WEEK 10- TED

Today we were involved in a workshop 'Digital craft- a hybrid design practice for sustainability' run by Clara Vuletich from Textiles Environment Design (TED) in Chelsea College of Art, London.
She was involved with in essence, a research group of textile designers that explore new ways to create textile designs in a sustainable or more sustainable way.
The designs are usually multilayered sustainable designs because they involve many different sentimental/personal/ memorable elements. In designing something in a more sustainable way it was important to look at the full product life cycle when designing.
Fashion and textile industry is very rapid with changing tastes causing people to throw out their old clothes and buy new ones. This fast moving highly wasteful fashion industry needs to try and be changed because it is too harmful for the environment.
Clara talked about 'slowing down' and referred to 'slow food - local, quality, doing things slowly' which can be further read about in the below links.
'life is home grown and always has been'

After this we then moved into the workshop where we were told to bring some materials that either had meaning to us or basically were left over from either old clothes or anything we had at home. We all brought in old and unwanted clothes and fabrics and reused the fabrics to create a quilt! We recycled or upcycled these materials into something that was more useful. Though it may not look pretty it has stored sentimental value and so this is the idea of having multilayered sustainable designs.
Heres the class combined quilt with everyones patches (taken from the wiki site):

My patch is (from top left corner) three across one down. I used denim (black and light blue jeans) with flannelette

references for further information and reading:
www.tedresearch.net
www.transitiontownbrixton.org
www.slowfood.com
slowfoodaustralia.com.au

EVALUATION

Overall I am happy with the design proposal we have created. Though I probably would have developed a system solution and not necessarily an object solution I am still pleased with what we have come up with. I think the ‘Boxshelf’ if made for purchase would definitely not be painted with water based acrylic paint.  A glossy hard coating such as a tupuc polyurethane finish would make the shelving much more appealing and have the ‘Ikea’ compact storage unit appeal which I think would provide a much more profitable outcome.

The shelving unit as an idea is good too, though I found a few problems with it, when analysing from a more practical perspective. Using a very fragile material, in a sense, in polystyrene, to hold items that can quite often be fairly rigid and heavy seems a little difficult. The polystyrene can break down easily and one scrape of its edge would most likely cause some of it to break apart which i’m sure would not be desirable for consumers. The recommended finish would keep the object protected although what may need to happen is if you put a white painted tupuc polyurethane finish on the insides of the box it will be held together. 

The advantageous aspect of the ‘Boxshelf’ is, besides the sustainable and waste management features, it’s flexibility. The shelving unit is able to be changed and mixed around to the owners discretion. The consumer can even take some boxes away if necessary so the Boxshelf can be for everyone, as it can fit in basically any interior.

Over the process of developing the Boxshelf, visual maps and other waste solutions, I believe our group worked exceptionally well together. Even at times where some students abilities were needed more then others. As well as being in charge of the wiki site I was also able to work well with all the members of the group at all times during the process. I felt really comfortable to communicate with all the students and I think we were all willing and happy to work as a collective which is of major importance in group tasks. When working on the visual maps I felt as if I was still included as I was developing the look and ideas and then the viscom students (Rainie and Queena) were able to put these ideas down and actually produce some really effective visuals. I helped with the wording of many parts of the assignment and made sure everything flowed together smoothly as I felt this was one of my strengths I could provide to the group. Our group worked well both as a collection of individuals and as a collective. At times we had individual tasks however we still would be talking and working well together. When Rainie and Queena were developing the revised visual map and poster template, Courtney and myself were able to paint the boxes and Vanessa was able to make the acrylic clips (which unfortunately I was unable to help her with because I wasn’t allowed in the room). Even when we were painting I still stopped many times to see if Rainie and Queena were fine and sometimes they would ask questions and we would then converse and create what we wanted. Courtney and I also then went home and worked on the business solution visuals used in the template and sent those to the viscom girls to tweak and apply to the template. We were able to work well both together at uni or separately at home and at no point in the whole eight weeks were there fights or arguments and I’m exceptionally happy with both the positive group dynamic and the final waste solution product.

REVISED MAP & TEMPLATE

In the new and revised visual map of the waste in Pyrmont it is evident that we have made the zones more 'green'. This is due to our innovative ways of solving the waste problems in the area. As can be seen some specific types of waste have been dramatically reduced because of our introduced methods of reducing and managing the large amounts of waste mainly coming from the apartment blocks with the Ultimo/Pyrmont area.

BOXSHELF ARRANGEMENTS

After looking at the site in Fraser Studios, Located on Kensington lane at Central.. We were able to get a clearer understanding as to how the 'boxshelf' was going to be installed within the space. When looking at the plan it is evident that 'waste in the city' has the largest space which makes it much easier to work with. Vanessa and myself took down a few measurements so that we could go back to our 'boxshelf' and start working out the arrangements.

 Here is the spatial floorplan showing how the zones are split:

When we came back to level 7 we were able to test out a few versions of the 'boxshelf' working out whether we wanted boxes on certain angles, having colours grouped together, having some boxes reversed so the colour is showing, making fixed shapes out of the polystyrene containers.

SOLUTIONS

So we came up with three solutions for our three waste problems. . .


(1) The first business solution is the 'biocup initiative'.
This is a marketing campaign targeted at local cafes in Pyrmont area to introduce a more sustainable option for disposable cups. The Campaign will also promote use and supply of 'keep cups' and offer promotional signage to benefit cafe's image in regards to stewardship in waste reduction and elimination.

BioCups are an environmentally sustainable alternative to regular take-away coffee cups.

“Unlike traditional paper cups that use a petroleum-based plastic lining, the BioCup uses a corn-based plastic lining (PLA). Therefore, it is fully renewable and leaves a smaller environmental footprint. And it does so without adding anything that will distract your clients from the rich, deep flavour they have come to know and love. One more step toward a sustainable future. Together, we can make a difference one coffee at a time.

BioCup can be composted in a commercial compost facility, however this option is not widely available in Australia. If the BioCup ends up in landfill, it still has upstream environmental benefits, such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and reduced dependence on fossil fuels. To gain maximum advantage though, the compost bin is the recommended destination, completing a cycle by enriching the earth that helped produce it. For those concerned about the environment, its a happy ending for a cup that’s just beginning to make its mark on the world.” (www.biopak.com.au)

(2) The second business solution is the 'Com-partment'. 
COM-PARTMENT provides an apartment composting service which will allow for the recycling of food wastes using apartment suited ‘Com-bins’. A small recycled bin that will be used by all residents for their food waste. Once the Com-bin is full the residents would place the bin in a designated area such as a garbage room which would then be collected by Com-partment employees. The contracted Com-partment employees will then take these Com-bins and compost the material provided by the residents and then clean and return the Com-bins to the residents. There will be spare bins provided upon request to residents with larger food disposals. The residents which are in effect composting through Com-partment will be able to order the extremely fertile soil which will come in different sized packages so that they can be used for their own plants or other means.

(3) The third business solution is the 'BOXSHELF'
The boxshelf furniture design collects polystyrene boxes from our local Sydney fish markets and use these landfill contributors for innovative shelf design. Boxes are custom painted to specification using environmentally friendly water based paint and are multi-use items from storage to exhibition display.

PAINTING BOXES

Once we painted the boxes we realised that the colour was still fairly light and so they needed a few coats. The yellow boxes came out the best with them only needing two coats however the blue boxes needed three coats. A therapeutic session of painting commenced by the entire group and we were able to paint all the boxes fairly quickly as we were all working on them together. 

One of the groups did request that they could get plain white boxes for their display as they believed that the colours may not suit their project. We were a bit skeptical the white wouldn't fit very well at first however once we put them together the white boxes suited fine.

We used three acrylic paints and after a practice airbrush attempt it was obvious we needed to hand paint the boxes either using paintbrushes or rollers. We decided that the brushes were more precise and allowed for more control. We wanted to keep the labels on boxes so it was important to have that control so that no paint would seep through onto the labels. The water based acrylic paint was a good option for the boxes and the final result wasn't disappointing.

WEEK 10- MILKWOOD PERMACULTURE

This weeks lecture was presented by Nick Ritar from Milkwood Permaculture.
Milkwood is a small organic farm near Mudgee in central NSW. It was all about basically sustainably providing for human needs which Nick recognised there to be three important things that must be followed. These include:
1. CARE FOR EARTH
2. CARE FOR EACH OTHER
3. SET LIMITS ON CONSUMPTION
With these in mind we can create a sustainable world without causing as much waste as what the population is creating now. He spoke a lot about how human waste is flushed out to sea although it could be used as a good fertiliser, proposing the design task of creating a more circular system so that human waste can be transformed into something thats not completely wasted.
This was a interesting lecture which directly hit us with a problem that needs to be solved!

More information can be found at :
 www.milkwood.net
slowfoodaustralia.com.au