Sustainable Technologies: Paradigms and Practices

Sus­tain­able Tech­nolo­gies: Par­a­digms and Practices

or

If I was a deter­min­ist I would want to know that which often for­bids us to talk about what we can­not know.

>Jor­dan Parker Williams

Soci­ety, Nature and Technology

Posi­tion Paper II

16 Novem­ber 2006

Are we a prod­uct of tech­nol­ogy or tech­nol­ogy a prod­uct of humans? The very ques­tion itself is based on a false dichotomy.  It is based on a false par­a­digm or “map of human nature”, that of deter­min­ism.  We are a prod­uct of nei­ther nature nor nur­ture; we are a prod­uct of choice, because there is always a space between stim­u­lus and response, as we exer­cise our power to choose based on prin­ci­ples, the space will become larger.[i] The idea of deter­min­ism is deeply embed­ded into present day cul­ture and has rein­forced a cul­ture of vic­tim­iza­tion because of the ter­ri­fy­ing sense that if I do have choice, then I am also respon­si­ble for my present sit­u­a­tion.  If a per­son can say I am what I am and I am where I am because I so choose to be there, then that per­son can real­ize a state­ment of:  I choose other wise.  This is an impor­tant real­iza­tion of the human con­di­tion, admit­tedly far too often tech­nolo­gies are mar­keted with knee jerk responses to their use­ful­ness and seem all too agree­able; but—being human allows  us to choose, even in the most over­whelm­ing polit­i­cally set tra­jec­to­ries, we have the power to choose.

Com­monly in socio-technological stud­ies there are two cat­e­gories: 1) “tech­no­log­i­cal vol­un­tarist” advo­cat­ing that social sys­tems shape tech­nolo­gies and humans have a choice, voice, and con­trol over and in tech­nolo­gies and their tra­jec­to­ries and 2) “tech­no­log­i­cal deter­min­ist” who believe tech­nol­ogy has a set path and inevitable evo­lu­tion, pro­duc­ing arti­facts along the way.

In this posi­tion paper I will look at tech­nol­ogy through a vol­un­tarist lens to see how sus­tain­able par­a­digms and prac­tices can evolve and how “reflex­ive mod­ern­iza­tion” is best to allow us to evolve to a sus­tain­able future in which our choices in every­day deci­sions matter.[ii]

  More…

The Ecological Design of Co-housing Power Point

Check out this early Power Point Pre­sen­ta­tion of my Mas­ter of Design Pro­posal from my research design class ’06 with Dr. Steven A. Moore. 

The Eco­log­i­cal Design of Co-Housing_2  The link above should down­load a .pdf. there were some con­ver­sion prob­lems but most of the text is ledg­i­ble and where it should be on the page.

• Pur­pose of Research: The aim of this design study is to pro­pose a spe­cific case of co-housing that expands the term to mean coop­er­a­tive dwellings of human and non-human res­i­dents, cre­at­ing a greater eco­log­i­cal place.This design of co-housing should appro­pri­ated to the site as to min­i­mize envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and to enhance what char­ac­ter­is­tics, qual­i­ties and species/beings are present and what could be present (i.e. intro­duc­ing native spe­icies, cre­at­ing archi­tec­ture that improves the qual­ity of life of future residents).
  • + I see a need to inte­grate the human envi­ron­ment and nature in development.
  • + Far too often nature is seen as stop­ping devel­op­ment, how can this be changed?
  • + Con­cepts of hous­ing like Co-housing are more sus­tain­able and can give res­i­dents more con­trol in their built envi­ron­ment.
     
     

• Appreciate what we have in terms of “everyday nature”

• Create more sustainable housing, reflecting and embracing nature can bring inspiration and more livelihood.

• Benefits of intertwining nature and human development can be better understood.

• Take ecological design of housing farther than LEED (energy efficiency)

• Expanding sustainability past the humancondition will create a more sustainable condition

Messy Landscapes.

Sta­tus Quo deci­sions on land­scape, lead to a reduc­tion of bio­di­ver­sity in the built environment–but it doesn’t have to be this way.  Key choices of species and main­te­nance rou­tines can enhance wildlife and human con­nec­tiv­ity as to increase bio­di­ver­sity.   More and more unin­formed land devel­op­ers, busi­ness own­ers, prop­erty own­ers, and the eco­nomic iner­tia of “what works” leads to more and more habi­tat loss, high fre­quency main­te­nance (weekly) and upkeep fees.  Despite the dom­i­nance of neat­ness as a form of the care aes­thetic, “messy” land­scapes look attrac­tive if peo­ple know the eco­log­i­cal func­tion of what they are see­ing, or if the land­scape con­text indi­cates that the messy look is inten­tional.₁

Ecosys­tem Restoration

Ecosys­tems are com­plex, frag­ile, resilient,seasonal and can offer ser­vices usu­ally ben­e­fit­ing both humans and non-humans.  Eco­log­i­cal ser­vices include pro­duc­tion of oxy­gen from car­bon diox­ide, pol­li­na­tion of plants, and count­less other process that humans have not yet been able to recre­ate alone.

Ecosys­tem restora­tion is ideal for clients of land­scape archi­tects, com­mer­cial prop­erty own­ers and com­pa­nies who pay for rou­tine main­te­nance of turf grass with mow­ing, edg­ing, and blow­ing of grass clip­pings.  These main­te­nance rou­tines use gasoline/carbon emis­sions, cre­ate non-habitat areas,  pro­duce air pol­lu­tion with blow­ers, and cre­ate an non-sustainable “aes­thetic” linked to the seduc­tion of the Amer­i­can lawn.  Often these mowed lawns areas are never used beyond look­ing pretty.

Native and Inva­sive species

When con­sid­er­ing what species to plant you can con­sult your regional wildlife cen­ter, wild­flower cen­ter, or parks and wildlife man­age­ment orga­ni­za­tion.  Also regional seed banks have for­mu­las of seed mix­tures that can be planted to cre­ate wild­flow­ers or an arti­fi­cial prairie.  Tall­grass restora­tion can elim­i­nate mow­ing and weekly main­te­nance while attract­ing more desir­able species.

Small Scale Land­scape Restoration

Wild­scapes and back­yard wildlife habi­tats are ideal for res­i­den­tial prop­erty own­ers and home own­ers. With the inten­tion of link­ing patches and cor­ri­dors of habi­tats we can cre­ate a net­work of habi­tats.  These can allow dis­placed species to once again have the abil­ity to inhabit the ‘orig­i­nal’ territories.

Aren’t you tired of just see­ing grack­les, star­lings, black birds, crows, pigeons, and buzzards?–these are com­mon signs of a harsh urban landscape–and only these most adapted birds can sur­vive.  Pro­vid­ing food, water, hid­ing places/cover, native plants and chem­i­cal reduc­tion can be the steps needed to cre­ate a back­yard wildlife habi­tat and rein­tro­duce new and desired species into your area.

Code com­pli­ance

Var­i­ous ways exist to work around the any infrac­tions or fines that may come with a per­ceived “unkept” look­ing lawn.  The cer­ti­fied back­yard habi­tat pro­gram allows home own­ers to cre­ate a cer­ti­fied wild­scape, that cre­ates habi­tat for birds and small wildlife, and insects (from the National Wildlife Fed­er­a­tion).  This can save a home owner hun­dreds of dol­lars a year in mow­ing fees and cre­ate a more pleas­ant and inspir­ing landscape.

Apply­ing for a vari­ance to the code of keep­ing your lawn cut, can solve any city fees and com­plaints by oth­ers. This can be done by sim­ply call­ing your code com­pli­ance office and inquir­ing about com­mon infrac­tions before it hap­pens to you.

Secu­rity and Functionalism

With many com­pa­nies wor­ried about secu­rity, in terms of some­one “hid­ing in the bushes,”  solar land­scape light­ing can be used to illu­mi­nate park­ing areas.  There are sus­tain­able options that cost lit­tle upfront and keep util­ity bills down, all to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful land­scapes that are MORE func­tional than the ubiq­ui­tous mowed lawns.  Grow­ing food for humans is a way that increases func­tion­al­ity and cre­ates a direct human link to the imme­di­ate envi­ron­ment, as well as any active human inter­ven­tion that increases bio­di­ver­sity.  Novel land­scape designs that improve eco­log­i­cal qual­ity may not be appre­ci­ated or main­tained if rec­og­niz­able land­scape lan­guage that com­mu­ni­cates human inten­tion is not part of [that] land­scape. ₂

Bio­philic Landscapes

Inte­gra­tion of human and non-human habi­tats can cre­ate a more pleas­ant, inter­est­ing habi­tat that sig­nals a love of life or liv­ing sys­tems, rec­og­niz­ing deep affil­i­a­tions humans have with nature that are rooted in our biology.

Cita­tions

1. Nas­sauer, Joan Iver­son. 1988. The Aes­thet­ics of Hor­ti­cul­ture: Neat­ness as a Form of Care.  Amer­i­can Soci­ety for Hor­ti­cul­tural Sci­ence. HortScience, vol. 23, no. 6, Decem­ber 1988, pp. 973–977 <http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/49345>

2. Nas­sauer, Joan Iver­son. 1995. Messy ecosys­tems, orderly frames.  Land­scape Jour­nal [0277–2426] vol:14 iss:2 pg:161 –170

Marfa Sketchbook

Approaching Sustainability

On the scale of the build­ing or how humans dwell, we find the scale archi­tec­ture, where tech­nol­ogy can be most blind­ing. Recently sus­tain­abil­ity employed in archi­tec­tural prac­tice has been a very sin­gu­lar venue via energy effi­ciency: a sci­ence of Btu’s—where design moves and choices are proved only by sta­tis­tics and green mate­r­ial attrib­utes that may have more sta­tis­ti­cal weight than sub­stan­tial effect, mean­ing the more effec­tive thing to do does not always look good to the econ­o­mist. In William McDo­nough and Michael Braungart’s (Cra­dle to Cra­dle authors) dif­fer­enc­ing between eco-effectiveness and eco-efficiency; they describe effi­ciency as being “less bad” and effec­tive­ness as a strat­egy that not just avoids envi­ron­ment harm but increases eco­log­i­cal health.1 Envi­ron­ments we cre­ate should mimic nature, as work­ing ecosys­tems. Steven Kellert in his book Build­ing for Life offers this cri­tique, “though admirable, McDo­nough and Braungart’s con­cept of eco­log­i­cal health needs to be extended to include a greater empha­sis on human expe­ri­ence, incor­po­rat­ing the recog­ni­tion of how much people’s phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being depends on their con­tact with nature.” 2 There­fore design­ing a human envi­ron­ment as a work­ing ecosys­tem is impor­tant, as well as design­ing an envi­ron­ment that brings peo­ple closer to nature.

1. William McDo­nough and Michael Braun­gart, Cra­dle to Cra­dle: Remak­ing the way we make things. (New York: North Point Press, 2002).

2.Steven R. Kellert, Build­ing for Life: Design­ing and Under­stand­ing the Human-Nature Con­nec­tion. (Wash­ing­ton, DC: Island Press, 2005).