”

“Beyond such structural shifts in value that occur as a result of broad economic transformations such as the commodification of culture and production-process changes, however, are a range of more subjective, personalized evaluations of potential commodity worth.”

“The spaces of disposal themselves map onto and parallel individual constructions of commodity value and judgements about appropriate disposal behaviours – that which is defined as rubbish or garbage at a particular moment in time is likely to be discarded to the bin, the skip, the tip or the landfill site. Junk, in contrast, is more likely to be hoarded, collected and, much later, either rediscovered and revalorized (by self or other), or given away, cleared out or sold, ending up in the recycling bin, the jumble sale, the car-boot sale or at the charity or retro shop. But again such valorization judgements are neither linear nor objective, but vary in time and space and are subjectively determined.”

“ it may appear on first reading that functionality is the key determinant of value, but in fact, and as we go on to demonstrate below, such connections are far more complex and relate to a matrix of variables which include functionality but critically also involve design and aesthetic issues.”

philanthropy, economic/political critique and moneymaking.

Good Housekeeping Practices: Disposal as Making Space

“Individuals disposing of commodities as a way of making space are the primary means by which goods enter the second-hand world.”

“Discarding of one’s own clothes, as we go on to show, is potentially far more problematic than disposing of others’, and invokes questions of bodily size and shape, the threat of bodily failure and/or bodily delusion being ever present.”

“Despite being on the whole more fluid and unpredictable than formal retail spaces, second-hand spaces are nonetheless reproductive of traditional constructs of femininity and masculinity: men and women dispose of different things, sell different things, buy and look at different things; in short, their dispositions toward and knowledges of second-hand exchange and consumption are deeply gendered.”

“Second-hand disposal and sourcing, we argue, are activities that place considerable emphasis on the skills and knowledges of consumers in terms of the ability to assess the sell-ability of items in terms of quality, durability, price, style, brand and fit. And what this suggests is that, while second-hand arenas of exchange and consumption have the potential to enable the development of critique and resistance – specifically here in terms of the moral economy of household provisioning – at the same time such spaces may serve to intensify dominant gendered discourses of consumption”

“ In contrast, we have argued for an approach which is circuitous, focuses on journeys and movements (rather than fixed points or nodes within a chain), acknowledges the creativity of social actors in shaping the conditions of value creation (and destruction) and suggests, critically, that time may be as important a determinant of meaning (re)creation as space”

“ value is defined not simply in relation to the rarity or collectability of a particular object (although evidently these are important qualities), but is intrinsically connected with the links between people and is clearly embedded in the specific possibilities provided by the fleeting place-specific conjuncture of individual consumers with particular objects.”

MLA CITATION - Gregson, Nicky, and Louise Crewe. "Redefining Rubbish: Commodity Disposal and Sourcing." Second-Hand Cultures. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2003. 115–142. Materializing Culture. Bloomsbury Fashion Central. Web. 04 Jun. 2019. <http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.massey.ac.nz/10.2752/9781847888853/SECHCULT0010>.

Nature as a primary reference 

 Bio-mimicry 

Bio-mimetics = Replicating the natural world within product design 

Bio-philia = Love for the natural or biological 

Bio-urbanism ( Green urbanism ) ( Climate urbanism ) 

= Science + Design + Technology + Art + Nature + Biology 

Urban design/Landscapes - Industrial designs = Artificial replica of the neutral. For example footwear using feet as their model.

Fibonacci series - Aloe/Semperisrens = Has influenced architectural sequences and structures.

RESEARCHING -  

Public Domain VS Scholar 

Google can be a good place to start for design and art researchers. 

( Climate urbanism summarises the “Green” strategies - the design has an actual biological impact on the environment. For example the idea of bringing plant life into buildings. ) Book - “Art and the Anthropocene”

Zoterobib - Used for citing

READINGS - https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/

https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/blog/2018/09/biophilic-design-just-plants/

https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/14-patterns/

Focus on a more narrow principle ( Hannover Principles )  “A photographer could look at the visual presence of waste”

BIOLIFIC DESIGNS 

“Our good friend David Gerson at Inscape has a Google alert for articles on biophilic design.  Lately these articles have been numerous. We feel honored that Terrapin’s work and publications have been featured in a number of these articles.  That said, there seems to be one point that we need to raise again and again. Biophilic design is more than just adding plants to a space, or to frame it another way, adding plants can be a strategy for implementing one pattern, a Visual Connection to Nature.  There are 13 other ways to connect with nature in the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, each with a unique scientific backing and each supporting different psychological or physiological outcomes. But before we get to those, let’s take a deeper look into that most common of biophilic design interventions: bringing live plants into the built environment.  Oh and fair warning, portions of this article are based on my speculation (with a hope that the science will catch up eventually).

Visual preference studies are used to track what people find more pleasing.  In the 1970s a study in an open office looked at which was more preferred, a row of the same ficus trees or a small cluster consisting of a ficus tree with several different plants of various heights. The cluster was more preferred. Our friend biologist, Janine Benyus has said that this response may be due the brain saying “Oh, look there is a little habitat, so this must be a good place to be”.

Similarly, we suspect that a small, beautifully designed biodiverse green wall may have more impact than a giant green wall planted as a monoculture. This might also explain the appeal of mini habitats.  An assemblage of small plants in a terrarium or a well-trained bonsai tree seems much more interesting than the same plant alone in a pot. This appeal may stem from the way a good terrarium or bonsai evokes a miniature landscape.   We can almost imagine being there.

A significant consideration of live plants is the maintenance they require. While some plants are hardier than others, all plants are susceptible to demise. And there is nothing more sad than a bunch of dead potted plants or a failed green wall.  So bite the bullet and commit to maintenance and make sure that you put plants in places where they have an opportunity to survive.

There may be situations where live plants won’t work.  In these cases consider preserved moss–done well it maintains the feel and look of live moss–or, if out range of touch, really good artificial plants.  Why out of our range of touch? Think about the experience of seeing some really beautiful flowers, walking up to them, touching them and discovering they were fake.  Notice how your hand jerked back, you felt disappointed. We know that the brain sorts between living and non-living motion almost instantaneously, that process may be happening here.  Your subconscious told you the plants were real. You are almost embarrassed to discover your subconscious was wrong. Another downside of artificial plants is that they are inherently static, there is no scent, no growth and change, both of which are really important characteristics of live plants.

While we are still on the topic of plants, it should be said that not all landscapes are equally effective.   Landscape geographer, Jay Appleton’s work pointed out that we can be looking in one direction and say the view is beautiful and turn 90 degrees and feel quite differently.  He noted that preferred views had the conditions he identified as prospect and refuge. These views also had semantic content, or elements that we find appealing.

A good explanation of those elements or semantic content comes from the work of our colleague and mentor, environmental psychologist, Judith Heerwagen along with Gordon Orlens.  They are responsible for the Savanna Hypothesis, the idea that since the best evidence is that our species arose on the savannas of Africa, it makes sense that we would have a strong preference for places that replicate some of those conditions.  Prospect views, streams, copses of shade trees, calm grazing animals, a predominance of low growing grasses and understory are all characteristics of the savanna, Now, we see these same design characteristics in our own landscape design, from parks and golf courses to campuses and suburban yards.  Human-made savannas are not just a western cultural artifact, good portions of the US landscape, pre-European contact, were savannas maintained by annual burning by the indigenous peoples. We love savannas.

A view of the Hudson River. Robert Havell Jr. 1866

A thicket edge or a deep dark forest, however, can elicit a fear response. This seems to sometimes be forgotten.  In one example, a linear rain garden using mostly native species was installed along a street in a medical campus.  It was quite successful, both functionally and aesthetically, except for one portion. Along the route there is a side garden with seating areas, which is almost never used.  The small rooms created in the garden have a nice tree canopy, but are surrounded by a tall understory that creates a thicket condition in which it is not possible to see in or out of the seating areas.  In a private garden, this might be okay. On an urban street it feels unsafe.

One last thought on landscape design, particularly around schools, office buildings, and other workplaces.  Most frequently landscapes are designed along the entrance or in locations visible from roads or parking lots, where. we get the best views on the way in and out of the buildings.  Since we spend much of our day inside the buildings, how about designing with a consideration of the view from inside as well?

So what about all those other Patterns of Biophilic Design?  The patterns that fall within the grouping of Nature in the Space are relatively obvious, although the second pattern, Non-Visual Connection to Nature, bears repeating.  As designers, we all too frequently default to how things look, which makes sense as vision is our primary sensory system, however experiences have more impact if they can trigger multiple senses. Most notably, nature sounds have an uncanny ability to calm occupants and draw attention away from other distracting noises rampant in many indoor environments. See our most recent report, An Ear for Nature, for a look at the fascinating sciences behind this response.

Image courtesy of Christian Battaglia

The second grouping, Natural Analogues is one that can support a lot of experimentation.  In particular, we believe there are many unexploited opportunities to use layered fractals in fabrics, wallpapers, flooring, and ornamentation. We are mesmerized by the balance of complexity and order in natural environments. Very few things can capture our attention as well as a roaring campfire. We can stare at it for hours. This is in-part due to the fractal patterns created as the fire rises. Researchers have found that our brains emit a pleasure response (in the form of dopamine) when we stare at fractals. As a design pattern, this condition can take many scales: from furniture and detailing patterns to spatial layout.

Inscape Booth. Image courtesy of Inscape

The patterns within the third grouping, Nature of the Space seem to be more frequently discussed and experimented with in recent years. As the shift to open offices with non-assigned work spaces is occurring, we are encountering more and more spaces that are prospect dominated. There seems to be evidence that these spaces help support collaboration.  However, the predominate problem in this type of office design (besides the noise issues) is the sore lack of refuge experiences. Spaces that provide a refuge condition can have an amazing variety, starting at the scale of a single high backed wing chair, to booths, small break rooms, all the way to outdoor courtyards. The question we frequently hear is, “what is the exact number of refuge spaces needed for a given number of workstations?” For that, we don’t have answer, the need for spaces for retreat and restoration is really dependent on the mixture of work types, tasks, stress level and introvert/extrovert balance of a population in a space.

One very important point about the 14 Patterns is that unlike a traditional pattern language, they are not describing specific design techniques or objects.  Rather, these are 14 different ways of experiencing nature. Each of these patterns can be achieved with multiple different strategies, which can and should be adapted based on the culture and ecology of a specific location. Most importantly, they warrant and celebrate interpretation, through the lens of the designer in response to place.

These different experiences can help support different outcomes. Some of the patterns support stress reduction, others improve cognitive function, and some help improve mood and preference.  A chart listing the differing outcomes can be found on page 12 of 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design. Creating a narrative about the needs of the users of a space can help you filter which of the patterns will be most valuable in a space.  We have learned that really good spaces might use 3, 4 or more patterns, but there is usually one strong pattern that most determines the outcomes for that place.  With limited budgets and space, this process can help to determine the most effect place and strategy for a design intervention helps to reconnect us to nature.”

“Biophilic design can reduce stress, enhance creativity and clarity of thought, improve our well-being and expedite healing; as the world population continues to urbanize, these qualities are ever more important. Theorists, research scientists, and design practitioners have been working for decades to define aspects of nature that most impact our satisfaction with the built environment. “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design” articulates the relationships between nature, human biology and the design of the built environment so that we may experience the human benefits of biophilia in our design applications.

“18. The slow wardrobe

In a nutshell: Dump the concept of "McFashion", rather than the actual garments.

The clever bit: How big is your fashion footprint? From 2003 to 2007, garment prices fell by an average of 10%, and over the past five years the rate of frenzied buying has accelerated. We make room for the new by discarding some 2m tonnes of the old every year, which goes into landfill. The slow wardrobe extends the useful lifespan of the threads already hanging in the national wardrobe while redistributing stockpiled fashion to those who will wear it, with the aim of decreasing today's average annual consumption of 35kg of clothing per person to a more sustainable 7kg. Consumers prioritise longevity by buying trans-seasonal garments (such as a classic jacket) rather than pure fashion and by purchasing as far up the material food chain as they can afford. We also learn to wash and dry clean more sparingly (both decrease lifespans of clothes) and to use specialist services to refashion and/or mend older garments (just 2% of the annual fashion budget goes on mending or servicing clothes, so this needs to be increased). Meanwhile a 2008 YouGov poll found that there are an amazing 2.4bn pieces of clothing unworn for an entire 12 months (many possibly brand new) cluttering up the national wardrobe, which adds up to £10bn-worth of stockpiled fashion. This needs to be redistributed via a system of clothes swap parties and targeted donations before it is chucked in landfill.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/11/green-living-ethical-fashion-business