read more: sustainable web design

"How can the web have a sustainability problem when 'paperless' and 'eco-friendly' frequently share the same sentence? After all, designers in many disciplines are trying to fix their own sustainability problems by moving them online – in other words, things are made 'green' when they go on the web...While some products become more sustainable by converting them to a swarm of bits, we must remember that those bits require something very physical to exist – a big, high-tech network, using lots of electricity and always-on computers to operate."

- Pete Markiewicz, Save the Planet Through Sustainable Web Design

read more: why our own neighborhoods needs us as much

"Recognize that you are an expert in your own community. Think about the research and ramp-up time and cultural assimilation needed to understand a community outside of your own. Whether elsewhere in the United States or halfway across the world. 

A lot of this ramp-up isn't necessary when you stay local. Working locally offers a way out of a vicious cycle of guilt, feeling hindered, and inaction. It offers escape hatches leading to a more sustainable situation for yourself, meaning you can get out of the mentality of thinking you need to quit your job and move to Africa to do something good."

- Julie Kim, GOOD

read more: form follows... distribution method

"You can buy a Coke pretty much anywhere on Earth. Thanks to a vast network of local suppliers, Coca-Cola has almost completely solved distribution, getting its product into every nook and cranny where commerce reaches. There are places in the world where it’s easier to get a Coke than clean water. In the 1980s, Berry was an aid worker in Zambia, and when he looked at Coke’s success, he saw an opportunity."
- Tim Maly, Wired 

official website launch

I've been slowly announcing it via social media, email, and other means but today I'm announcing it here. I'm a freelancer!

What? You already knew that? Of course you did. But now I have an official website that you can send to your friends. Please do. I'm accepting clients.

The rest of the website is even more exciting looking, so go on, check it out.

hacking at social change

[Graphic design by Hannes Beer]

Lately I've been thinking a lot about design thinking and user-centered (and human-centered) design. In particular, I've been thinking about how it can be used across fields, not just by designers. Two nights ago, the phrase "Design Thinking for Hackers" came into my head and I couldn't quite shake it.

I know next-to-nothing about hacking. Living in the Bay Area, I'm fairly familiar with the concept and its lean, quick-and-dirty, just-see-what-works model is all the rage here. But I don't code and have worked very hard to keep my design work the physical world. It turns out I'm not the only one thinking about design thinking can help those hackers who busily spend their free weekends trying to save nonprofits and open governments. According to Jake Porway's recent piece in the Harvard Business Review blog:

"For all of these upsides, however, hackathons are not ideal for solving big problems like reducing poverty, reforming politics, or improving education and, when they're used to interpret data for social impact, they can be downright dangerous...You need to have a clear problem definition, include people who understand the data not just data analysis, and be deeply sensitive with the data you're analyzing. Any data scientist worth their salary will tell you that you should start with a question, NOT the data."

So how can hackers avoid hacking up our future? Porway doesn't get right out and say it, but, through design thinking. Through, as Porway does highlight, getting people in the room who understand where the data comes from and asking the right questions. To often, the tech world celebrates grinding away in isolation, which works for creating beautiful objects and interfaces but will consistently fail at solving social problems. Social problems can only be solved by those who understand them. Hackers are comfortable iterating and asking, 'does it work?' Let's get them comfortable asking, 'who does it need to work for?' and 'why?' first. 

read more: design literally change the world

"Design can help by making it easier to live up to our aspirations: by making stairs a more accessible and enticing option than escalators, for example, or creating open spaces where people want to gather instead of being trapped in their cubicles. By shaping the objects, interactions, and environments we live around and within, design literally changes the world."
- Ingrid Fetell, quoted in an wonderful, longer piece by Erin Loechner , Design for Mankind

creativity explored

On Thursday I attended a wonderful art auction benefiting Creativity Explored sponsored by Serena and Lily. I had first heard of Creativity Explored through work at CB2 and so was excited to support.

Creativity Explored is a San Francisco based nonprofit studio and gallery whose purpose is "to provide people with developmental disabilities the opportunity to express themselves through the creation of art. Additionally, we provide studio artists the opportunity to earn income from the sale of their artwork and to pursue a livelihood as a visual artist to the fullest extent possible." 

While I did not win the piece I bid on, it was a lovely night supporting a wonderful organization. Original art from Creativity Explored artists can be purchased at the Creativity Explored gallery, on their website, and from Serena and Lily. You can also purchase textiles with prints of Creativity Explored work at CB2 which are all currently 10% off*.

*Disclaimer: While I do work at CB2, all views here are my own. 

design like you give a damn

[Tshirt. From Selfless Tee]

 Last week was packed. There was exciting news (Partner-in-Crime passed his grad school 'qual' and is now an official doctoral candidate.) There were parties (pre-launch party for the wonderful brika.com curated shop.) But mostly there were conferences. I attended both Greenbuild and Architecture for Humanity's Design Like You Give a Damn conference.

I struggled to think of how to share all the amazing stories and projects I learned about at DLYGAD and was thrilled to find out the presentations are all online. Check them out here. The conference was quite packed so I only saw two of the four panels- on EcoDesign and Security, along with the keynotes. Sadly, the amazing open mic talks are not included. For six hours, participants gave a 7 minute talk on a project they had completed. I spent the first two hours of the conference mesmerized and could have listened all day if not for the panels that occurred at the same time.

When I arrived, I was surprised at how far many participants had traveled. By the end, I understood why. Though just a one day conference, it was worth traveling to be there. Every participant and speaker deeply cared about design for good. Hope to see you all there next year. Until then, I'll be watching these videos when I need some inspiration.

measuring sustainability, point by point

[Image from Energy Points website]

I recently posted my 3 Keys to Big Picture Sustainability, a wholly qualitative set of evaluations. Energy Points is an attempt at the opposite- a methodically quantitative set of measurements that accounts for a wide variety of sustainability issues. According to their website, Energy Points' "platform translates all resources into primary energy for direct, one to one comparison of domains such as electricity, water, and fuel." 

A huge problem in understanding sustainability progress, as founder Ory Zik points out to Fast Company's Co.Exist blog, is that the metrics don't line up. Comparing savings in water, electricity, and other resources overlaid with information about the location can be incredibly powerful information for building managers, homeowners and more. When investing money in improvements, these individuals want to be able to make informed decisions and tools like Energy Points give them the ability to do so.

Is this a good thing? On the surface, yes. For buildings managers? Definitely. For designers?  Not always.

Designers need to be able to do the difficult balancing of sustainability themselves. The tradeoffs are about more than energy used. For architects and interior designers, a building's function cannot be measured only in its use of resources but in performance for its users. Energy Points is a useful tool, but for designers cannot be the only measure of sustainability. 

3 keys to big picture sustainable design

[Provenance Trivet and package design]

Sustainability is a buzz word, and has been for years now. It feels like the Next Big Thing, yet alternately feels like little has changed and the debates over what is and isn't sustainable rage on. Nitpicking frustrates me. I'll admit, incremental change can frustrate me. It's important but frustrating. As designers, we can tweak our designs and tweak materials, but truly sustainable design comes from focusing on the big picture. After all, as Steve Jobs said, design is more than the veneer. Design is everything.

The three keys to big picture sustainable design:

[Underground house by De Matos Ryan connected to historical stone tower]

1. Sustainable design has permanence.
Sustainable design lasts. We have to get back to designing durability. We have to get back to designing products, buildings and experiences that we want to keep. More than just designing out planned obsolesce, we have to design in quality that users will want to keep.

[Jelloware by The Way We See The World]

2. Sustainable design has adaptability.
Either in the original form or as a series of parts, sustainable design can adapt to changing needs. Either it can be broken down into its parts to be updated or the whole product can be used for an additional purpose. If the item must disappear, it can do so without a trace.

[Anti-fly Sphere by Jose de la O]

3. Sustainable design performs.
The product functions as required so it does not need to be replaced, and, equally important, it is a joy to use. If you delight the user, they will value your design and therefore preserve it.

99% invisible on universal design

I've been meaning to write a post on 99% Invisible. Every episode of the design and architecture themed podcast is excellent, but when the latest started with a clip of a walk-and-talk from West Wing I knew it was time to share. 99% Invisible used the clip as a segue to talk about the way we talk when moving through space and the different spacial challenges faced by the deaf community when walking and communicating. The only thing the episode missed was a shout out to Joey Lucas, the deaf character who could walk and talk with the best of them. (The best forever being Sam Seaborn and Josh Lyman.) 

From the 99% Invisible website:

Robert Sirvage is a deaf designer, researcher, and instructor at Gallaudet, and in collaboration with Hansel Bauman — who is not deaf – and a group of staff, students and architects, they’ve developed a project calledDeafSpace. Reporter Tom Dreisbach took a tour through the new building at Gallaudet that is incorporating the innovations of DeafSpace to create an environment more pleasing to everyone, both hearing and deaf. 

[Plans for a residence hall by by LTL Architects / Quinn Evans Architects]

The show had many insightful moments and somehow I learned more about designing for the hearing-impaired than I had in my four years of design school. Mind you, I loved my program but I can't remember specifically discussing the issue (though I'm having flashbacks to diagrams of the structure of the inner ear.) More than designing around the lack of hearing, Sirvage and Bauman designed to reduce the eyestrain that accompanies replacing auditory clues with visual ones. Blue walls help provide the greatest contrast to a wide variety of skin-tones. An attempt to round walls to increase sightlines lead to increased collisions, so glass corners were suggested instead. Diffuse lighting. 

While I joked that the West Wing clip prompted this post, it was more accurately a short quote at the end. "Fundamentally this is about universal design, designing for the widest range of people possible with a variety of abilities because not only is it more inclusive, it's demonstrably better design, regardless of need." 

As designers, by studying a wide variety of specific population's needs, we are able to best design for the widest group at all times. 

design is in the... big picture

[Image from The Society Pages]

I recently started working on a very exciting, unfortunately top secret, project with an amazing company called Goldie Blox. While I cannot get into specifics, it tackles several issues very close to my heart. Goldie Blox's mission is to encourage young girls to be engineers through designing a way show girls their potential.

Young girls today are told that they can be anything that they want. This is the message I grew up with,  the message that inspired me to work hard and pursue my dreams. It is an incredibly positive thing, and one that should be a given.  The problem is that while girls are told they can be anything they want to be, we are not always inspiring girls to look at the broad array of things that they could be. This is particularly troubling in comparison to the things that boys know they can be and the things that boys already have role models in place to admire.

How does this relate to design? The messages that girls receive are typically subtle and unintentional. Even when the decision was intentional, the resulting message was unintentional. For instance, think of the books you were assigned in school. Many of those books had male protagonists. Teachers know that girls are able- perhaps through conditioning- to relate to male characters, while young boys have difficulty relating to female characters. As a result, girls read stories in which the male characters achieve much more than the female characters. Design is a process of recognizing a problem and working to create solutions. We can design products, stories, and educational systems that change the message that girls receive. That adapt to the differences in development and learning styles in young children without dividing. Or defaulting to pink and purple.

What excites me most about Goldie Blox, other than its massive big mission, is the consciousness of the founders to the role of design in the process- from the details up to the big picture. I get to play a teeny part and am so excited to watch this project grow.

design intervention: doing it right

[Santa Marta community, Rio de Janeiro, image from Favela Painting]

I love the colorful buildings of artistic team Haas & Hann's projects. The duo's favela project, originally conceived in Brazil, pays local youth to paint buildings vivid shades. I love that the project is "not about cosmetically 'camouflaging' an area, but rather rejuvenating deprived areas of a city and creating a positive social effect on the general district at hand." I was first introduced to the pair's work on Apartment Therapy when in an article titled "Should New York Go Neon?" The proposed images of New York were thrilling to me, but the article and the idea struck me as misguided. The proposal of an unsolicited "intervention" in lower Manhattan from a pair of designers from outside the United States lacked the community input I think is necessary for a project to be truly uplifting instead of just aesthetically pleasing. And while they certainty are pleasing to me, many may find the colors an eyesore especially without community consultation and buy-in.

[Proposed NYC project, image from Apartment Therapy]

Tonight I took the time to look at the Favela Painting website in more depth. There were things that heartened me, such as the education in painting skills and safety the local youth received, which can serve as job training. Additionally, "inside of the sambaschool was painted in [the area's] traditional colors"

While of course there are many other improvements that could be made to those communities (either in Brazil or New York,) even small physical appearance changes can have a very positive affect. The Favela Project was started in 2006 in Brazil where the Dutch team works and lives, and the New York proposal was more of a creative design exercise than true proposal. I would hope a team that has had such successful projects in the past understand the important of community in the design process should such a project actually move forward. What works in one community does not translate to all communities, especially if the similarity in the communities is largely on of economic status or political power instead of culture and identity. I encourage Haas & Haan to continue the painting project in Brazil if it as welcome in the community as my google-ing suggests but to think deeper about ways to bring the same joy to other cities.

What do you think are best practices for community-based design?

[Painters at work in Rio, image from Favela Painting]

america recycles day (intro to three part series)

[Alejandro Durán's Washed Up Series]

Today is America Recycles Day and kicks off a series I’m writing on recycling and, more broadly, the three R’s. We all remember the three R’s from school (those of us born in or after the 80s at least.) Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

These are important Rs for designers too. We, as designers, are responsible for the products we create. We pour our heart into their creation and then we hope to send them out into the world. But what happens to our products after? Are they still our responsibility? How can we make our designs comply with the three Rs? This is an issue close to my heart, merging the work I've done on climate change and sustainability with my love of design. Over the next two weeks, I’ll examine each R and discuss ways designers have taken them into consideration in their work.  

What do you think a designer’s responsibility is? Please share thoughts as well as any great examples of designers imagining great solutions to the three Rs.

Occupy Design creates visual language for the 99%

I'm on an impromptu last minute trip to DC. The minute I walked onto the familiar reddish tile of the Metro Station at National, I felt at ease. Like many of my trips after I moved elsewhere, I'm here for a semi-work reason but also spending time with friends and this time, with family. I likely won't get to post again this week, but since Occupy Oakland is weighing on my mind while I'm across the country, I wanted to share the work of Occupy Design.  Infographics and visuals can be incredibly impactful, particularly in breaking down numbers and complex comparisons.

From their website:
This is one of the first social movements in history able to produce high-quality imagery using digital graphic design tools, and distribute them instantaneously anywhere in the world using file-sharing and social media. We aim to provide a universal visual toolset for the Occupy movement which crosses language barriers and brings a strong visual identity to the movement. It’s also one of the first social movements with broad access to open data – which, if communicated correctly, makes it much more difficult for those who should be held accountable to hide from facts.

Because the movement is so diverse, the mainstream media has characterized it at various points as “directionless” and “lacking a message”. We believe that regardless of background or politics, 99% of the nation can truly agree upon the injustice demonstrated by a clear communication of facts and statistics in a well-designed way – and that bringing these facts to the street via physical infographic signs will help bolster the communication of occupations’ messaging. 

See more from Occupy Design in their slideshow:

blog action day: food

This is a special Blog Action Day post. Blog Action Day is an annual event that focuses on a differentopic each year and this year it overlaps with World Food Day so the topic is food. If you have ever read my blog before, you know food is an issue I care about passionately. Typically, my posts have involved the joys of preparing and eating food, but I am privileged to have access to the bounty of food currently available to me.

8.4% of Americans live in a food desert, as classified by the US Department of Agriculture. According to their classification, "if 500 people and/or 33 percent of a particular tract's population lived more than 1 mile from the nearest grocery store (or, for rural tracts, 10 miles), and the local poverty rate was significant, then the tract was designated a food desert" [source.]

A food desert doesn't mean there isn't any food available. In urban neighborhoods, there are often bodegas or corner stores that sell packaged goods but often don't stock perishable fruits and vegetables. In rural areas, someone may live surrounded by farms that grow food but the food is monocultured and shipped to processing plants or markets far away.

Here in San Francisco, there is a "fairly large food desert located in the Bayview, Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods – some of the poorest in San Francisco. In San Francisco, a staggering 150,000 people, 20% of the city’s population forsakes buying food in order to pay their bills... Other Bay Area food deserts include neighborhoods in Oakland and Richmond" [source.]

What can be done about food deserts and how do designers play a role? As designers, we learn to look at problems systematically. We have created a complex system for growing and distributing food and ending food deserts involves changing both how we grow and how we distribute food. Most of all, we need to change what we value about food. Do we value that there is food or do we value what food is there? I believe every person should have access to healthy and affordable food. Changes will have to come from political and economic forces, but we, as designers, have a huge role in showing the potential good to come and in creating the new systems themselves.

I recently wrote about the Via Verde apartments where the designers responded to the community's request for a healthy place to live by including, among other initiatives, community garden space. Here are three additional examples of how designers are creating change in our food systems.

 

[Rural NC Farmers Market created by local high school design-build class] 

[Cornell Design and Environmental Analysis students help classmates be able to prepare meals from fresh foods]

[Stockbox Grocers is a miniature market that brings healthy food to urban food deserts within the existing infrastructure.]

Sources:
Do You Live in a "Food Desert?"
America's Worst 9 Urban Food Deserts

via verde grows sustainable architecture's reach

[Image from The New York Times]

 Via Verde looks more like luxury condo building than a subsidized apartment complex. It has the amenities of a luxury building too- fitness room with a view, lush gardens, tons of natural light.

But it started where community design should- by asking the neighborhood what they wanted. The answer: a healthy place to live.

By increasing building costs only 5%, Via Verde has green design as its core of the 71 co-ops and 151 rental apartments along with commercial space that includes a medical clinic. The building is designed to get residents into the outdoors and to promote growing the healthy foods the neighborhood lacks. Via Verde now has over six times the applicants that it has space for, a testament to the need for this type of development.

From NY Times:
"The greenest and most economical architecture is ultimately the architecture that is preserved because it’s cherished. Bad designs, demolished after 20 years, as so many ill-conceived housing projects have been, are the costliest propositions in the end. 

Of course a building consists of more than its skin and the claims of its makers. Its aesthetics remain inseparable from its function. It has to work, for the people who use it and live with it, not just see it. The real test for Via Verde — watch this space — will be once its residents have settled in, to see how green and healthy and gracious they actually find it."

Originally found on The New York Times.

maasberg juvenile detention living center

I've always been intrigued by the philosophy of Architects/ Designers/ Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR)'s boycott of prison design, but have wondered if refusal to be part of the design is the best way to make change. Of course, there is little flexibility in most prison contracts so in most cases the only choice the designer has is whether to participate.




This juvenile detention center, located in the Netherlands, shows another option. It certainly is an improvement on US prison facilities, though I wish it had more details about how the facility functions, both spacial and as detention center. Designed as "an expression of temporality - like the stay of the offenders themselves - the design assumes a respectful relationship with the detainees, the visitors and its environment. A dialogue between containment and freedom, expressed in the porous boundaries between indoors and out, aims to prepare the youth for their transition back into society, while also communicating a sense of trust."

Design is only a small part of the changes that need to be made, but to me these images show what a difference purposeful design can make.






Images and quote from Designboom. ADPSR website.

the vacancy project

Yesterday was an action packed day with Catwalk for Kids, shopping at Halcyon's rummage sale, and drinks with a good friend at The Belvidere at Broad, my friend and I ventured over to The Vacancy Project at the abandoned Central National Bank. "The project hopes to creatively address and affect issues of building vacancy in Richmond by observing the history of the Central National Bank and its current state of decay and disuse. Lighting design in the space is compo...sed with respect to the building's architectural features, history, and deterioration. The project's sound design is composed of natural audio recorded at the Bank in 2011, and of local popular music recorded in Richmond in 1929. "














The project reminded me of wandering around an empty former bank in Philadelphia as part of my senior project. I can't spend time in old buildings without thinking about how they could be used today- clearly an objective of the project. There were slightly creepy aspects of the installation with the darkness and music, but overall the project presented an opportunity of resurrection for an incredible old building in an area of town that has been neglected but is central to the city's revitalization. The question is how can we do that responsibly.

blue trees

"Blue Trees is an afforestation art action, an avenue of trees coloured blue, a total immersion, the trees becoming identified by colour.

The Blue Trees is an ephemeral work, reverting back to its original state over time. An afforestation art action set within an urban context – it is the response of cities such as Richmond, Canada to issues relating to deforestation that in the end will determine the sustainability of this resource, both locally and globally."

- Konstantin Dimopoulos



Images and quotes from artist's website.