Footprint

Today as part of our sustainability project, we discussed some aspects of our lifestyles and the effect they had on the planet. With the alarming fact that on average, in some countries such as Canada and USA, people are consuming at such a rate it would take 5 planets to support their habits, we were shown a website that would calculate our own consumption levels.

WWF footprint calculator

Before I calculated my own levels, we did a few examples with some of our classmates and as we went through the questions I found myself mentally answering these in my head, thinking surely I am quite Eco friendly and comparing my lifestyle with theirs. With my mum being quite excessive over the whole recycling thing, almost everything in my house is recycled...from the normal items such as paper to more unusual things like sweet wrappers she uses as art materials for her playgroup art projects, you name it she has a use for it!

Splitting the test into the sections travel, home, food and stuff, the 'WWF footprint calculator' aims to tell you as accurately as they can how harmful you are to the environment - I have to say I was a little shocked!

My results showed that I was living as though I had 3.22 planets to support me! The first emotion I felt was sadness! I mean I'll admit I am one of the first to criticise people when they are being 'unenvironmentally' friendly, e.g. taking the car when they can easily walk the journey, so to be told that I was harming the world a fair bit wasn't something I enjoyed.

My footprint calculator

Personally I think the parts that boosted my need of resources was the fact that I have a car and my love for food, meat in particularly! Maybe the fact that I spend more than 10 hours on a bus getting to and from University, the charms for my expensive bracelet for my birthday, all the products I use for my face and hair all had something to do with it too?

Okay so maybe I am not as environmentally friendly as I had first thought! It's clearly not enough to just recycle products and not waste food but it has taken this free test to show me this. Obviously I can't change all the aspects that were harmful in this test but it has made me think a little more about my choices and might make me question myself more before doing something. I just hope my mum doesn't read this blog or she'll go into recycling overdrive!

Sustainability

We have now been given the next part of our brief for our sustainability project where we have to renovate a run down house for a client called Emma Fraser.

Emma is a book restorer who is looking for the house not only be her home but a place she can also work from with a studio space and reception area where she can deal with clients. It is really important that we understand all Emma’s needs as this is a place that she would theoretically spend a lot of time.

Meetings with the client in person allowed us to get to know her a bit better and understand what sort of job she does and the things that she requires. Asking questions from what materials she liked to what does she likes to do in her past time, we were able to gather a rough idea of what she would and wouldn’t want from the house and getting a general feel for her needs. This was useful but when Emma talked about all the equipment that she used for restoring the books it was hard to imagine what these looked like and how big they were…next came the visit to the lab she works in. It was really good to actually see the equipment rather than just visualising it and estimating roughly how much space it would take up within the studio. Taking photo’s and asking yet more questions we were able to step into Emma’s life and get yet another insight to the way she worked. The part I found particularly beneficial to look at was the desk where she worked at. Here I was able to see how she liked to organise things and set things out when she was working, something that I just wouldn’t have got from a question and answer session.

This is really relevant just now with the assignments that we are doing in the Design Studies part of the course – getting to understand the people we are designing for. It’s been helpful for me for the two to be running along side each other and some of the skills that I have already learnt doing the previous assignments have proved useful when conducting this new brief. I have been able to apply new skills that I have learned practically in this project so far to the Design Studies assignments and gained a greater understanding of how much you need to get in the mind of the client. Book restoration is nothing that I know about but after quizzing and looking at how the client works, I feel I know enough now that I can begin to design a space most suited to her. Take this afternoon for example, while travelling back on the bus home after getting a tour of the lab I tried to place myself in Emma’s shoes. The studio will be the main part of this project as this is the place that she would spend the most time during the day (Emma stated that most likely it would be 9am-5pm) so it will be important to consider certain issues of comfort: height of the desk, width of the working desk, the light that would enter the studio (this is very important to take into consideration for restorer’s as the light can interfere with the books), where the machinery would be placed within the room, etc. With so many things to think about, the way in which I was visualising things allowed me to start thinking about possible design solutions.

Meeting with the client is such a useful process for me (even if the project will not really go ahead) because I am getting used to working with a real life client and designing for them. The process behind this project is a good way to learn more about working alongside the client and listening to exactly what they need and want.

After completing the first part of the brief, (refer to earlier blog - A picture can tell a thousand words (series9)) I didn't understand how beneficial this part of the project was until after this week. This week we focused on trying to get into the mind of client, before we were actually working like the client would be (okay so maybe not exactly!). I found myself sprawled out over my bedroom floor - constantly trying to find more room to do my work - a problem that might be similar to Emma. It wasn't until now that I realised how helpful it was to actually practically get involved in the thought process that we need to undertake.

With thanks:
http://www.helensanderson.com.au/images/Gallery_Rm8/w99_open_close_book.jpg

Back to the real world

First week has just finished after coming back from the Christmas holidays and already there is so much to be done.

In class we have a new project called "Reduce. Reuse. Recycle."

This is a 12 week project aiming to educate us as designers of our disposable culture and how we can incorporate eco - friendly concepts into our designs without comprising the finished quality.

Broken into two parts, the first part of the brief focuses mainly on 'upcycling', a term used to describe something that has reached the end of it's service life and has been created into something with a higher value.
This first week has been a research week for us, working in groups on the specified subject we were given. Using this research gathered, the aim of the first part of this project is to create a 'book' that has been upcycled and portrays our thoughts about environmental design.

Environmental Design
What does this mean to you?

Starting with a big mind map to help get our 'creative juices flowing', we were able to shout out ideas as soon as they came into our heads. Splitting environmental design into three parts: materials, products and buildings, each member of the group focused on one area (two members focusing on the building section as we felt this was a rather extensive part to research).

With our research gathered, our next task was to create a method in which we could talk about our findings with the rest of the class. We decided to do this through Powerpoint, a little obvious but none the less still an effective way to convey our ideas.

Here are a few examples of the kind of things that we found:

I was able to create this page in the Powerpoint very quickly as I had referred to this building in an earlier post I made on my blog. This proposed building would be able to power itself and ten times over, rotating around a central axis.

A prototype capable of switching off all nonessential electrical equipment to save power.

These towers have been positioned so the turbines gain the maximum amount of energy from the wind.

This week we also had our first Design Studies lecture. Already there is lots of work to do and lots of reading. I decided to create a to do list with things that I wanted to do and found that I ran out of space...

Sustainability

Okay so I know the title has so much different ideas behind it and so many talking points but one thing I didn't realise it could relate to so much was food!

Early expectations of a talk I attended was that it would relate possibly to how we as designers could think harder and develop products that are friendlier to the environment...never assume!

Two hours was spent on educating us about our food waste and how that this was having devastating effects on our environment. Now, don't get me wrong this is all very interesting and as a designer everything is relevant to us but when you are not expecting this, you are caught a little off guard (and judging by the looks from my friends they were equally as surprised as me).

The underlying theme (and something that is very relevant to everybody) is that every action we take can have a knock on effect to the planet. Without sounding like an Eco-obsessed maniac, we as designers should be more conscious of our design decisions and also apparently we should celebrate ugly vegetables!



With thanks: Sustainability talk, Enterprise Gym, Dundee
Photo: http://www.provokator.org/files/ugly_carrots.jpg