Hi Amanda and Ann and all,
Amanda makes a good point about water management - scale matters.
In design education terms, it seems important to also include the opposite
of what is currently considered given. In water terms, , for example, the
most sustainable alternative might be to move away from fixation on
rainwater-based systems and build many large-scale desalination plants -
and perhaps work to expand rather than reduce populations (in some
countries such efforts may be essential).
It would seem to be serious design education error if students were taught
only to think to design whatever are the current popular media-driven
fashions for sustainability fixes. Design education of that sort compromises
the potential sustainability for future generations. I suggest teaching the
counter-intuitive design issues is perhaps the only remedy to design
students being unfortunately influenced and blinkered ed in their thinking
by popular media. I've been involved in sustainable/eco-design for enough
decades to have seen multiple popular media-promoted eco-design fashions
fail. Mostly, they have become popular because they have been easy for
designers and the public to feel that they can understand, and because
people were not prepared to think that the opposites though more difficult
might be better. (As Terry Pratchett once wrote 'There is a hard way and an
easy way to turn lead into gold. The difference between them is that the
hard way works.' )
In reality all sustainability design interventions that I can think of that
have been significant and effective have required significant high-level
scientific research input and have been primarily designed and managed by
engineering designers using a lot of maths and technology. I welcome hearing
about significant and effective sustainability designs that have been
otherwise!
This reality of sustainable design situation presents a difficult problem if
one insists that sustainable design should be limited to those designs that
all individuals/families can understand be responsible about personally. In
most cases, it appears that significant and effective sustainability
responses are beyond what individuals are prepared to commit the effort to
be informed and commit their personal effort and resources to undertake -
not counting the approaches that simply do not work - like self-sufficiency.
On the shared responsibility for water issue, there are examples of this
approach having been trialled in various countries in the 1980s and 1990s.
As far as I know, none of these projects has survived when managed at less
than local government level. The successful functioning of water management
on a significant and effective scale seems to only occur if local government
or a government/commercial water management organisation manages water
quality outside citizens individual hands. In design terms, this situation
would naturally be expected due to the usual externalities reasons.
At the end of the day, the best design education strategies for sustainable
design would seem to involve much deeper understanding of the issues than
are presented in the popular media, along with providing students with the
depth of knowledge and design skills to be able to fully critique ANY
sustainability solutions and understand that alternatives including the
opposites may be better.
Best wishes,
Terry
===
Dr Terence Love FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
[log in to unmask] Mob: +61 434 975 848
Senior lecturer, Dept of Design,
Researcher, Social Program Evaluation Research Unit
Dept of Psychology and Social Sciences
Edith Cowan University, Western Australia
Senior Lecturer, Dept of Design
Curtin University, Western Australia
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, UK
===
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill,
Amanda
Sent: 18 January 2012 10:22
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: What would help you teach sustainable design?
On 18/01/12 12:44 PM, "Christopher Brisbin" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Snip
Aren't citizens whom take responsibility for a personal/individual response
to environmental pressures, as they perceive them, far more informed and
likely to be invested in addressing the broader environmental issues that
collectively face each and every one of us.
>
Yes, but expecting individual citizens to be responsible doesn't always
work. There's that attitude/behaviour gap.
For example, research on domestic water consumption in Australia showed that
individuals who took up a government grant to put in their own rainwater
tanks ended up using the same amount of urban water supply as those who
didn't. The tankwater became 'their own water' to be used as they liked - so
they could water their gardens more.
Soufoulis & Williams study the water problem and recommend building networks
at the 'meso-level' (eg street or neighborhood), rather than trying to bring
about change at individual or macro levels. They also talk about
encouraging new identities, such as 'recyclers' or 'watersavers', who can
then be mobilized as a group.
So, if cultures can be changed by building new identities and networks, we
could look at design students as a meso-level group and teach them about a
range of interesting new sustainable social identities that challenge what
they see as normal and taken-for-granted. Personally, I like Kate Soper's
alternative hedonism ;)
I'd like to see resources for design students which draw on the work of
cultural researchers and philosophers as above, to help with this type of
transformation....
my 2 cents.
Amanda
Sofoulis, Z., & Williams, C. (2008). From Pushing Atoms to Growing Networks:
Cultural Innovation and Co-Evolution in Urban Water Conservation. Social
Alternatives, 27(3), 50-57.
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