Why Design Now?

Return to Sender artisan eco-casket. Greg Holdsworth (New Zealander, b. 1960), Return to Sender Eco-Caskets. New Zealand, 2007. Plywood, wool fleece. Courtesy of designer


This exhibit, Why Design Now?, at Cooper-Hewitt, National Museum of Design presents artists and designers who have come up with sustainable designs for energy, transportation, health, communication, and more. They also offer educational programs for students, which asks students to think like a designer and come up with their own sustainable designs.

http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Why-Design-Now/

The Spice Trade Expedition

"In search of the disconnect between ourselves, the natural world and the food we eat, we’re going to slip on some boots, strap on a backpack, grab a canoe, and head out into the industrial wilderness of the New Jersey wetlands. During our two-week industrial wilderness trip, we will interview factory employees, document our campsites and adventures, and cook with various artificial flavors in an attempt to bridge our understanding of the natural and artificial. This will be edited into a documentary about our adventures and discussions that ensue."
http://thespicetradeexpedition.com/the-expedition/

NYC Green Carts

"Green Carts are mobile food carts that offer fresh produce in certain New York City areas. Local Law 9, signed by Mayor Bloomberg on March 13, 2008, establishes 1,000 permits for Green Carts.

The Green Cart Initiative is supported by a $1.5 Million grant from the Laurie M Tisch Illumination Fund. This grant funds micro-loans and technical assistance for Green Cart operators, as well as branding, marketing, and outreach to encourage residents of the Green Cart areas to purchase fresh produce from the carts." - NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cdp/cdp_pan_green_carts.shtml

Map of areas where Green Carts are located:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/cdp/green_carts_areas.pdf

Center for Urban Pedagogy

CUP is an education organization that works with youth to answer big questions about environment and places. They work with professional artists, researchers, and designers to gain information and research about the specific projects that they facilitate.

The project, Chew On This, 2006, asks "Where in the world does our food actually come from? How does its journey to our plate affect our environment and quality of life?"
"Students in four environmental science classes at the Heritage School worked in spring 2006 with CUP Teaching Artist Amanda Matles to explore the global flows of food. The class investigated the sources of their favorite snacks and the resources required to bring them to East Harlem. Other activities included a blind taste test with organic and regular foods, a visit to a local farmers' market, and a foraging expedition in Central Park. Finally, the students produced a 48" x 72" poster to introduce others to the edible environment."

http://www.anothercupdevelopment.org/projects/detail/41

Aviva Rahmani - Ecological Artist

Photo by Ben Magro

"Aviva Rahmani purchased the site of a former coastal town dump on a fishing island, in the Gulf of Maine for Ghost Nets (1990-1991). The project restored 2.5 acres of habitat in the middle of an Atlantic seabird Class A Fly Zone, to a flourishing wetlands system and personal residence. Rahmani designed a passive solar home on the site, with Steve Robinson, AIA and created a complex uplands riparian zone garden and water buffer zones. The project was divided into three parts; 1) the Trigger Point Garden, 2) KindWind, 3) Traffic Dance. Each part was performative, transformative and explored another aspect of soil to land for the site work conceptually and practically" - Aviva Rahmani,
http://www.ghostnets.com/ghostnets.html

"The premise is that an artist's skills can be applied to observe, analyze, interpret and catalyze very small ecological "patches" in an environmentally degraded landscape "mosaic" as environmental triage."
Retrieved from: http://www.z-node.net/cms/pages/aviva_rahmani.html

Vertical Farms

"A Potential Solution: Farm Vertically

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming."
Retrieved from: http://www.verticalfarm.com/more

Yuken Teruya

T.P Rolls and Tiffany's Bag


In his "work, Teruya tries to regenerate the spirit of trees. He is inspired by Aristotle’s philosophy of nature that regards the development of potentiality to actuality as one of the most important aspects to learn from nature. An example of this is when an acorn, which is a seed of an oak tree, begins to grow up, it already has within it the potentiality of an oak tree. Similarly a full grown oak tree is proof of the potentiality of the acorn. Teruya tries to give rebirth to the spirit of the trees by his technique using these paper products, since he believes that there is a spirit of the tree which is contained on the surface of these paper products which originally comes from trees." - Shinya Watanabe, http://spikyart.org/anotherexpo/yukenteruyaintroductione.htm

What will NYC look like underwater?

Artist, Eve Mosher tackles an effect of climate change (a rising water line) in her public art project High Water Line.
"Mosher is drawing (by-hand or pushcart) a white chalk line through the waterfront communities of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan in order to illustrate the 10-feet above sea level mark that potentially threatens unsuspecting neighborhoods, commercial zones, city streets, and private residences."-Abigail Doan

http://inhabitat.com/2007/08/04/the-high-water-line-public-art-in-nyc/eve-mosher/