Reflections on, "Intro to Sustainable Design"

This week marks the culmination of my first semester as a MA student – and oh, what an illuminating kick-start it has been! I first found out about the MCAD MA in Sustainable Design program a little over a year ago through this article from Core77. I didn’t know I would come across an article that would forever change the course of my education when I arose on that fateful day. It was fascinating to read about how the MA program was developed during a Designers Accord Design Education Summit, and after reading that Core77 article, I couldn’t click the link to the new program quickly enough! As soon as I landed on the MCAD webpage, I began digging into the curriculum, and was thrilled to see that classes like, “Systems Thinking”, “Biomimetic Design,” and “Design for Community” were being offered. I was curious, so I began to look around to see if any other schools had comparable programs, and they did not. MCAD is unique in its offerings. From that point, I knew I wanted in.

I graduated with a BFA in Industrial Design from KCAD about two years before I applied to get into MCAD. In that two year period, I had begun to work for Cascade Engineering, an engineering and manufacturing firm that is deeply committed to sustainability and innovation. I had been introduced, and even engaged in sustainable design to a certain extent during the time that I had spent pursuing my undergraduate ID degree, and gaining new practical design experience at CE. One could say that the sustainability “seed” of interest had been planted during within that timeframe. 

Fast forward to today, and I see what had started off as a seed of curiosity and intrigue about things like biomimicry, the triple bottom line, and industrial ecology has sprouted into robust new understandings that will only continue to branch out from here.

Before this semester, I had a rudimental understanding of sustainability and the challenges and opportunities that it presents – after 15 weeks in Intro to Sustainable Design, this rudimental understanding has transformed into a fundamental understanding. One of these newly discovered fundamental truths regards the vast amount of variation and complexity of systems that are entailed in the pursuit of sustainability. There is not one correct product, service, or system that can single-handedly create conditions that are less harmful to the public, people, planet, and profit. 

I have started to learn that to create a universally beneficial and functional macro-system, we must look to the resiliency and adaptability that exists in nature for inspiration. In fact, we must go beyond simply looking to nature, and begin creating systems that become one with nature. The difference lies in taking action. And to that effect, we must even begin to think about moving beyond achieving a state of sustainability and start thinking about achieving a state of thrivability. Again, there is a distinct difference here, as I have learned over the course of these 15 weeks, sustainability is focused on creating a net-zero human impact – think “zero-waste” initiatives. “Thrivability” is focused on net-positive human impact – think products that are designed to enter into closed-loop technical and biological nutrient streams, as encouraged by both Cradle to Cradle, and the Circular Economy.  

  

With the introduction of concepts like the age of the anthropocene and anthromes in this class, the dire need for action has become readily apparent and quite clear to me. Learning about the concept of antrhomes has provided me with a much stronger sense of how all people, including myself affect global natural macro-systems, as anthromes speak directly to how, “global ecological patterns are created by sustained direct human interactions with ecosystems.”

Ultimately, all of the information that I have assimilated throughout the duration of this course has expanded my breadth of awareness, unveiling factors that tie into a realization of the interdependent nature of human, natural, and technological systems, and the urgency that exists for human systems to again become one with natural systems. And this is not at the expense of technology – not at all – in fact, emerging technologies are key to unlocking the vast amounts of energy and life that surround us. The answer is not to get rid of technology, but to rethink it. Look at nature – with her technologies, like DNA, that can store unfathomable amounts of information with mass at the atomic level. DNA doesn't have to "plug in." Maybe one day very soon, we wont either. Let us rethink our technologies, rethink how we might become one with nature, and along every step of the way, no matter what challenges we come across, let us continue to ask, “are my actions at this very moment contributing to a better tomorrow?"