sand + water

before they slip my mind i wanted to upload a couple of things that have caught my attention in the last few weeks. the first is a plant that i'm sure will be very inspirational to biomimetic designers. it's called desert rhubarb, it's found in isreal and what makes it special is its self-irrigating form. its leaves are structured like a mini-mountain range (fractals in nature) with the valleys functioning as irrigation channels. according to the bbc article it's the only plant that has used this kind of structure to help it survive in the desert. here's a close-up view of a textured leaf which enables the plant to collect 16 times more water than similar plants.



a friend forwarded me this next project which is interesting for two reasons, the form it takes and the biology behind its formation. originally posted on bldgblog the project is called "dune: arenaceous anti-desertification architecture," arenaceous means 1. resembling, derived from, or containing sand and 2. growing in sandy areas. these are sandstone walls which encourage dune formation, plant growth and can even help house people. the project was proposed by magnus larsson and won the holcim foundation's award for sustainable construction in marrakech, morocco. what i find the most interesting is how the wall is formed. larsson proposes using bacillus pasteurii, a microorganism which helps sand solidify into sandstone. the forms the sandstone creates are beautiful enough, when you add the fact that these walls also reverse desertification they seem too good to be true. here are some images.





and finally a personal update. in a couple of weeks i will be traveling to greensboro, alabama to participate in project m which is an intensive design collaborative for designers engaged in social issues. i'm honored that i was chosen to attend and i can't wait to report back on my experience!

un environment programme

just a quick note to congratulate janine benyus for being named a 2009 champion of the earth by the united nations environment programme. she was recognized in the category of science and innovation. here's a short video about biomimicry created for this un programme.

and congratulations to one of my other heros, yann arthus-bertrand, who won in the category of inspiration and action!

and a couple of images from this week's tilden park hike. i'm working on a book on tilden and golden gate parks so i have the pleasure of spending some time in both.

more goodness

this week/end has been fruitful in terms of making thesis contacts and deepening conversations about the connection between nature and design.

i wanted to post a few points master ito-san's (toyo ito) lecture last week. one of his last slides was titled "learning from tree" and it speaks of his own design methodology which is inspired by the way trees grow. he explains that like a tree, you can generate order:
1...from the process of growing slowly over time
2...by repeating simple rules
3...through relative relationships
4...being open to the environment
5...employing fractal systems (self-similarity)

also, yesterday i attended a full-day session of the rising tides conference hosted by cca and stanford, strengthening the link between the arts and environmental ethics. i drove down to stanford yesterday to see a number of different speakers and was impressed by the variety of projects taking place.

1st session: remaking/reconceiving
featured ila berman and mon el khafif of URBANbuild, as their website explains: "URBANbuild is a deisgn/build program in which teams of [tulane] students take on the design and construction of prototypical homes for new orleans’ neighborhoods. the program is an educational collaboration of individuals, organizations, and businesses committed to revitalizing new orleans’ rich cultural and architectural heritage."

dan and karen parolek of opticos design, who are trying to revive urban vitality through form-based coding instead of zoning laws. form-based coding encourages live/work space and vibrant town centers. here's a slide they featured of various housing types in colorado.



and amy franceschini (one of my heros) who is the founder of future farmers which is both a design studio and research institution (hmmmm, gives me inspiration for my own future). the projects she has worked on are a combination of art, engineering and science. she presented several performance art projects that have inspired her, including a movement in europe to reclaim herding rights by herding sheep through the middle of urban areas.

2nd session: material/culture sustainability
featured lynda grose, who has worked in the fashion industry for years and helped launch esprit's ecollection years ago. she presented some young designers' work that pushes the boundaries of sustainable fashion and commerce (a tricky subject). one expamle is galya rosenfeld who creates modular clothes created from strips of snaps, which you can take apart and reconfigure.



stephanie syjocu who started counterfeit crochet which encourages people to knit their own versions of high-end designer bags. here's a bag in progress.



and banny bannerjee, who is the director of the stanford design program which collaborates with the stanford institute of design. i'm encouraged when education and commerce can form a connection built on mutual respect, i feel this is often missing from graduate programs, especially art programs. his talk spent a lot of time on biomimicry and how design can be inspired by nature. i got to speak with him for a minute afterwards and hopefully will be including some stanford students in my (what i'm calling) "design in nature" workshops. stay tuned!

3rd session: green capitalism
featured amy berk and andy cox who built a car they call "das vegetal", a marxist stock car racer fueled by vegetable oil.

simon sadler, an architectural and urban history professor at uc davis who championed a return to the green products and ideals found in stewart brand's whole earth catalog.

and f. noel perry, who founded next ten, an organization that seeks to both inform and empower californians by highlighting environmental issues and solutions. the website features the 2009 green innovation index and the california budget challange which encourages citizens to try their hand at balancing california's budget. good luck!

4th session: futures
featured amy balkin, an artist who has started PUBLIC SMOG which is part art project, part social comment on the ridiculousness of the emissions trading market. i will quote the website since it explains what PUBLIC SMOG is better than i can: "PUBLIC SMOG is a park in the atmosphere that fluctuates in location and scale. the park is constructed through financial, legal, or political activities that open it for public use. activities to create PUBLIC SMOG have included purchasing and retiring emission offsets in regulated emissions markets, making them inaccessible to polluting industries. other activities to create PUBLIC SMOG impact the size, location, and duration of the park. these activities include an attempt to submit earth’s atmosphere for inscription on UNESCO’s world heritage list.

PUBLIC SMOG is subject to prevailing winds, and the long-range transport of aerosols and gases."

joyce burstein, an artist who created a slate tombstone at hollywood forever cemetery which encourages people to write their own epitaphs.

and alexander rose of the long now foundation which is building a 10,000 year clock and encourages slowing down and preserving cultural knowledge.

there was one more session but i was fading, before i left however, i had a chance to check out the show "disposable truths" in the cummings art building gallery. the show featured photographs and sculptures by richard lang and judith selby lang, made from a collection of beach plastic that has washed up on kehoe beach in point reyes. here are a few shots.

weekly digest

so i've come across a bunch of cool stuff this week so i'm just going to list a few things rapid fire. some things directly relate to my thesis like the turning the tide conference hosted at the institute at the golden gate who's mission is to "advance environmental preservation and global sustainability by facilitating cross-sector dialogue and collaboration, encouraging new partnerships, and promoting action." sign me up. the turning the tides conference featured larry brilliant, majora carter, amory lovins and janine benyus. i wish i had known about it!

but, not to fear the rising tide conference is coming up this weekend. it's hosted by cca and stanford and is dedicated to furthering the arts and ecological ethics. so i will report on that next week.

this past week i had the pleasure of seeing toyo ito speak about his work at cal. he showcased his design for the new berkeley art museum/pacific film archive building. he is definitely a creative and innovative spirit who is concerned with the environmental and sociological impact of his buildings. he spoke of trying to create structures that diverge from a rigid grid and free people, allowing them to drop their guard and enjoy the organic shapes his buildings foster. he said his biggest joy was seeing children running over the undulating floors of one of his buildings while watching their parents stretch out on the floor.

and speaking of things japanese, i came across the tokyo fiber senseware exhibition which will be featured at the milan triennale. senseware showcases a mix of super-futuristic fibers and includes such designers as shigeru ban, ross lovegrove and makoto azuma who has created a moss field on a bed of fabric called terramac which is made of plant-derived polylactic acid and is biodegradable (shown below).



next are ideas for bringing more nature into urban areas:

1. packaging and insulation made from fungi from ecovative design. as quoted from ecogeek: "they make materials by growing fungus in various types of discarded agricultural waste, such as husks, hulls, and other things that are largely made out of lignin – a complex polymer that gives fibrous strength to plants. the fungus digests the lignin, resulting in a (presumably gooey or wet) mixture which can be poured into a mold and dried out in shapes."



2. a minigarden which is integrated into a table lamp from studio shulab.



3. a drying rack that uses excess water to water an herb-garden. hmmm, reminds me of an invention book i did last year about a "living sink" that used excess water to support a garden growing below it!



4. swimming pools that use plants to filter the water instead of chemicals, from clear water revival and similar companies.



and i found a video of paola antonelli speaking about her experience curating the design and the elastic mind show i've talked about in previous posts. a website called cool hunting has a series of videos on youtube, check 'em out.

additionally i saw a post on fast company about the vegetal chair from vitra. here's a video:




the post was written by michael cannell of dwell and he states that he thinks the chair is a good example of biomimicry. this brings me back to debate i've been having about what biomimicry really means. i don't think it's enough to mimic natural shapes (although it's a start) without considering a product's technical lifecycle or ensuring it can become another object or biodegrade into the landscape. well, that's the lofty goal anyway. either that or it has to increase efficiency and cut materials dramatically.



finally, i'll finish with some images from a hike on mt tam in the north bay which started at alpine lake and a trip to the don edwards wildlife refuge down in the south bay where they are working restore salt ponds back to tidal marsh flats. enjoy!

design + nature collaboration

to supplement my research into the realms of ecology and biodiversity i've been doing quite a bit of design reading as well. i haven't gotten much design theory in grad school (despite the program being 4 years in length) which is a big problem in my eyes. how a graduate school can produce designers that function more like robots than conscientious design professionals is sort of beyond me, isn't that what graduate school is for? a deepening of understanding in craft and application? in any case, i have come across some great design writing in a book called discovering design: explorations in design studies which is a book of essays edited by richard buchanan and victor margolin.

i'm particularly in accordance with australian lecturer tony fry's sacred design I essay and i will quote it here because he speaks to exactly what i mean by the importance of bringing nature to the design table.

"the fundamental contingent value of design to be adopted here is predicted upon the ability of it to help secure the survival of that biodiversity of life in which we are implicated and upon which we depend... the [metaphysical] tradition, of course, has at its core a productivist and anthropocentric drive to dominate, to command and exploit that named and designated as 'nature.' nature denaturalized and transformed into an antagonistic artificial environment is a product of the mediations of humanity, if we are to terminate the destruction of that upon which we depend, our only chance is to modify the industrial, the artificial that sustains life. at worst, in terms of environmental impact, the artificial has to be made benign, while at best it has to be made proactive in the conservation of life... if we are going to start to advance a practical philosophy of re-creation as both a pragmatic and sacred mission of taking the ecological into care, then we have to invert the drive to dominate biodiversity. the organic, as the natural base which we need to care for, has to become the regulatory norm of design, this is not to say the artificial has to be a mirror of nature, but rather that it has to be configured and judged by contingent values of natural account."

i especially appreciate his reclamation of the word consumption.

"consumption that produces waste that restores life is clearly not the problem; in fact it is essential. it is consumption from which there is no return which must be displaced. the measure of consumption then should be based on a scale of entropic consequence rather than raw volume."

and a quote from italian environmental design professor ezio manzini's essay prometheus of the everyday.

"the designer's ecological attitude can take place on diverse levels: from selection of materials that are nonpoisonous and recyclable, to the proposal of new products endowed with the best environmental qualities, to the proposal of new schemes for quality. If it is true that there is a lot to do at each of these levels, it seems to me, however, that especially in relation to the proposal of new schemes the designer's task may be as fundamental as it is somewhat impractical. at the level of activity, the designer is not so much a professional capable of solving given problems, as a cultural figure in the process of creatively linking the possible with the hoped-for in visible form."

thankfully i've met lots of people lately interested in helping me achieve my vision of increased collaboration between design + nature + science and there are a few upcoming events which should yield even more connections. below are a few places i'm looking to to help support my vision.

greener design website
rising tide design conference hosted by cca and stanford
autodesk sustainable design webcasts

and finally here are some images from last week's trip to the tilden park botanical garden, if you've never been there put it on your list, it's a very restorative place (speaking of topophilia!).

a context for design

create: l. creatus, pp. of creare "to make, produce," related to crescere "arise, grow"

i've been doing some reading and thinking lately about what design is at its essence and how we think about it as a society and within the field. and related to that what creativity is since the 2 terms are linked very closely. in my mind i (superficially) broke down the word creativity into create and activity. creativity as the activity of creation. and what does that mean in the larger context of my thesis and what i'm trying to say and accomplish? since my thesis deals with the physical evidence and intention of design, the idea of "creating" is extremely important. it's interesting to me how many words come back to the idea of growth as well. it's so important for us to slow down and take stock of our lives and the world we've created around us. hopefully this recession (decession - thanks dad) and our thoughtful president will provide the forum and impetus for this change and a return to the creation of positive and healthful endeavors for all species.

here are some thought-provoking design links for further reading:
design thinking a blog by tim brown at ideo
design observer
design ignites change

on another note, snow is one way nature slows busy humans down! here are 2 shots from a trip to tahoe.

design + nature mind map

new explorations, trying to get my head on straight before i proceed. comments appreciated, i know i'm just scratching the surface. colored items are more interesting to me and avenues i'll be continuing down.