SUSTAINABLE DESIGN CAPSTONE SEMINAR WEEK 2

READINGS

Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016): 117-162. (Course text)

 

SUGGESTED RESPONSE TOPICS

300-word reading responses should be posted to the Week 2 shared Google Document by 11AM on Friday, September 3. Use class time on Friday to read through your peers’ responses and provide comments on at least two of them. Comments should be in the form of paragraph-length responses to ideas that spark your interest, and can include questions, challenges, and disagreements.

  • How is climate change discourse altering our perceptions of the distinction between humans and nature?

  • What are some relationships between climate change and aesthetics? How has our relationship to the color green changed as a result of sustainable design becoming a more mainstream issue?

  • Ghosh is pessimistic at times about the disconnect between political engagement and real change when it comes to dealing with the climate (in particular, engagement by artists, writers, and other creatives, whose work does not necessarily translate to the planetary scale). Do you believe design can transcend that disconnect? How is design different from other arts in that respect?

  • Describe experiences you might have had with online or media-based echo chambers. In what ways is our collective response to climate change hampered by the spectacles of representation that Ghosh discusses?

  • What impacts could documents like Laudato Si’ or the Kyoto Protocol have beyond shaping policy? Do you think written policy documents are the best mechanism for bringing about collective behavioral change? How might design interventions achieve what policy or discourse cannot?

 

ASSIGNMENT B

Create a 7-minute visual presentation that describes a work of sustainable design that has influenced you. The project must be either built or implemented (i.e., not a speculative proposal). Discuss the following aspects of the design:

  • Scale and goals: At what scale does the project operate, and what is it trying to achieve?

  • Materials: How does the project manifest in physical form or across space?

  • Methods: What steps did the designer(s) take to carry out the project? Were there specific research or design methods that made it successful?

You’ll present these for the class on Monday, September 13. You can email me a PDF before class that day, and we will use my computer for the presentations. If you prefer to use your own laptop, make sure you have an HDMI port for the projector.