Sunday, November 30, 2008

A Better World By Design Conference

A Better World By Design Conference November 7th-9th, 2008

The first (annual?) Better World By Design Conference was held over the weekend of November 7th thru the 9th at Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and was a great success in terms of its ambitious goals accomplished and its student-leadership in planning and excusion. I was not able to participate in the conference myself but was involved in indirect ways and heard about the weekend from fellow students.

I was able to attend the social mixer at the start of the conference, since it was sort of open to the public. At the mixer, I had not yet taken time to research or investigate the conference but I must say that it was inspiring to learn that the head organizer of the conference was a student of the same age as myself. It just goes to show that one person, even a person of our age and locale can start a revolution and one that grew to become a comprehensive conference that brought many great designers and organizers together to talk about design for one weekend.

One project that was highlighted at the conference was an interesting concept in terms of its concept and application. The LivingHomes projects, designed by Ray Kappe and Kieran Timberlake are ready-made homes that are modular for expansion and transport, easily assembled, and constructed in eco-friendly process and material use. “Installation” of these ready-made homes can be as fast as 8 hours, based on the crew available. The idea of having a home built in less than a day is exciting, as one could go to work and come back home with a house built on their property. Bolt on- walls and storage units allow the owner to expand and remodel the home based on their preference and changing needs. Off-site construction translates to less waste materials - 2-5% as opposed to traditional on-site construction, disposing 40% of its construction materials. LivingHomes offer a great looking home (subject to opinion I suppose) at comparable price to traditional home construction and has the abilities to use less energy or even produce its own energy. In the example home, constructed for LivingHomes CEO Steve Glenn, photovoltaic cell panels and solar heating are used to provide energy and climate control along with insulated window panels. Water recycling and rainwater collection tanks allow the owner to irrigate their landscaping and interior foliage with water that is independent of civil water supply.



In an indirect way and miniscule way, I helped out for one of the conference’s exhibits. The RISD Store currently is showing an installation designed by ZAGO: “Nine Planets Wanted”- in which beanbags were created to represent the carbon product from several nations around the globe. Each nation’s carbon footprint in tons was represented to scale. I already knew that the U.S. has a large carbon footprint, but to see it on a scale that I could relate to other nations in a tangible installation was a powerful statement. The beanbags were filled with materials gathered from the Recycling for Rhode Island Education’s (RRIE) recycling center – well known and utilized by the freshman foundation program at RISD. I, helped to drive and shuttle the beanbag stuffing material – which consisted of small foam cylinders which were the byproduct of golf ball packaging. We were able to fill 8 large boxes of the stuffing – which took two trips and bungee-cords to secure to the roof of my station wagon! Driving back we made sure not to take the highway as it would have been quite a scene to see thousands of these small foam pieces across the road. Too bad I did not take photos!

When I look back, this sourcing of materials from a recycled source was a direct translation of the attitude that designers and organizers should look to, as there are always more ecologically friendly ways to go about a project.

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