The Good City: Design for Sustainability
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The Good City: Design for Sustainability Conferencia Magistral dictada en el VIII Congreso Internacional de Diseño Forma 2015 La Habana, junio de 2015. Victor Margolin INTRODUCTION In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, a study based on MIT computer models that simulat- Design is undergoing a momentous change. ed the relations between the earth’s resources and Where designers were once known for creating the the human population. As a forecasting tool, Limits visual appearance of products, whether coffee pots to Growth argued that the continued consumption or posters, today they are becoming recognized for of resources at the current rate was unsustainable. their work on the design of services, organizations Its call for new sustainable environmental and social (including government agencies) and even social policies was continued in subsequent studies - the networks. Specializations such as interaction de- World Commission on Environment and Develop- sign, experience design, social design, and design ment’s Our Common Future , a report directed by for sustainability did not exist a few years ago. The Norway’s former Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brun- older projects of designing artifacts have not dis- tland, and Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to appeared but the recognition that design can be so Save Our Planet. Both originated within the United much more is growing. Nations system, the latter in conjunction with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. That conference was fol- Growth involves change and change involves risk. lowed 20 years later by Rio + 20, which produced its To imagine a future that is different from the pres- own set of documents, notably The Future We Want, ent is to risk that the future we seek to bring about that called for change. will be better than what we have. However, this is not an arbitrary process. We usually draw our ideas We can already see evidence that our consumption of the future from what we like best about the pres- habits are severely affecting the climate and result- ent. Of course, this suggests that everyone has his or ing in an increasing number of natural disasters. own preferred future but we know that a scenario of To respond to each of these disasters is a major ef- competing and even clashing futures is not possible. fort that demands excessive human and material re- There are certainly numerous factors beyond any- sources. Should they continue there is a risk that we one’s personal desires that play an important role in will be overwhelmed by them and will not be able the kind of future we should be seeking. First is the to successfully respond when they occur. Therefore natural factor of climate change; then the social be- we have to drastically change the way live, partic- havioral factors of resource consumption and waste ularly the way we obtain and use energy. The more elimination, and finally the social values factor of carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere from justice for everyone. gas-powered vehicles, the more we contribute to an unhealthy and ultimately dangerous atmosphere. «The Good City: Design for Sustainability» Revista de la Universidad Cubana de Diseño 15 Victor Margolin Número. 03 The more we consume resources excessively, the well being, is also on the international agenda as an less there are that remain for successive genera- integral component of United Nations policy, nota- tions. And the more waste and garbage we generate, bly in the existing Millennium Development Goals the more we use up available land where it can be and the future Millennium Development Goals for dumped and the more we contaminate the soil. This global sustainability. is not to mention dumping chemical and toxic waste in our rivers and oceans, and overfishing our waters Paradoxically, designers united as a professional to deplete them of food for the future. I could con- class could also be inordinately powerful in creating tinue with more descriptions of reckless behavior visions of the future. As creators of models, proto- but clearly it is not necessary. Finally is the issue of types, and propositions, designers occupy a dialec- social justice and the way resources are distributed. tical space between the world that is and the world The disparity between those who are wealthy and that could be. Informed by the past and the present, those who are not exists throughout the world. As their activity is oriented towards the future. They the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly operate in situations that call for interventions and spelled out almost seventy years ago, each person they have the unique ability to turn these interven- has the right to shelter, food, education, and oppor- tions into material and immaterial forms. tunities for development. Trained in many disciplines - whether product design, The problems are evident but the solutions are not. architecture, engineering, visual communication, or Nonetheless, myriad authors in recent years have software development – designers are responsible for 1 produced future scenarios based on their beliefs that the artifacts, systems, and environments that make Lester R. Brown, sound environmental policies are crucial to human- up the social world – bridges, buildings, the Internet, Eco-Economy: Building kind’s survival. In his book Eco-Economy: Building transportation, advertising, clothing, and construc- an Economy for the Earth an Economy for the Earth (2001). Lester, Brown stat- tion equipment, to cite only a few examples. Com- (New York and London: ed that “[e]conomists see the environment as a sub- panies would have nothing to manufacture without Norton, 2001), 3. set of the economy. Ecologists, on the other hand, designers nor would they have services to offer. 2 see the economy as a subset of the environment.”1 See Victor Margolin, “The The environmentalists provide cogent arguments At the core of a new design ethics is the question of Liberation of Ethics” in for change and have consequently made impressive what it means to be human. I prefer to situate the Clive Dilnot, Ethics? De- inroads into the policies and practices of individual human environment as Tomás Maldonado does sign? [Archeworks Papers nations and civil society organizations. Sustainabil- within a larger system that transcends the limits of 1 no. 2] (Chicago: Arche- ity, which denotes both environmental and social human production2.Maldonado notes that human works, 2005), 160. «The Good City: Design for Sustainability» Revista de la Universidad Cubana de Diseño 16 Victor Margolin Número. 03 agency is capable of damaging or destroying the the field - policy documents, organization charters, larger system but that the human environment is manifestos, research, and publications. And third, no more than a subsystem of the ecological one. The designers are ordinary citizens who need to partici- implication of his schema is that the conduct of hu- pate in the social processes outside their professions. man life is in some way accountable to the complex order of the larger environmental system. Modeling Another aspect of the action matrix is the issue of the organization of the human environment on the scale. Action takes place at three levels: the micro lev- biosphere is problematic but, as numerous scholars el, which is that of individual action. Here we place have shown, there is nonetheless much that hu- issues of individual carbon footprints, decisions to mans have to learn about co-existing with nature. recycle, ride a bicycle, control consumption, and so forth. The meso level is the level of groups where the THE CITIZEN DESIGNER individual may still have some influence. This in- volves organizations and social networks, as well as Some years I introduced the concept of the “citizen de- institutions such as art schools and universities. The signer,” which I intended to signify that the designer meso level mediates between the individual and the has multiple roles, each of which has its own politi- macro level, where it becomes difficult if not impossi- cal/social dimension and consequences. I would like ble to control outcomes. Perhaps the best example of to discuss these roles within what I call an “action ma- the meso level is the city which, however large, is still trix.” First, the designer makes products, or else devis- of a scale to enable decisions that affect urban dwell- es propositions for making products. By a product I do ers. The macro level would include governments, in- not only mean a tangible thing, but also things that ternational organizations, and large companies with are intangible like services, policies, and large com- thousands or even millions of employees. plex environments. One of the new and positive direc- tions in design research today is the movement of de- At all these levels, there is a search for visions, ma- sign thinking into areas where it did not exist before. ny of which compete with each other. The best ideas do not always prevail and consequently crises ensue. Second, the designer participates in the discourse of For designers, there are many possibilities to act at his or her profession. Every profession has its dis- the micro level, both for one’s self and in association course, which includes the assumptions, procedures, with a few others – a life partner, a business partner, and policies that guide the field’s engagement with a friend. At the meso level, there are art and design the world. Discourse also includes the conversations, schools, professional associations, and so forth. How websites, and proposals that are generated within exciting it would be if a design school adopted an «The Good City: Design for Sustainability» Revista de la Universidad Cubana de Diseño 17 Victor Margolin Número. 03 across the board policy of training students to work different from those of the past.