Green design
From UANotebook
This page was originally started to keep notes for two readings for the "green design" class of BE 551. It may likely grow to encompass more of green design.
Contents |
Greening Urban Society
citation
Herbert Girardet, "Greening Urban Society", in Wawick Fox, ed. Ethics and the Built Environment (New York: Routledge, 2000).
notes
Cities as superorganisms (pp.16)
"They are both organisms and mechanisms in that they utilise biological re-production as well as mechanical production processes."
"This is not civilisation in the old-fashioned sense, but mobilisation, depending on long-sidtance transport routes."
---
In the USA, researchers found that seventeen dwellings per hectare support a fairly frequent bus service; twenty-two dwellings support a light railway network and thirty-seven people support an express bus service that people can reason on foot, from their homes. (pp. 18)
Canadian economist William Rees started a debate about the ecological footprint of cities. (Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees (1996) Our Ecological Footprint, Gabriola Island, BC: New Society.)
"Planners designing urban systems should start by studying the ecology of natural systems. On a predominantly urban planet, cities will need to adopt circular metabolic systemes to assure the long-term viability of the real environments on which they depend. (pp. 21)
In natural cycles outputs are also inputs for something else. Cities need to adopt this closed loop strategy.
"It seems unlikely that the planet can accomodate an urbanised humanity that routinely draws its resources from a distant hinterland. Can cities therefore transform themselves into sustainable, self-regulation systesm --not only in their internal functionaing, but alsi on their relationships with the outside world?" (pp. 21)
Agenda 21 and Habitat Agenda, signed by over 180 nations at the recent Habitat II conference in Istanbul.
Urban food growing is important! (pp.24)
’’’Cultural development’’’ (pps.27-29) “With the majority of the wolrd now copying Western development patterns, we need to formulate new cultural priorities. Cultural development is a critical aspect of sustainable urban development, giving cities the chance to realise their full potential as centres of creativity, education and communication.”
Eco-Effectiveness
citation
William McDonough and Michael Braungart, "Eco-Effectiveness," in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (New York: North Point Press, 2002), 68-91.
notes
"What might the human-built world look like if a cherry tree had produced it?" (pp.73)
"The idea of nature being more efficient, dematerializing, of even not 'littering' (imagine zero waste or zero emmissions fo rnature!) is preposterous." (pp.77)
from previous article: outputs (and waste) from one are inputs for another. fallen fruit decays and returns to the soil.
"The tree is not an isolated entity cut off from the systems around it: it is inextricably and productively engaged with them This is the key difference between the growth of industrial systems as they now stand and the growth of nature." (pp.79)
questions the notion of "efficiency": is it a capitalist bottom line notion (not so much) but more in larger ecological terms
reduce, reuse, recycle
introduce notion of upcycling --with each successive re-use, the material can be made into something better. glass seems upcyclable, whereas paper is downcyclable; it degrades and becomes lesser quality with each successive iteration.
pp.150 triangle, at each apex: economy equity ecology
