Early birthday present :)

Some ill-structured notes from William McDonough’s presentation to SCAD on March 3rd, 2005.

Overall, I was not impressed; the talk was humorous and McDonough is clearly an expert in the field of sustainability, but I feel that he was fitting a square peg in a round hole by trying to relate specifically to interior design and would have been much more on the mark by simply talking about industrial and architectural design. Additionally, there was not much substance to the interesting part of his talk, and not much interest to the substantial part of the talk; I was left with a very loose idea of a strategy, where I would have liked more pragmatic steps that one could take to address sustainability in the classroom and office. I very much enjoyed seeing examples of the buildings his firm has been designing, and wish there were more specific photographs and illustrations to explain his points.

All Sustainability is Local: A global strategy; the education of a designer

Designed the first green office in 1984 for the environmental defense fund; practiced in New York City; feel like an interior designer who practices architecture. Think of the visceral connectivity with a persons life; we inhabit the interior for most of the waking life, and a majority of that time is spent indoors; the interior relates to the human ecology through a visceral connection to the body and to the human spirit.

Would like to relate that to the "global question" - what it means to be a designer (not an architect, product designer, etc); simply a designer. What it means to have education with regard to design.

All sustainability is local. Global sustainability is the sum of the sustainability of local communities. Projects represent the local. Communities are comprised of individuals who communicate. Are educators a community? What are they communicating, and to whom? Is the world of design a community?

Einstein said that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it; if you see the same problems we see, we need a new consciousness in order to solve that problem.

China has just adopted cradle to cradle as a national industrial policy.

A trainer's job is to teach how to do something the right way; to be focused and efficient, like an apprenticeship. If you are learning from a trainer, you are learning something that has been done for centuries; you are being trained. An educator's job, however, is to teach how to do the right thing; to be forward thinking and effective. Problem with efficiency: Isn't necessarily good in the philosophical sense. An efficient Nazi is worse than an inefficient Nazi.

Are you doing the right thing? If we only use feedback, "Let me recite to you what history teaches: history teaches" (Gertrude Stein). If we only use feedback loops and don't actually integrate the messages, than we can't have feedforward: "Education requires the clash of ideas" (Thomas Jefferson).

Moving forward; Thomas Jefferson was a designer first and foremost. Only lists the important things: the legacies, the things he created. Not his activities, not his jobs. Jefferson's tomb stone doesn’t actually show his presidency. Argument; argument is the point of education - requires the clash of ideas.

Are our current local and global business strategies sustaining? Are they even sustainable in the long run? Presidential award for sustainable development; "Mr. Sustainable, what does it all mean"? Sustainable isn't that interesting; instead, we need a sustaining - as a verb - something delightful.

The average age of a teacher is around 45. Most of them finished higher education 20 years ago. Most of the professionals are older; consider the training of a 45 year old educator (or a 45 year old anything); Their textbooks and design projects were, basically, twenty years old - and are out of date, dramatically. These are new ideas, yet most of the educators have a hard time teaching new ideas.

Most professors of interior design had little or not training or education about ecology and thus have no responses to difficult questions from students; have had little training with ecology.

University tenure and peer review protocols do little to encourage multidisciplinary work much les interdisciplinary work. Jack of all trades, master of none; you aren't an expert if you work with other disciplines. Yet the teams that do the most good have chemists, doctors, zoologists, etc; rich multidimensional teams that honor the needs of other disciplines.

Engineers know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.

Meta-questions; Architects and designers know less and less about more and more until we know nothing about everything.

Less is more; more or less; more is less.

This isn't about a focused pedagogy; more about a fluid way of thinking.

Less is Lore; Form Follows Function; Universal design - homogeneity. However, if form follows function is all you do, you end up with a set of bland, similar, antiseptic designs - nothing more than what is used.

More and less; form follows evolution - adaptation and integration. We have more sometimes, and less sometimes; you may want more of things that are delighting and adapt to get those things.

More is mess; form follows celebration; diversity - the pursuit of happiness. Why do people all have different hair styles? We want diversity! Pleasurable, albeit not easy.

We want a diversity in biology and in the world; we want to pursue happiness. Form follows function is in conflict with happiness.

What is the intention of education? What is the goal - is it to develop a unified scientific theory? Or, are we looking for enlightenment? Less is more; this is a microscopic view, intended to cut away to the essentials. This could be a tone, or an integer; the basic. More and less, however, implies binoculars; we create a harmonious relationship, or the magical numbers. We find pleasure in the relationship between things that interrelate; we have food, that goes to soil, that create, etc.

More is mess is similar to looking like a telescope, and a microscope. The big bang; the fractals; the idea of complexity and chaos; self similarity in all design; Buckminster Fuller; more is mess. We start with nothing and end with a mess.

Thus, what do you want to do for the day?
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness?

"Never go to a meeting with someone you don't like".

Sustainability people should be having more fun than everyone else.

I am with my family; I work; I am with my family. A simple life; how complicated is it? When I am hungry I eat; When I am tired I sleep.

Simple; thus, what is the work? Design is the firs signal of human intention. What is our intention as a species?

Ultimately, the question to ask is - how do we find ourselves in kinship with the natural world? Not to see nature as capitol; instead, we are part of the natural world - tools of nature, rather than the other way around.

Guardian: How do I secure my ideal society? How do I achieve world peace? How do I save the environment?

Commerce: How do I create prosperity, provide value, sell more units?

Guardian and Commerce are in conflict; Guardian is serious; commerce is honest. Commerce is creative; guardian reserves the right to kill; if you get these two items mixed up, you get monstrous hybrids. Thus, you get a corrupt and slow system; regulation becomes signals of design failure. The state needs to step in, in order to stop killing. This points out a breakdown in industry, rather than a breakdown in government; the problem is not the state - this illustrates a problem with the entire system.

Strategies of Tragedy; modern culture embraces global warming, etc; we realize that these tragedies are of our own making. We can't claim "it's not my fault"; "I didn't plan to give someone cancer" is not a viable response to problems. The things are happening due to a lack of other plans. Our own responsibility - negligence is knowing better and doing it anyways.

Most of modern culture doesn't have an end game. If global warming is the plan, say so! Make it explicit! But if it isn't the plan, then .. what are doing? What's the end game? If you play chess and don't have a goal, how do you win? You don't - you are just moving pieces around.

Posit strategies of change; this requires humility, which is hard in architecture. We went to the moon before we put wheels on our luggage. Heh.

There's no end game because it's an infinite game.

How long is it going to take? It's going to take forever - that's the point.

How do we love all children of all species for all time?

Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean water, clean air, clean soil and clean power - economically, equitably, ecologically, and elegantly enjoyed.

Delightfully diverse .. do we all want to be the same?

Safe, healthy .. California Proposition 65 Warning. Products - rubber ducks - have warning labels.

How do you deal with this? What do you do about it? Do you bring in lawyers? Negligence? Measured against peers. If you lead, the peers are measured against you.

Justice. Is justice blind? Or is blindness justice?

Clean water is a human right, according to the UN. Clean air; clean soil; clean power; economically enjoyed.

Is it fair to have bad design? we see great signs of hope; we see huge problems.

Ecologically intelligent materials; the steel used in cars has been contaminated due to paint - not recycled, but down cycled. But, signs of hope; world's largest chemical companies, etc, beginning to understand and embrace ecoworks - carpets can be recycled. Carpet industry is the last textile industry in the united states; if we continue to make PVC, we will continue to destroy the American carpet industry. Japan is going to make it illegal; Germany is going to make it illegal; we won't be able to sell our carpets overseas. We want our industries to stay here, so let's retool and create carpets that don't have PVC and can actually be recycled.

Elegance.

Where does it come from, and where does it go?
It comes from suppliers; it goes to customers.

Indoor air quality in 1984; Is your office killing you? The dangers of sick buildings. When does the negligence clock start? Maybe you should have known about this; there was something in the press you should have known about; interior designers .. do you have lawyers? insurance? insurance for this?

Use the precautionary principles - be a leader in the field - you get measured against your peer. Be the leader.

Take => Make => Waste; industrial revolution of cradle to grave. Things end up in a landfill. Unfortunately, "throwing things away" is a problem. Giant low pressure area; scientists found 6 times as much plastic as plankton in the "giant toilet that doesn't flush"; where does it all come from?

We need new design. Sustainable forestry. gravity is a law; what about The Hanover Principles? 1992; design protocols and principles for the world's fair; issues by the German government to the earth summit.

Fundamental principles of cradle to cradle design.

- Insist on the rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.

- Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognize even distant effects.

- Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.

- Accept responsibility for the consequences of design. There is no bill of right to pollute.

- Create safe objects of long-term value.
- Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.

- Rely on natural energy flows.
- Understand the limitations of design - be humble.
- Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge.

Making of things; we aren't going back to nature. We are really looking at technical materials that can go in endless cycles. The point is not to give things back to nature; it is to create materials that can continually be reused and remade into other objects.

Why make books out of trees? Make them out of polymer. We write our history on the skin of fish with the blood of bears.

What if humans could make artifice a living thing? Human artifice; making the things we make like a living thing. What if human technology was alive? We can begin to grow; what do we want to grow? .. We can grow anything we want. Cradle to Cradle; biological metabolism; products of consumption that return to the soil. Products that are continually reused. Recycling is wrong; recycling toxic soup.

Not about designing products that last forever; products don't last forever. Design machines to be dis-assemble-able.

Ecology, Equity, Economy.

Efficiency is not good; it's being bad, just less so. If the goal is 0, so what? You are still bad; less bad is still bad.

Set a goal at 100%. Not less bad; be more good.

*bam. computer frozen*
I'll make the rest of it up.
Computer comes back.

Cradle to Cradle "virtuous cycle, through translation" is being accepted by the President of China as policy.

US and China need to coexist

Deming's call (1953) for change, and the way to integrate it into management, is still valid; lean production - fundamentally degenerative. How am I doing? Am I being efficient? 14 Points of Edwards Deming. Statistical quantification of regenerative product development.

Goal: A delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world. All sustainability is local. The transformation is everyone's job.