"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."
- Fuller quoted in: Elizabeth Barlow, 'The New York Magazine Environmental Teach-In', New York Magazine, 1970, available at; quote.
From http://www.spatialagency.net/database/buckminster.fuller
Saturday 11 December 2010
Tuesday 9 November 2010
_Restoration
Man | tree | structure | observation | scaffold | waiting | tending.
Image source: http://www.maerzgalerie.com/index.php?menuid=75
_Building as desire
1. Building [verb] as the performance of a drawing.
0. Drawing as record of trajectory of movement.
-1. Movement as desire.
[Inspired by: McNorton, John, ‘Choreography of Drawing- the consciousness of the body in the space of a drawing’, PhD RCA (2003).
[Inspired by: McNorton, John, ‘Choreography of Drawing- the consciousness of the body in the space of a drawing’, PhD RCA (2003).
Image source: http://www.aptumarchitecture.com/Dance.html
_Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change
CHOREOGRAPHY FOR BLACKBOARDS from Michael Klien on Vimeo.
“Choreography is not to constrain movement into a set pattern, it is to provide a cradle for movement to find its own patterns - over and over again – to prevent a body – whether bound by skin or habits from stagnation and enable lightness, a primal energy and possibilities only to be found once relations start dancing.”
Michael Klien, Book of Recommendations
_Aesthetics of Transition
...traditional oral forms and practices outlast the advent of writing and even the culture of print...
...hybrid or collaborative forms often emerge during times of media transition.
...contemporary experiments in story-telling are crossing and combining several media, exploiting computer games or web-based environments that offer immersive and interactive experiences that mobilize our familiarity with traditional narrative genres drawn from books, movies and television.
...processes of imitation, self-discovery, remediation and transformation are recurring and inevitable, part of the way in which cultures define and renew themselves. Old media rarely die; their original functions are adapted and absorbed by newer media; and they themselves may mutate into new cultural niches and new purposes: The process of media transition is always a mix of tradition and innovation, always declaring for evolution, not revolution.
We citizens and scholars do well to recognize such continuity principles and to remain skeptical of apocalyptic projections of gloom or glory.
Tuesday 2 November 2010
_Material | Body | Space
Following a series of informal conversations last year, we have formed a collaborative working group between Architecture and Textiles at the RCA. Through regular cross-disciplinary studio sessions, we hope to create space to explore the overlaps in our interests, possibly working towards a network of site-specific proposals in the New Year. I am particularly interested in designing situations that encourage us to play more intuitively with our physical environment – very inspired this week by Pleated, Eva’s curtain-swing.
_Time | Framed
What does it mean to design the experience of the present moment?
I was gripped by a seemingly simple Dan Graham video and mirror work at the the MOVE exhibition, at the Hayward Gallery.
In Dan Graham’s Present Continuous Past[s] [1974] the visitor becomes both performer and spectator simultaneously. The installation consists of a room containing a two-way mirror, a video camera and a monitor. The mirror reflects present time, the camera records the mirror’s continuous reflection, and the monitor plays back the recording after an 8-second delay.
‘A person viewing the monitor sees both the image of himself eight seconds ago, and what was reflected on the mirror from the monitor eight seconds ago of himself, which is sixteen seconds in the past … An infinite regress of time continuums within time continuum is created.’ Dan Graham
[Text from MOVE: CHOREOGRAPHING YOU, Hayward Gallery, London]
_ApprenticeRCA | JOIN US
ApprenticeRCA is hosting two community events at our sites in Crouch End and Seven Sisters, North London. You are welcome to join us, to see the result of a week's focussed design thinking about the land, community, assets and vision for these two vibrant community sites.
05.11.10 | Dark Bonfire
6.30 pm Meet at Crouch Hill entrance to Parkland Walk
06.11.10 | Client Group Presentations
9.30 – 10.30 am Meet at Meadow Orchard, Park Road, N8
11.00 – 12.00 pm Meet in front of Wards Corner, Seven Sisters, N15
_Claimed land | Hornsey Police Station
Thank you to bctv and the newly formed Harold Road Community Garden group, for hosting a wonderful day of guerrilla gardening at the plot by Hornsey Police Station. Benches were restored, a raised bed constructed, and many plants were donated and planted. Fruit and vegetable areas were established, with a view to the plot becoming a productive and well-used community resource. [Photo courtesy Tam Neal].
_Incidental Painting
An area of rough new road surface attracts fallen leaves, whilst the smooth old road surface doesn’t. Simple and seasonal. [Westbourne Park Road, Notting Hill, London, 29 October]
_Passages
...it is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated.
David Bohm
_ADM-HEA Creative Learning and Teaching Seminar
Department21 has been asked to speak at the Creative Learning and Teaching Seminar, arranged by ADM-HEA Subject Centre. Polly Hunter [Design Historian], Yesomi Umolu [curator, On Errantry] and I will be traveling up to the National Glass Centre at the University of Sunderland on 25 and 26 November 2010. The event aims to provide a forum for all those interested in creative art design and media education to come together and explore the issues and challenges faced by students, practitioners and educators.
_Publication in Networks, Issue 11, October 2010
Letting Go, in 'Department21: A student-led experiment in interdisciplinary learning', in Networks, Issue 11, published by ADM-HEA, October 2010
_REBOOT | envisioning NEW-LEARNING environments
Bianca Elzenbaumer, [Brave New Alps] and I led a workshop with degree students from University of the Arts London, as part of Dreams, a student-run collective exhibition, in Shoreditch Town Hall on 3rd September. Titled Reboot, the workshop aimed to help students identify opportunities for creating new conditions of interchange, fresh working methods and collaborative communication within their college environment.
http://ourdreamslondon2010.com/blog/?p=253
_D21 Publication
Three texts [Awareness, Letting Go, and Practice] have been published in Department21 publication. Department21, The Book: 132 pages / paperback / 148mm x 105mm /
ISBN: 1374-1283-23484 /
June 2010
/ £7.00 / €8.70 incl. postage.
_Breathing Buildings
As part of Haringey June Sustainability month we hosted Breathing Buildings, a hands-on workshop at Green Lens Studios, Harringay. Aimed at bringing lateral thinking and creativity to the topic of energy waste, we worked in pairs to create schemes to re-use waste heat produced in our built environment, before combining our ideas into one proposal, which we then attempted to construct.
Monday 26 April 2010
_Leaky building duvet
While you are waiting for the bus at the Royal Albert Hall, wrap yourself in some free warm air from our leaky building. [Trials for waste-heated greenhouses, RCA, Thursday afternoon.]
Monday 19 April 2010
_Context
TRIGGER
Taken out of its context, an image with clipping path of a chair, presented in a design magazine, or a chair, presented in an exhibition, is floating in space. A chair you can’t sit upon has to be judged by other, often irrelevant criteria that it has a hard time living up to. Due to a lack of relevant criteria, a piece of furniture placed on a podium is often judged as being a sculpture or even a picture. But design becomes relevant only when placed in a context, it needs a surrounding. Furniture in a room is much more complex than furniture on a podium. Furniture in a context is more interesting than furniture taken out of context.
Uglycute [Stokholm, Sweden], in Social Perspectives on Architecture and Design
Published by the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art
RESPONSE
Taken out of its context, an image with clipping path of a chair, presented in a design magazine, or a chair, presented in an exhibition, is floating in space. A chair you can’t sit upon has to be judged by other, often irrelevant criteria that it has a hard time living up to. Due to a lack of relevant criteria, a piece of furniture placed on a podium is often judged as being a sculpture or even a picture. But design becomes relevant only when placed in a context, it needs a surrounding. Furniture in a room is much more complex than furniture on a podium. Furniture in a context is more interesting than furniture taken out of context.
Uglycute [Stokholm, Sweden], in Social Perspectives on Architecture and Design
Published by the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art
RESPONSE
Taken out of its context, a profession with clipping path of a department, presented in a prospectus, or an design project, presented in an exhibition, is floating in space. A spatial work you can’t experience has to be judged by other, often irrelevant criteria that it has a hard time living up to. Due to a lack of relevant criteria, an architectural design project placed in an exhibition is often judged as being a sculpture or even a picture. But design becomes relevant only when placed in a context, it needs a surrounding. Architecture in a context is much more complex than architecture on paper. Architecture in a context is more interesting than architecture taken out of context.
_Emancipation: Letting go
I'm really really interested in the concept – [because it is a concept]
of limitlessness
of being able to claim a freedom to be whatever you wish to be,
or ever feel you are.
I just like opening the windows.
Tilda Swinton
_We made a tent
We stretched a huge tent over the rooftops, and suddenly all the tiles were paving stones, and the chimneys were barbecues, the aerials were our clothes-lines. The satellite dishes were our picnic baskets. We paddled in the gutters, and sat astride the ridge tiles.
Image of temporary protection for the roof of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, during restoration works.
Photograph by Chris Wells
Image of temporary protection for the roof of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, during restoration works.
Photograph by Chris Wells
_The need to play
I need to play with space. This week is all about playing; diving in, making, stitching, connecting people, connecting materials and objects. I've had ideas in my head for so long - they need escape routes. I've explored and found people and places to collaborate with...
My two inspirations for this week of play are ParaSITE by Michael Rakowitz www.michaelrakowitz.com and Microsituations by Marc Trotereau www.marktrotereau.com. Look them up, they are such eloquent observations of life, streets and behaviour.
I'm planning on making inflatable greenhouses on the roof of Seven Sisters station.
My two inspirations for this week of play are ParaSITE by Michael Rakowitz www.michaelrakowitz.com and Microsituations by Marc Trotereau www.marktrotereau.com. Look them up, they are such eloquent observations of life, streets and behaviour.
I'm planning on making inflatable greenhouses on the roof of Seven Sisters station.
Tuesday 6 April 2010
_Spatial Agency
A resource and database of architecture and design practices, themes, collaborations and movements which seek to ask the underlying questions of how spatial things come into being.
How? The means through which this action or product is achieved.
Where? The site of a groups' action or product.
Why? The motivation behind a group's action.
Spatial Agency is an ongoing research project that aims to shift the of focus of architectural discourse from one that is centred around the design (= building) and making (= technology) of buildings to one where architecture is understood as a situated and embedded praxis conscious of and working with its social, economic and political context.
www.spatialagency.net
Why? The motivation behind a group's action.
Spatial Agency is an ongoing research project that aims to shift the of focus of architectural discourse from one that is centred around the design (= building) and making (= technology) of buildings to one where architecture is understood as a situated and embedded praxis conscious of and working with its social, economic and political context.
www.spatialagency.net
_Public Works
We were very happy to have joined up with art and architecture practice public works for our latest project. The Mobile Porch was a fantastic base for our Garden Workshops and provided a talking point in itself. See their website for details of their current work.
We are an art and architecture practice working within and towards public space. All public works projects address the question how the public realm is shaped by its various users and how existing dynamics can inform further proposals. Our focus is the production and extension of a particular public space through participation and collaborations. Projects span across different scales and address the relation between the informal and formal aspects of a site.
Our work produces social, architectural and discursive spaces. Outputs include socio-spatial and physical structures, public events and publications. public works is a London based non-for-profit company. Current members are Kathrin Böhm, Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and Polly Brannan who work with an extended network of project related collaborators.
www.publicworksgroup.net
www.publicworksgroup.net
_Hornsey Police Station
Following our Introduction to Permaculture class at Hornsey Library on the 9th March, with Richard Williams from Transition Crouch End, we have decided to take the next class out to the Plot at Hornsey Police station, to design an edible garden based on permaculture principles. We have already made a good start - we have lots of potatoes planted, as well as a young cherry tree - we should be able to make a dinner party before long from this neglected pocket park.
_Finding The Plot - Overdue Update
See our updated Flickr page for photographs of the Crouch End and Hornsey Finding the Plot project, which took place throughout March.
Lisa Johansson and myself set up our Mobile Garden Workshop in Crouch End Broadway and Campsbourne Estate to start conversations about new growing plots in Haringey. Would you turn your front garden into a community allotment? Would you add your compost into a community biofuel distiller? Supported by Haringey Council, we had lots of organic seed potatoes to give out, Earlies for new potatoes ready in 8-12 weeks, and Maincrop for summer and autumn harvests. Ice cream cones were turned into temporary plant pots, and sprinkled with herb seeds to be taken home and planted.
www.flickr.com/justsostudio
Lisa Johansson and myself set up our Mobile Garden Workshop in Crouch End Broadway and Campsbourne Estate to start conversations about new growing plots in Haringey. Would you turn your front garden into a community allotment? Would you add your compost into a community biofuel distiller? Supported by Haringey Council, we had lots of organic seed potatoes to give out, Earlies for new potatoes ready in 8-12 weeks, and Maincrop for summer and autumn harvests. Ice cream cones were turned into temporary plant pots, and sprinkled with herb seeds to be taken home and planted.
www.flickr.com/justsostudio
Thursday 11 March 2010
_We've been busy
Join us for a weekend of guerrilla gardening, plot-finding and community conversations at our interactive garden workshop. We've been busy painting, sanding and building, and are setting up our workshop outside Hornsey Town Hall, Crouch End Broadway, N8 this Saturday and Sunday.
[If you can't make it this weekend, we'll be up in Camspbourne Estate, Hornsey, N8 on the 27/28th March.]
[If you can't make it this weekend, we'll be up in Camspbourne Estate, Hornsey, N8 on the 27/28th March.]
Sunday 28 February 2010
_Prosperity without Growth
On Thursday I went to a great lecture at LSE by Tim Jackson, entitled Prosperity without Growth. Worth hearing - he speaks with clarity, optimism and creativity. Follow the link for the podcast of the lecture.
Speaker: Professor Tim Jackson
Chair: Dr Richard Perkins
This lecture will discuss a new vision of shared prosperity. It will consider the capability of human beings to flourish within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Tim Jackson is professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and economics commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission.
This lecture will discuss a new vision of shared prosperity. It will consider the capability of human beings to flourish within the ecological limits of a finite planet. Tim Jackson is professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and economics commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission.
http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/publicLecturesAndEvents/20100225_1830_prosperityWithoutGrowth.mp3
_Design & Transition - Eco Labs
The fundamental concepts of transition and their relation to design.
Friday 26 February 2010
Sunday 7 February 2010
_EDIBLE : PERENNIAL
Plans are now underway for:
\\\\\ EDIBLE : PERENNIAL \\\\\ Community Gardening Festival \ Crouch End and Hornsey \ March 2010
\\\\\ Further details available soon \\\\\
\\\\\ EDIBLE : PERENNIAL \\\\\ Community Gardening Festival \ Crouch End and Hornsey \ March 2010
Help our community up-skill, connect, and learn about edible gardening. Designing lasting solutions: building commitment to the land, strengthening intergenerational links and learning how to incorporate edible perennials into our gardens, public spaces and guerrilla plots.
TWO FREE EVENING WORKSHOPS [provisional dates]
Tuesday 9th March - Hornsey Library
Thursday 11th March - Camspace, Hornsey
Skills speed-dating: What do you know? What do you want to know?
Introduction to Permaculture
Seasonal skills: What to do in March
TWO WEEKENDS OF PUBLIC ACTIVITIES
13/14th March - Outside Hornsey Town Hall
27/28th March - Campsbourne Estate
Key skills: germinating, taking cuttings
Potato Day: Take free seeds potatoes if you commit to starting a new edible garden
Mapping: Edible plots in your area
Visitors Blog: Leave tips, messages and ideas for others on the online blog
_Seed Swap Sunday
Spent the afternoon at Seed Swap Sunday, Bruce Castle, in Haringey. The place was bustling - lots of interesting connections and conversations, and plenty of seeds to take home. I now have Sweet Pea, Angelica, Lovage, Hollyhock, Wallflower and Red Orache [edible?] to add to my allotment.
I'm beginning to wonder if I should be at the Royal College of Art or the Royal College of Agriculture...
Sunday 17 January 2010
_Elemental - Design within your means
Documentary of Quinta Monroy Project in Iquique, Chile from elementalchile on Vimeo.
What can we learn from the architectural principles applied here in Chile? What aspects of the process, communication and strategy might we take forward when planning housing projects in the UK?
Thursday 14 January 2010
_Perennial
Adj. 1. Lasting for a long time; enduring or continually recurring. > continually engaged in a specified activity: a perennial student. 2. (of a plant) living for several years. Compare with ANNUAL, BIENNIAL. 3. (of a stream or spring) flowing throughout the year. From L. perennis ‘lasting the year through’.
[Source: Concise Oxford English Dictionary]
_READING LIST ISSUE 1
Good Deeds, Good Design, Edited by Bryan Bell [Princeton Architectural Press, 2004]
The Community Planning Handbook, Nick Wates [Earthscan Publications, 2000]
Permaculture in a Nutshell, Patrick Whitefield [Permanent Publications, 2008]
The Green Braid, Towards an Architecture of Ecology, Economy and Equity, Edited by Kim Tanzer & Rafael Longoria [Routledge, 2007]
How to Be a Happy Architect, Bauman Lyons Architects [Black Dog Publishing, 2008]
Peak Everything, Richard Heinberg [Clairview, 2007]
Breaking out of the box: The Biography of Edward de Bono, Piers Dudgeon [Headline, 2001]
_LINK - Towards a Zoology of Spaces
Saturday 13th January \ 3pm \ Auto Italia South East
No arts space acting alone can respond to the diverse and conflicting needs, interests and access requirements of all its stakeholders; no insular effort will suffice to critically embrace future technologies ... Instead we offer a toolkit of architectural and political strategies for knitting arts spaces into a tapestry of creative debate, out of which a new and more sustainable global society might one day rise. Art Spaces Lead Global Ecology of Ideas, Hunter&Gatherer (with Yiannis Kanakakis).
_Green Screen at Department 21
Green Screen \ Thursday 21st January \ 6pm \ Department 21
Film \ The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Dialogue \ How can we move forward with lower energy?
Questions and ideas raised by the dialogue will be collated online, both here and on Sustain RCA www.rca.ac.uk/Default.aspx?CategoryID=36755.
_Market Estate Project
Just So Studio has been invited to participate in the Market Estate Project, Islington, during February \ March 2010. New homes from old homes. We will be setting up shop with new household products made from the fabric of the old building – soon to be demolished. Profits will be donated to local charities working with the homeless.
_New Homes in Haringey - Site 26
A recent decision by Haringey Council to approve the idea building on parkland in Tottenham Hale has sparked reaction in local residents. Can the council, planning department, developers and residents be united around a shared vision for the area? What is really needed in this area? Can underlying local issues of transience, unemployment and temporary accommodation be addressed during the design process and proposal for this site?
_Department 21
Just So Studio has set up home in Department 21 at the RCA for 4 weeks. Department 21 is an experimental interdisciplinary workspace at the Royal College of Art.
_New Homes in Haringey - Sites 1-26
The Haringey 5-year land-supply plan outlines plans for the provision of over 4000 housing units in 25 sites across the borough. An additional scheme, outlining a further 1600 housing units is proposed for a further site at Greater Ashley Road, Tottenham Hale. Map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?client=safari&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=115629875761573117981.00047b155f7af234d6280&ll=51.595522,-0.100937&spn=0.06089,0.130634&z=13
There is a large amount of local opposition to the current plans for a number of these sites [most notably Wards Corner, Seven Sisters, and Greater Ashley Road]. What do these reactions tell us? How can we create space for dialogue, consultation and community within the development process?
What kind of development is needed?
How can we open up this question?
_PROJECT 3 - Allotment 138
The new term sees the launch of Allotment 138, at Wolves Lane Allotments. My [very cold] allotment is to become inhabited by artists and designers from the RCA as well as vegetables this spring. Watch this space and the Flickr Photostream for images as the space develops.
_PROJECT 2 - Mobile Garden Workshop
‘...the stall should be no greater than 2.74m long, 1.06m wide and 3.05m high.’
[Source: Haringey Free Space Regulations]
Ideas harvested from Project 1 were consolidated and reconfigured to form the brief for Project 2, a Mobile Garden Workshop, to be launched at Haringey Free Speech Area during Spring 2010.
…we need more people doing this!
Why don’t you teach them gardening?
Plant fruit trees in all landscaping schemes.
Use this ‘Haringey Free Speech Area’ more.
Get young people making things that are permanent.
Go down to Hornsey Town Hall – they gave us funding for our allotment shed project.
_PROJECT 1 - Haringey Ideas Harvest
1 mile, 3 hours, 4 cooking apples, 5 bunches of wildflowers, 12 black radishes [very spicy], 18 bunches of spinach.
A one-day project, getting to know the people who live in the area around my allotment in Wood Green, North London. A wheelbarrow full of vegetables provided the starting point for conversations: I exchanged something I had [vegetables from my allotment] for something I wanted [local ideas to improve Haringey].
_Writing a new storyline
...I propose that we should not think of sustainability as a concept as is done in common usage, or as a discourse ... or even as a narrative ... but as a storyline. I prefer this term because it emphasises the plot or trajectory of action rather than the style of the narrative.
...my hypothesis is that successful storylines of sustainability - meaning those that lead to satisfying action - are constituted of political, environmental and technological talk that is home-grown from particular cultural and environmental conditions.
... when citizens of a particular place compare their situation to abstract models of sustainable development or lists of best practices what they encounter are local obstacles to be overcome by universal principles. But when they begin with local patterns of public talk and historical storylines, what they encounter are opportunities. It is this latter possibility that leads most directly to satisfying action.
Stephen A. Moore, Models, lists, and the evolution of sustainable architecture, in The Green Braid
_Studio Methodology
Never assume the need.
Keep asking: What is needed now?
Your solution to any problem will depend on what you perceive the problem to be.
...what is needed are tools that will open up new public conversations.
Stephen A. Moore, Models, lists, and the evolution of sustainable architecture, in The Green Braid
Stephen A. Moore, Models, lists, and the evolution of sustainable architecture, in The Green Braid
_Values
Just So Studio values:
Optimism.
Interdependency: No one profession or professional can change things effectively on their own.
Dialogue: Communication should be open, transparent and honest.
Trust: Without trust, nobody is free to be themselves and to produce powerful work.
_Architecture as Support Structure
As M. Scott Ball writes in Expanding the Role of the Architect, ‘the well-being of all communities is inherently valuable to the health of our profession. How can we understand architecture as a support structure? Can this approach help us to engage more fully with communities and create work which in turn engages with its surroundings over time?
The primary catalyst for my practice has been my willingness to be useful first, and then figure out how my usefulness is architectural. I rely heavily on invitations and value the possibilities that they reveal for architecture to find relevant expression.
M. Scott Ball, Expanding the Role of the Architect, in Good Deeds, Good Design
_Pedagogy
The ultimate object of design is not artifacts, buildings, or landscapes, but human minds...
…The education of all design professions ought to begin in the recognition the architecture and landscapes are a kind a crystallised pedagogy that informs well or badly, but never fails to inform. Design inevitably instructs us about our relationships to nature and people that makes us more or less mindful and more or less ecologically competent.
…If it is not to become simply a more efficient way to do the same old things, ecological design must become a kind of public pedagogy built into the structure of daily life. ... The goal of ecological design is to calibrate human behaviour with ecological realities while educating people about ecological possibilities and limits.
…When we design ecologically, we are instructed continually by the fabric of everyday life - pedagogy informs infrastructure which in turn informs us.
David Orr, Architecture, ecological design, and human ecology, in The Green Braid
The challenge of resource scarcity draws into sharper focus what we choose to construct, the manner in which we choose to construct it, and the social aim towards which it is directed. How can we design buildings, systems, landscapes and products which increase our ecological literacy? How can designers and architects employ permaculture principles to enable authorities, businesses and local residents to become more mindful and ecologically competent throughout each design project?
_Permaculture Design Process
A permaculture-based analysis can offer a frank and grounded way of approaching any design problem, revealing tangible ways of making transitions towards ecological and systems-based thinking from the very start of the project. Rather than designing elements in isolation, this design approach encourages links to be formed between products, services and systems.
Close observation of existing conditions is prioritised over starting with a clean-slate:
1. Asset audit: What do we have already?
2. Establishing \ reinforcing relationships between existing elements
3. What needs to be added?
4. In what manner do we add?
5. To what ends?
_Permaculture
Initially developed by Bill Mollison and David Holgrem in Australia in 1978, from study of the naturally occurring forest ecosystem, permaculture design offers a creative way of seeing the environment in which we live and work. It is a principle-based approach, advocating whole-system thinking, which offers numerous 'ways in', to start tackling large problems with small, realistic solutions.
The basis of permaculture design is to establish the separate elements of any system into mutually beneficial relationships, making use of all products of the system and naturally available energy. This enables us to design systems and environments which maximise yield whilst minimising energy use.
Useful connections can only be made between things if they are put in the right place relative to each other.
Permaculture is a process of looking at the whole, seeing what the connections are between the different parts, and assessing how these connections can be changed so that the place can work more harmoniously. This may include introducing some new elements or methods, especially on an undeveloped site. But these changes are incidental to the process of looking at the landscape as a whole.
The essence of permaculture is to work with what is already there: firstly to preserve what is best, secondly to enhance existing systems, and lastly to introduce new elements. This is a low-energy approach, making minimum changes for maximum effect...
Patrick Whitefield, Permaculture in a Nutshell, [Permanent Publications, 2008]
_I am not separate from my environment
How can I visualise the relationship between myself and my environment? These two illustrations show two illustrations of the relationship between the individual and the environment. What difference does it make to my daily decisions if I acknowledge the extent of the interplay between each of my small decisions and the health of the wider environment?
A \ Individual-centric view: I am in control of the sphere of influence of my actions. I can employ the people and resources around me to satisfy my needs, ideas and desires without any negative impact.
B \ Environment-dependent view: I cannot choose the sphere of influence of my actions. Everything I do and experience is a direct result of [and cause of] the environment in which I live. Everything I choose to do has a direct impact at all levels of humanity and the environment. My health is entirely dependent on the health of my surroundings.
_Ecological Literacy
We are nature, learning.
Ethan Roland
I have had email conversations with people over the last few months about what the transition to a lower energy future actually means. It seems that the transition which needs to happen relates to our understanding of the relationship between the individual and the earth.
One of the things that will have to transition is the notion that the so-called ‘environment’ is a so-called separate ‘issue’, as if everything else could carry on as normal whether this issue gets addressed or not. That’s plainly impossible. Designers, artists and scientists are going to have a big part to play in communicating this, because it’s toxic to politicians. … there is not much any government can do now that will make much difference in its short political lifetime (typically 10-15 years max in the UK) and they can’t face up to telling the voters what the energy companies are already saying: energy and all fossil-fuel derived or dependent products and activities are going to get more and more expensive in the future, starting now. Do you know about Jody Boehnert’s projects - her sites are at www.eco-labs.co.uk and www.teach-in.co.uk?
[Extract from email correspondence]
_Human Framework
How does transition happen? In what conditions do paradigm shifts occur?
How does transition happen at an individual level - how do people change?
To change our patterns of behaviour voluntarily, we must first be aware that we are able to change. We must be motivated to change, think through how to make that change, and act upon our realisations. For this to happen, there needs to be an acknowledgement of the connection between the 'awareness', the 'motivation', the ‘how’ and the 'action'.
A \ Elements of myself.
B \ Elements of myself, observed and connected. I can be aware of what is happening; I am aware of my motivations and emotions; I am aware that my motivations affect my thoughts; I am aware that I act based on my thoughts. I can see the connection between my underlying motivations and their manifestation in action.
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