To Scarcity, Sustainability, and Beyond
I think Chelsea brought this up in class on Tuesday but it was something that I identified with strongly in the readings this week and wanted to write some thoughts on it. Jeremy Till wrote about how during an economic scarcity of materials and a period where traditional building processes were restricted by a low budget, architects that understood these as opportunities to use design ingenuity to redefine the project instead of an obstacle that had to be overcome is in my mind places a high value on how the act of design itself can make a difference in the world.
My favorite example of how this was accomplished was the competition for the suggested secondary school by the firm 00:/ where instead of redesigning a corridor by widening it or making spatial modifications, they studied and analyzed the corridor and proposed a policy change of changing the school structure by staggering daily breaks and changing how the school operated.
We often talk about sustainability in regards to carbon footprint, carbon processes in materials used, local materials, energy reduction or production, but don't always talk about a good definition which large groups of people can relate and identify clearly with our ideas. The text provided the Bruntland, which the text really glossed over what an important global sustainability council and discussions the United Nations in the 80s and 90s, which saw sustainability not just as an environmental call to action but also included the social and economic impacts of sustainable development.
I think this is really important for us in designers, because we need to be critical thinkers of sustainable design in our future careers after leaving graduate schools. Till also talks about how scarcity thinking could help us change that shift in our thinking - and I agree with what he is saying:
I admire a lot of Mies' work, but if instead of adopting a Less is More attitude and focused on rethinking about how we can work with the less that we already have, I believe this is a good solution too.
My favorite example of how this was accomplished was the competition for the suggested secondary school by the firm 00:/ where instead of redesigning a corridor by widening it or making spatial modifications, they studied and analyzed the corridor and proposed a policy change of changing the school structure by staggering daily breaks and changing how the school operated.
We often talk about sustainability in regards to carbon footprint, carbon processes in materials used, local materials, energy reduction or production, but don't always talk about a good definition which large groups of people can relate and identify clearly with our ideas. The text provided the Bruntland, which the text really glossed over what an important global sustainability council and discussions the United Nations in the 80s and 90s, which saw sustainability not just as an environmental call to action but also included the social and economic impacts of sustainable development.
I think this is really important for us in designers, because we need to be critical thinkers of sustainable design in our future careers after leaving graduate schools. Till also talks about how scarcity thinking could help us change that shift in our thinking - and I agree with what he is saying:
If scarcity asks us to do things differently rather than to do the same with less, then the course of sustainability is shifted from measuring and technically redefining the object to understanding the object within a wider and more complex set of dynamics."
I admire a lot of Mies' work, but if instead of adopting a Less is More attitude and focused on rethinking about how we can work with the less that we already have, I believe this is a good solution too.
"Less is more, unless you can take the less and get more out of it," - Futuristic Architect Buzz Lightyear (probably)
To infinity and beyond (the possibilities). I think that it is important to understand what is possible with "less". Whether it is less square footage or less variety in material or even less in effort. We tend to make everything custom instead of prefabricated which drives up the cost. There is no one fits all solution - otherwise we would live in a very dull world, but if we can work within the parameters of standard sizes and reduce the need of everything being custom while also considering what you can do to make it less complicated, we can still achieve great architectural buildings.
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