CHANGE FOR THE EARTH

Today was a really informing look into various aspects of change in relation to saving the earth and making the earth sustainable. the three main elements discussed were (1) POWERFUL SOCIAL BARRIERS TO CHANGE, (2) ENABLERS OF SOCIAL CHANGE and (3) FUTURE CHANGES..
Firstly looking at (1) there are 5 main social barriers to change:
#1: Climate change is abstract
#2: Living in a competitive consumer culture
#3: Obsessed with 'NEW'
#4: Thought of buying time
#5: Values and self concept
I found these five barriers very interesting. It is important to make people visualise whats going on. If people are able to visualise the benefits of change they would be much more likely the change. Another important aspect was because we are still going to be obsessed with 'new' and still be a competitive 'throwaway society' there may be a shift to products becoming sustainable and trendy. If products that are seen as sustainable, recycled, or just helping the environment become the latest thing to buy or wanted then this will be a great way for change.

(2) five main enablers of social change include:
#1: Good Design
#2: New technology and textiles
#3: Globally consistent trust marks
#4: Ethical marketing and retailing
#5: Consumer Expectation
Out of these enablers i found it interesting that a large number of people believe that developments in techonology will be the solution to the affects on the environment and they believe that techonology will resolve the issue. A good thing is the fact that people EXPECT change will come which will allow change to be more easily put in place.

(3) five possible future changes include:
#1: Finding something 'NEW' is going to stay- just need to make different products
#2: High volume disposables to high quality durables
#3: More recycling and repurposing
#4: Redesign fashion norms
#5: Local production may be back
Overal this lecture was a very informing look at change and the problems around enforcing change for the better.

http://www.globalchange.com/
An example is seeing Hummers being a really good car and something that looks great to seeing it as an inconsiderate polluting machine:

TEXTILE WASTE

Kerryn Caulfield, cheif operating officer at Apical International Pty Ltd came to speak about mainly textile waste. It is a massive problem as she pointed out that everything we are wearing basically ends up in landfill. Waste generation is increasing however one good aspect is that business created the problem and business have the power to solve the issue and the government is positive in acknowledging and finding a solution to the problem.
Regenerating textiles makes sense as it uses less of everything. Product stewardship needs to be taken on by alot more companies. The understanding is that the producer of the item is liable and responsible for the whole life of the product. eg. Sony and Samsung responsible for full life of TV's.
An interesting concept is the creation of ethanol out of denim. Other recycling methods are being introduced by companies such as Nike where they have 'Earth has sole' where they recycle running shoes into playground flooring.

WEEK 3- PLASTIKI

Discussion with Naval Architect whilst viewing the boat..

Today we went down to the Maritime Museum to have a look at the PLASTIKI boat. The boat is made using recyclable materials. The main material used was SRPET (Self Reinforced PET). It has a unique high damage tolerance and is highly flexible with great elasticity. 

Some of the requirements of the vessel included the following:
-Had to use drink bottles
-Had to carry 6 people safely across the pacific ocean
-All materials needed to be recycled or recyclable

In working with 'downgraded' materials the naval architect went back to the polynesian voyaging vehicles. The final ship ended up being a 60ft boat with a narrow beam separation. Plywood was used on the main structure in original prototyping with corrugated iron as steel is recyclable. It was then realised that a rudder was necessary which led to the change in materials.

The SRPET needing to use steel moulds. It took 5/6 hours on each panel and needed 200 degrees heating to adhere the material together.

Here are some images and another video of the boat:

WEEK 2 -CITY OF SYDNEY- KATH MCLAUCHLAN

City Of Sydney is the local government authority responsible for looking after Sydney's CBD as well as 30 surrounding suburbs. These include Sydney Harbour at Rushcutters Bay to Glebe and Annandale in the west, Sydney Park and Rosebery in the south, and Centennial Park and Paddington in the east.
The lecture today looked at a number of recycling issues as well as the waste cycle and the different types of waste collection days. These are some of the key points I picked up from today:
City Of Sydney- 300 staff, 24/7 cleaning with a target of 57% division of landfill.
Average in your bin includes: 30% other, 7% paper & cardboard, 39% food, 13% recyclable containers and 11% organic(garden related waste).

Recycled object:
Steel cans > Car parts
Aluminium cans> new cans
Glass bottles/jars> more bottles
Old soft drink bottle> new fleecy jacket or soft drink

Quaterly E-Waste recycling- includes tv's monitors, appliances, printers, laptops etc.
More sustainable options- Worm farms and compost bin
Waste Cycle- 1. extracted from environment 2. factory 3.packaging/transport 4. consumer 5.goods consumerd 6. waste discarded/ transported.

References:
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/zerowaste/  

the real cost of fishfingers- Supervalue

http://www.wasteservice.nsw.gov.au/dir138/wsn.nsf/Content/Facilities

http://www.visy.com.au/recycling/index.php?id=188


Remember AVOID.REUSE.RECYCLE

INFOGRAPHICS

Today we had an insightful look into infographics and were shown a great deal of examples as to how infographics can be presented. Some poor examples were shown and compared to good examples and ultimately the ones that were good seemed to have a few main common aspects. 


(1) They were clear and concise,
(2) Basic and simple symbols and 
(3) relevant visual metaphors.


Infographics are a great way to present a vast amount of information into something that can be understood quickly and still provide enough information to understand. Good examples of this include the image shown on 'Napoleons army' as well as 'cubism and abstract art'.

Some of the other items i picked up from today was using colour as a coding device. Colour is an important element and should be used effectively eg. green for grass. white for milk rather than for example blue for coffee. (blue would be more appropriate for water and brown for coffee). 'The Perfect Pour- a citizens guide' infographic coffee pie chart was shown as an effective method of displaying information. the viewer can easily associate the colours and symbols with the respective foods/liquids. When the graphic language makes sence it is much more effective.
When developing an infographic the main positive things to think about are having: visual metaphors, things that cause reactions eg. smile/ humerous/ pay attention, language the viewer can understand, relevant visual language and metaphors, simple language.


'Aftermath of Haiti Earthquake'

 'The Perfect Pour' 

  'Napoleons Army'

 

WEEK 1

This subject is looking at waste management and how designers can play a crucial part in solving waste issues and can help reduce Sydney's waste. We started off by forming into groups of 5 which saw me in a group of 5 students with all of the 4 being interdisciplinary students. I think we will work well as a group because there is a mix in perspectives. Plus some people will be stronger at doing certain tasks along the way then other people due to their studies. So my group members involve Visual Communications students- Queena and Rainie, Fashion student Courtney and Industrial student Vanessa.
Each group was allocated in a kind of first in best dressed way and luckily we were able to get the location that we wanted in Pyrmont/Ultimo. I love the area and am often there so I found that I would be alot more comfortable in going there often then say Redfern. In selecting Pyrmont we were also required to pick a street and so everyone got out their Iphones and were able to check almost instantly and decide upon streets they would do. I decided on looking at Pyrmont street and Point Street. These streets I knew had character with from memory small cafes, bars, restaurants and Star City Casino which I knew would be interesting to look at. For next lesson we should gather information about the sorts of waste that would be generated on these streets and then once we put our information together we develop a 'waste snapshot' of the area to help understand demographics, lifestyle and most importantly the waste and types of waste that is produced.

Some images taken from trip to Pyrmont street and Point street:

http://helsinkidesignlab.org/

'Palmanova-Italy'

WEEK 1

The first week of uni and straight into it!.. Suprisingly the first week and i'm already liking this subject. The lecture was interesting looking at new interactive medias and looking at how we can design elements to inform people creating a more informing, interactive environment. It was important to look at how people learn things and how people make things, looking at the way you want it to be and the way you want things to work before you design the actual place. This was a relatively new concept to designing and allows me to really focus on a more practical attitude towards design.
Some clever interactive creations displayed were: (1) An interactive traffic light that talks to you when you press it. It's not only exciting but also provides information (relatively useful) to the pedestrians crossing. another (2) included public displays of the energy performance of a building. I think this would be great to implement into some buildings so people walking past can really see how 'green' they really are. (3) was chairs at a bus stop which once two people are sitting down they rotate to cause the two people facing eachother, forcing on a conversation between the two travellers. Though this one i thought was abit too extreme it was a clever idea to make interaction. (4) Multi language screens at a bus stop would also be useful in some of the inner city bus stops as Australia is very multicultural and with the large amount of tourists in the city they would find it useful.
So basically, the interactive medias and innovative ways of causing interaction was an interesting idea that could be further looked at in my future endeavours. I need to look at DESIGN. UNDERSTANDING. STRATEGY and BEHAVIOUR.

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Third year interior design blog.