Wicked For

Last semester, I wished I would have written down a few of the important thoughts I had. Some of my thoughts had to do with systems thinking. It seems that the nodes of the systems are of equal value to the connections. Since, if you don’t make a connection, you never realize that node is out there. Also, I hope to live in a world where systems thinking is not “the way” for two reasons. One, it will mean that we have achieved it as a norm in society and there isn’t a need for convincing anymore. Two, if a person starts thinking it is “the way,” that person is bound to be missing out on other ways.

Which brings me to the major thought of the week: Designing for versus with something/someone is probably the most wicked problem of all. To have the self-righteousness to assume you know the exact way how to do something is to ignore what is actually needed in the system. Additionally, if you are fully immersed in the system, how can you actually attain the “big picture” and make the decision needed in that moment?

Thus, a person needs to both be connected without bias? We are taught that bias is bad when it comes to doing research, but if we don’t have any bias, what is our true stake? Does it take someone to have a stake in the issue to bring value to the possible solution? What makes a valuable contribution?

Lastly, we should be weary about sticking to only one thing. For example, its not just the left or the right side of the brain, it is both. In order to be a well-rounded individual in this universe, a person should be functioning in both capacities. If the person cannot, then it is the job of the universe to balance it out with another person, situation, skill and/or tool.

I am left-handed (but ambidextrous in early childhood), right foot dominant and with sports I go from left to right when it comes to throwing/pitching/hitting. I think that stressing musical instruments or sports that demand multifunctional capabilities on the body and mind are crucial for total brain development.

Maurizio Cattelan – The Game

In, “Who Cares” with Levi Strauss and Martinez, I was surprised to read this quote and then such a juxtaposition of praise from the Guggenheim on the artist:

STRAUSS Maurizio Cattelan was overheard talking to friends at one of his openings, apologizing for his phenomenal success in the art market by saying, “I am just really good at playing the game.”

Jonah Lehrer on Choices

Jonah Lehrer’s website

Intertwine Field Trip

This field trip is a part of a course offered in the MFA in Collaborative Design program.

“The Intertwine has united a broad coalition of public agencies, private businesses and nonprofits to celebrate, protect and improve this network of outdoor places and trails. As partners in what is called The Intertwine Alliance, we check our jurisdictional and geographical boundaries at the door to work side-by-side toward a common mission. By joining forces, we boost our effectiveness to increase investment in our parks and expand conservation efforts.”

Here is Joan birdwatching. Click on image to view the set on Flickr.

Sci-Fi Lightning Tornado

This is a part of a project that I hope will take off. I’m photographing everyone in my cohort and may make a calendar out of it. Danielle was the first model.

Critical Pedagogy: Paulo Freire, Chapter 2

After reading this, I can only think that Paulo Freire would want us to blast his theory out of the water so we can therefore transform into yet another type of learning.

The thesis is that the Banking Concept of teaching is oppressing the students and from their own humanity in conjunction with the actual teacher being the most oppressed of them all. Therefore, choosing the route of Critical Pedagogy will not only connect students with their own humanity, but promote creativity and innovation – therefore transforming the world.

I see a common thread with my other readings and interests as well concerning connections and valuing life. Friere stresses that biophily is much better than necrophily. And in some sense, I can relate on how this could be true. If we only value things that are not living (such as materialistic gain), then we really aren’t achieving are upmost potentiality in the world – and universe.

Below are my notes which are a compilation of quotes, definitions, etc. :

——–

“Consciousness if thus by definition a method, in the most general sense of the word.”

“Education is suffering from narration sickness.” pg. 30

“Words are emptied of their concreteness and become hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity.” pg. 30

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop a critical consciousness which would result from their intervention of the world and transformers of that world. The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend to simply adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.”

“…reality is really a process, undergoing constant transformation.”

“Yet only through communication can human life hold meaning.”

“Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men upon their world in order to transform it,” pg. 34

“The pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity; therefore it cannot unfold in the antagonistic relations between oppressors and oppressed.” pg. 38

TERMS: co-intentional education, pseudo-participation, narrative, subject (the teacher), objects (the students), paternalistic social action apparatus, student conscientizacao, corpo consciente, authentic thinking: thinking that is concerned about reality, biophily, necrophily, explicit awareness

Banking Concept definitions:
1. receive, memorize, and repeat
2. “knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider to know nothing.”
3. “”maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole
A) the teacher teaches and the students are taught
B) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing
C) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about
D) the teacher talks and the students listen – meekly
E) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined
F) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply
G) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher
H) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it
I) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his/her own professional authority, which he/she sets in opposition to the freedom of the students
J) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process while the pupils are mere objects
4. “men as adaptable and manageable things”
5. “minimize or annul students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed,”
5. “interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed’ not the situation which oppresses them”
6. “education to avoid the threat of student conscientizacao”
7. “the effort to turn men into automatons – the very negation of their ontological vocation to be more fully human,”
8. “assumption of a dichotomy between man and the world: man is merely in the world, not with the world or with others,”
9. “the educator’s role is to regulate the way the world ‘enters into’ the students”
10. “anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant  unveiling of reality,”
11. “attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way men exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself thee task demythologizing”
12. “resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality”
13. “inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world….problem-posing  education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, therefore responding to the vocation…”
14. “fail to acknowledge men as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take man’s historicity as their starting point,”

Teacher vs.                          Student
Narrator                               Listener
Narrator                               Container
Necessary Opposite           Receptacle
Depositor                            Depository
Presciber                             Collectors
Demonsticator                     Cataloguers
Educator
Student/Teacher                  Teacher/Student
oppressor
welfare recipient
Marginals
Beings for others
Beings for themselves
Bank Clerk

Boris Groys: Self-Design and Aesthetic Responsibility

This article reinforces the ideas I’ve been having about interconnectedness with nature, however, in this case, it is talking about the boundaries of how people “view” art. I am in complete agreement with Groys when he writes, “the artist becomes the artwork.” There is no defining line between and artist and artwork – they are one in the same because a message is being produced from both. It reminds me of what Ghandi and Guevara were saying about being both receptive to change and being the change you want to see in the world.

Another aspect I’m noticing more of is peeling away the layers to get to the “truth” or core of the art. Even through sustainable practice in architecture one can see a movement toward not having facades for the sake of making things aesthetically pleasing. In the Biomimicry Challenge I was involved in, I also learned more about how nature designs. And even though a peacock may look beautiful, there are specific reasons for the development of the species. Why do we have skin? It’s not to make us look pretty, it’s so that we have a barrier to decrease contracting diseases/viruses and keep our organs in place. This brings me to when Groys writes, “Derridean pharmakon: while design makes an object look better, it likewise raises the suspicion that this object would look especially ugly and repellent were its designed surface to be removed.” Exactly, why in the world are these things hidden? What is the need to hide something if it is of whole-hearted intention?

Even though humans are complex organisms, it saddens me to think that, “we are waiting for a moment of sincerity, a moment in which the designed surface cracks open to offer a view of its inside.” Why are people waiting? Its because they’ve gotten lost along the path and their ego is telling them to look good. If the ego is imbalanced, then people are waiting because they are afraid to look bad. In addition, Groys writes, “Confronted with a world of total design, we can only accept a catastrophe, a state of emergency, a violent rupture in the designed surface, as sufficient reason to believe that we are allowed a view of the reality that lies beneath.” However, what is reality in the first place? How can one begin to define it?

All the things we are being told that are good or bad just don’t matter. 100 years from now, we’ll see how the history books recorded the successful artists. 1000 years from now, we’ll see if any of those records still exist. All and all, I think just being true to yourself in this life is about the only thing you can count on. Be the change you want to see in the world, and you’re bound to attract more situations that will enable you to continue onward.

Ecological Design by Sim Van der Ryn & Stuart Cowan

My mentor for Design Ecologies, Katy Langstaff: “young people today are inheriting a world of complexity beyond what a compartmentalized curriculum can train them for. Careers of tomorrow will require holistic thinking, problem solving, and ethics.”

There are three questions I will answer that were in the book:
Does it enhance or heal the living world or diminish it?
How much land should be allocated to nature?
How can you listen to what the land wants to be?
I’m am conflicted with these questions. If humans are “finite and fallible”, then how can we ever know what will actually enhance or heal the world through allocating land and trying to listen to it? Also, since we are a part of nature, shouldn’t we be listening to ourselves and get similar answers? If we think in the long-term rather than short-term, then we may be one step closer to being at one with nature.

One critique I have of this book is the prominent use of “visual.” This is only one sense utilized, and if we are to somehow improve current ecological situations, then we should be thinking in more experiential terms rather than a one-sided approach. Moreover, using our other senses as guides or gauges for results of our actions is a more holistic approach.

These visual references can be evidenced by these two quotes:
Ian McHarg: “our eyes do not divide us from the world, but unity us with it. Let this be known to be true. Let us then abandon the simplicity of separation and give unity its due.” Location 1160
Wendell Berry: “He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.”

Overall, as you can see with the notes portion – this book is chalk full of amazing resources.

NOTES

Ecological Design Definitions
1st: any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.”
2nd: is the search for a unified approach to design of sustainable systems that integrates scales ranging from the molecular to global.
3rd: the effective adaptation to and integration with nature’s processes.

Ecological Design’s 3 Critical Strategies for addressing loss: conservation, regeneration and stewardship

Generations of Ecological Design
1st: small-scale experiments with living lightly in place
2nd: effectively weave the insights of literally dozens of disciplines

Principles of Ecological Design
1st: Solutions Grow from Place
Sustainability in Traditional Cultures, Bringing Sustainability Home, Valuing Local Knowledge, Responding to Complexity, Designing for Place
2nd: Ecological Accounting Informs Design
Life-cycle Analysis, Following the Flows (electricity, garbage, natural gas, recycling, sewage, and water)
3rd: Design with Nature
A Partnership with Nature, Waste Equals Food, Self-Design (Self-organization)
4th: Everyone is a Designer
Cultivating Design Intelligence
Community Design
5th: Make Nature Visible
In addition: Ecotones, Biodiversity

Laws of Energy Accounting (backbone of Thermodynamics) :
1st: energy stored in the inputs must equal the energy stores in the outputs plus any waste energy
2nd: energy degrades in quality or usefulness as it is converted from one form to another

AIA Environmental Resource Guide:
1. How much “embodied energy does the building materials create over its entire life?
2. How much energy is required to manufacture the material and related products?
3. How much energy is used in transporting the material from source to project site?
4. Are renewable or sustainable energy sources used in the manufacture of the materials?
5. Are there less energy consuming, longer-lived alternatives for the same application?
6. Are local sources for the material available?
7. Can the material be recycles or reused at the end of its useful life in a structure?
8. How easy or difficult is the material to recycle?
9. Do different construction systems offer better opportunities for resource at the end of a building life?
10. How much maintenance does the material require over its life in a structure?
11. How energy intensive is the maintenance regimen?
12. Does the material require special coatings or treatments that could present health or safety hazards?
13. Are hazardous solid, aqueous, or gaseous wastes produced during the manufacturing process environmentally significant?
14. How do the amounts of waste resulting from manufacture, fabrication, and installation compare with those from alternative materials?

Ecosystem Approach: 1. includes the whole system, not just part of it, 2. recognizes the ecosystem’s dynamic nature, presenting a moving picture rather than a still photography of it, 3. uses a broad definition of environments – natural, physical, economic, social, and cultural, 4. encompasses both urban and rural activities, 5. is based on natural geographic units such as watersheds, rather than political boundaries, 5. embraces all levels of activity – local, regional, national and international

Ecosystem Stability Issues – R. Edwad Grumbine
1. Genetic Uncertainty
2. Demographic Uncertainty
3. Environmental Uncertainty
4. Catastrophic Uncertainty

Design Guidelines – J.T.R. Kalkoven
1. Increase the size and the quality of the habitat patches in order to increase the local population size and to diminish risk of extinction.
2. Increase the number of patches in order to improve the possibility for [movement] and recolonization.
3. Decrease the resistance of the landscape by including corridors and reducing the effect of barriers, in order to enhance the possibility of dispersal.

Immediate Opportunities for Cooperation – Donald Watson
1. Case studies and postoccupancy appraisals of buildings.
2. Design Competitions
3. Community Workshops

Local Knowledge through Ecological Accounting:
1. What are the prevalent soil types? How healthy is the soil in this region?
2. Are there any endangered species in the region?
3. Is there any evidence of deleterious health effects from local industry?
4. How much gasoline, natural gas, electricity, solar energy, and fuelwood are used?
5. How much food is produced locally? What types? How much of this food is actually used locally?
6. How much money is spent in the community? How much leaves the community?
7. Are there any underutilized wastes?

Visual Ecology:
1. help us see and become more aware of the abstractions we superimpose on the land
2. make complex natural processes visible and understandable
3. unmask systems and processes that remain hidden from view
4. emphasize our unrecognized connections to nature

James Howard Kunstler “geography of nowhere”

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry – Refer to Student Design Challenge involvment
Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature

Robert Frenay’s book, Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines inspired by Living Things

Betsy Damon’s Living Water Garden in Chengdu, China
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order (book)

Ecological Accounting Informs Design argument: prices to not reflect true social and ecological costs, creating a “sustainability gap” (price differential) for ecological design innovations.
David Orr summation: 1. People are finite and fallible. 2. A sustainable world can be redesigned and rebuilt only from the bottom up. 3. Traditional knowledge that coevolves out of culture and place is a critical asset. 4. The true harvest of evolution is encode in natures’ design.
Robert Rodale

“Design manifests culture”
Mies Van Der Rohe: Farnsworth House
Croxton Collaborative, Audubon renovation
Buckminster Fuller: “Nature did not call a department heads’ meeting when I three a green apple into the pond, with the department heads having to make a decision about how to handle this biological encounter with chemistry’s water and the unauthorized use of the physics departments’ waves”

There are two worlds – the living and one of roads and cities, farms and artifacts
Natural world and humanly designed world

Theories: Koch curve

David W. Orr: “The ecological knowledge and level of attention necessary to good farming limits the size of farms. Beyond that limit, the ‘eyes to acres’ ratio is insufficient for land husbandry. At some larger scale it becomes harder to detect subtle differences in soil types, changes in plant communities and wildlife habitat, and variations in topography and microclimate. The memory of the past events like floods and droughts fades. As scale increases, the famed becomes a manager who must simplify complexity and homogenize differences in order to control.” Location 791

Paul Hawken: “To create an enduring society, we will need a system of commerce and production where each and every act is inherently sustainable and restorative….Just as every act in an industrial society leads to environmental degradation, regardless of intention, we must design a system where the opposite is true, where doing good is like falling off of a log, where the natural, everyday acts of work and life accumulate into a better world as a matter of course, not a matter of conscious altruism.”

Self designing systems “grow their own connections, discover their own solutions, and create their own structures.”

TERMS: Mobile Economy, Ecological Accounting, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), biophilia, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, technological sustainability, symbiotic architecture, dumb design, natural capital, Dymaxion house, bioshelter, scale linking, self-siimilarity, fractal geometry, ecosystem approach, green infrastructure, local wisdom, butterfly effect, eyes to acres ratio, passive solar principles, constructed wetlands, clothesline paradox, life-cycle analysis, megawatt, ESCO (energy service companies), design for disassembly, Touch Sanitation, active landscape, ecological engineering, morphogenesis, Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction, core reserve, gap analysis, wildlife corridors, Northern Rockies Ecosystems Protection Act, visual ecology

People: William Morris, Rudolf Steiner, Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sean Wellesley-Miller, Day Chahroudi, John & Nancy Todd, Bill & Helga Olkowski, Ian McHarg, Bill Mollison, John Tillman Lyle, Robert L. Thayer, Sim Van der Ryn, Peter Calthorpe, Paul Hawken, John Wesley Powell, Josh Collins, Ian McHarg, Jerry Mander, Thomas Berry, Lewis Mumford, Wes Jackson, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, Peter Bahouth, Ukeles, Mel Chin, Joseph Needham, Howard T. Odum, Stewart Brand, E.O. Wilson

Things: Land Institute, Rocky Mountain Institute, Natural Step Foundation, Integral Urban House, Green Gulch Farm, Ojai Foundation School, Sim Van deer Ryn & Associates, LindisFarne Association, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Laredo Demonstration Blueprint Farm, Turner Foundation, EPEA (Environmental Protection Agency), AIA (American Institute of Architects), Ocean Arks International, Whole Earth Catalog