Embodied Energy Responsibility

I agree that there are limits to our abilities and limits to reason within the context of sustainable design. Although I have the desire for design that is entirely sustainable, from the moment a mineral is mined from the earth, through its operational life as a product and finally in its degradation or obsolescence, I still feel that realist in me saying ‘yeah, that’s a great idea, but who the hell can pull that off?’ It is entirely unrealistic for a single designer to take on the responsibility of an object. In most cases, the objects we create have been worked on by others in some facet. Ultimately, I am not able to be on location as aluminum ore is being mined, nor am I able to be at the factory where window frames are being extruded, so I must be able to put faith in those before me. True, we are able to make decisions about whom or where we select our materials from, but because they are a separate entity, there is always some level of disconnect that forces a level of trust. For some, it may not be a level of trust so much as a level of not needing to know or care. Is this where the issue is? Do we need to make it a more essential issue, like those nutrition labels that tell what ingredients are in a food product? Do we need a nutrition label of energy, of social impact, of economic impact? Do we make it harder for people not to care or know? If a company is forced to label their product with the working standards from which it was developed, would the people purchasing it begin to change the market demand, and would the manufacturer become more self-conscious of its business practices?

As a hired designer, time becomes valuable. Not many clients will tolerate paying a designer to spend hours upon hours researching every last Btu of energy, hand that worked on, or dollar exchanged in the production of every single material that will be used in the realization of a design. It would not only be unacceptable use of time for the designer themselves, but it would also be unacceptable use of time for the paying client’s wallet.

I have decided to represent this idea through Whole Foods’ Whole Trade Guarantee. This label, though perhaps excessively large, easily informs the customer that the product is of high quality, directs greater funding to those producing it, improves wages and working conditions, supports sustainable environmental practices, and financially supports a social institution. It hits the triple bottom line in one little (or not so little) green stamp. I don’t have to give it another thought because I trust the company which has distributed that stamp.

A Rambling Response to Unknown Materials and Life-Cycle Thought

I found last week’s class to be interesting, but I found Caroline’s presentation to be fascinating on Saturday. For me, as she discussed this new material or product that she is studying and designing, I became excited for the opportunity to join in the experimentation. So much of what we learn here at RISD, or at least in the architecture department, is the amazing possibility of studying a material and discovering how to apply it. However, in our education, we stick to very standard materials, i.e. wood, rope, paper, metal, cardboard, plaster. Theses are materials that have been around for a very long time and have an entire history of experimentation and application associated with them. The really energizing thing about the used paper/plastic hybrid is that it is an unknown entity. The opportunities are completely uninhibited by any previous knowledge or expectations of the material, which would allow for such amazing exploration and experimentation. This is where I would love to see our department push more – the exploration of new material, not just the exploration of known materials, but also that of unknown materials. When I say unknown, this could mean the application of a material that is unknown to anyone, such as this plastic/paper hybrid, but it could also apply to the materials that are known to many, but relatively unknown to architecture. It becomes a little sad to me when someone will discuss the design process of an architect, almost always includes some description of opening up a printed catalogue of options and selecting. We are at a art/design school, it seems to me that it would be the perfect opportunity to apply every angle of design thinking that exists throughout the students of RISD toward pushing a new material and see what its potential really is, across all disciplines. I also believe that pushing us to work with this unknown material which has been created out of waste could bring a new level of engagement with the Design for Disassembly Movement. There are plenty of people in the architecture field considering these issues of life-cycle, so it would be great to give them the opportunity of not only designing for disassembly back into their original components, but also the ability to design for disassembly toward the creation of new materials via the hybridization of the materials being used from an outdated/obsolete structure. The more options we give designers, the more we’ll be amazed by what the materials are capable of. Once a materials has been pushed, played with, and tested by the design field, it will trickle down into common knowledge and gain acceptance as a material, no longer fighting a losing battle against social preconceptions and prejudices, allowing for wider and larger scale application. It brings life-cycle awareness to an accessible level. In school, we learn to think of life-cycle and embodied energy from the moment the first element of gathered from mother Earth. It includes every plow that every scraped land, every worker who even breathed on the raw material, up to raw material processing on to the other side of the spectrum of manufacturing, installation, use, removal, and disposal. Although in an ideal world, we would be aware and responsible for every single bit of energy and impact a product has during its life, it becomes too great of a snowballing mess to be conquered by each and every one of us. We need a system where you can trust that everything before your point in the process has been done with the highest standards and that everything that will happen after your time will also be handled with the highest standards, so that you could really focus all of your energy into making sure to handle your period in time with the highest standards, but unfortunately, we still cannot depend upon anything before or anything after our moment of intervention.

Architecture Department

Although it is still early in the semester, the fourth floor of the BEB has been buzzing with activity since early January. Degree project research and design began with the start of Winter session and never saw the break between semesters as anything more than a three day weekend, if that. So, for all intensive purposes, I am observing a section of the department that is already in the middle of a long semester, deep into rounds of exploration for some, research for others, and the early phases of architectural design for the remainder. No desk seems to be the same. Each student has their own repertoire of materials. For some, they are materials they have tested previously and have developed an intimate knowledge of, seeing them as reliable, yet exciting materials. Looking around, there were no materials that I felt to be unusual for the department, but it was clear that each individual had developed a preference for certain materials.

Around the floor, a few people were exploring use of sheet acrylic, a common material in the BEB, but being explored both for its material properties as well as its formal abilities. In most cases, working with sheet acrylic can nearly guarantee use of the laser cutter in the basement, as seen in the first image, where dozens of quarter sized circles were sliced out of 3/16” acrylic. However, one of the significant problems with this material is hardly noticed until you land yourself a studio desk on the south side of the building next to a great window that pours in sunlight and fresh air. During the traditional school day, roughly 9 am – 6 pm, the laser cutter does not get much use. Unfortunately though, from 6 pm until roughly 12:30 am, that laser cutter gets a full workout. There is an exhaust vent that pulls the toxic and generally nauseating fumes out of the laser cutter room, but then it dumps it directly outside of the window for the unexpecting students on the upper floors to breathe in, leading to horrible headaches and nausea.

Another materials, known to all architecture students, yet not frequently utilized is the reflective sheets of mylar. Every second year graduate student and forth year undergraduate is forced to take advantage of two major characteristics of this materials in order to study acoustics in design proposals. First, the reflective nature of the material allows for the use of a laser beam to determine how sound will bounce off of surfaces and secondly, the flexibility of the product allows for easy application to most model surfaces.

The next two images show two very common materials used at all stages of design development and representation. The third image shows a series of plaster casts that one student has been studying. The fourth image shows 1/8” corrugated cardboard, which is being used for its thickness, ability to layer and modify layer by layer, as well as the opportunities allowed by the voids of the corrugation. For many students, it is a joyous product because you can cover a lot of area for not a lot of money, which is great for study models that you would not consider precious.

The last two images are of fabric-like materials. The first being a heavy felt that has been rolled, sliced, wrapped, folded, and stitched. The second is a heavier leather material that has undergone similar explorations as the felt, but is now being stitched together with metal wire joints to begin forming a surface system.

Unfortunately, within the department, early on, there is encouragement to produce as many iterations of an idea as humanely possible in a 24 hour period as opposed to thorough study of a few models. Although as you continue through the program, students begin to control this idea more, there is still a vast amount of waste that exits that building through the garbage cans at the end of each semester. As I live in Providence year round, I have walked through the various floors of the BEB after everyone has cleared out their individual studio spaces, but before the maintenance team has had a chance to clean it all up, and I have consistently been horrified, semester to semester, year to year, by the volume of trash.

As I have been wandering through the sculpture studio, observing them work, digging through their studio space to find what materials are the hot subject of the week, and looking to the trash piles or sculpture studies hidden in the corners to see what materials have been worked previously, I’ve come to realize that whether or not they are aware of it, these students have the knowledge of the Smart Materials and Technologies reading embedded in their brains. I’m sure if I asked anyone of the students how a material behaves, every one of them would be able to tell me how ductile, strong, or temperature sensitive each material is, but I doubt that as many would be able to tell me why the materials behave the way they do. It is a knowledge of the hands and of experience.

Looking around the studio, I notice one of the major processes of the major is heating. They take advantage of the various phases of a material. For instance, there was a significant amount red wax being used by multiple students. There was some melting of the material, which could then be poured into a form, or due to the low melting point and thus low temperature of the liquid wax, brushed over a form without burning the brush, or swirled around a volume. The wax was also being carved while in the solid state, for more detailed texture. Then, the shavings were being thrown back into the melting pot to start the at the beginning of the process cycle again, unlike the shavings from wood carving which would be unusable in the same process due to the physical transformation.

Another material which was being manipulated in various ways was metal. In this case, not only were they taking advantage of the melting point of the various metals in order to create castings, but they also utilized the strength of metals such as steel for support of other materials. Additionally, the electrical conductivity becomes essential in the sculpture studio when welding is involved in the art (let alone the issues of using gases in order to make for clean welds). Although I did not see any projects currently involving thermal expansion of metals, based on the tools available, I would hypothesize that this is another characteristic tested by the students. Now, one material I saw, I was not exactly certain what it was, but I’m guessing based on color and texture, that some sort of metal was involved in the safety jackets that the students wear when dealing with the extremely hot melted metals.

Finally, there is the role of the student as unknowing chemist. There were many bags, both the unopened variety and the shredded bag robbed of its contents. These bags were the keepers of Portland cement, Quick Crete, or Plaster. There seemed to be many uses of these materials, but in each case, this grainy material had been used by mixing it with water to yield a chemical reaction and ultimately, a solid material. In some cases, the objects rendered were the sculptural elements, while in other situations, these objects became vehicles for manipulating and controlling another material.