Antarctica and Design
INTRODUCTION - written 2005
This booklet could be considered as a form of manifesto, a word that has become unfashionable in a world that cares more for style and consumption than for ideologies. The manifestos of the early twentieth century came out of an idealism for a better world after the horrors of world wars. Maybe we now face a similar crisis and the time is right for both idealism and practical ways of attaining those ideals.
I went to Antarctica with the Antarctica New Zealand programme that takes two artists to the ice every year. The intent of this laudable initiative is to communicate something of this amazing and unique place through the sensitivities of artists of all disciplines, rather than through the normal scientific journals or national geographic-type articles.
My proposal stated that I wished to use the opportunity to develop a series of design works that, in some way, conveyed the message of the importance of sustainable design. I felt that Antarctica was a valuable point of reference because of the way it epitomised survival, and because of the role it has played in revealing the effects we are having on the planet and its weather systems.
As it turned out, the place had a far more profound effect on me than I had expected. On my return I found it impossible to reduce all that I had seen and felt into mere objects. I discovered a new way of seeing landscape and came to see that for design to play the vital role it must in changing our damaging lifestyle patterns, it had to free itself from its focus on the object itself, and its complicit encouragement of consumption. Instead design must be about process, about the ways we do things and how to do them better, not about the things themselves.
Therefore the main outcome for me has been a series of illustrated talks I have given around the world about sustainable design. The main lecture looks at the role design has played throughout history, from initially being a tool for survival, to becoming an agent of our demise. How can new designers turn this around?
And now this book is a summary of the lecture.
1 DESIGN HISTORY
This is a VERY simplified resume of the history of design as I see it. But before starting I should explain how I use the word 'design'. We are usually presented with the words art, craft and design as descriptions or categories objects. This leads to all sorts of confusion and argument because these words are really verbs describing processes, not things. And everything that is made uses a mixture of all three processes. In creating any new object, the maker works through the art process, the craft process and the design process to a greater or lesser degree, although in each different work the balance will vary considerably between the three. A Renaissance painter was a balance of all of them: a craftsman in the mixing of pigments and preparing the grounds so that the artwork endured; a designer in the composition and layout; and an artist in the greater vision of the work, what it was saying and how it changed perceptions.
So when I use the word design it is as part of the process of making or creating anything. In relation to objects it is essentially the act of thinking out a solution to a problem. When the earliest primitive people lived in caves perhaps there came a moment when someone thought to put a slab of stone onto supports to lift it off the ground, thus making a table. Maybe this was one of the first acts of design. The designer thought about how they could improve their conditions. They saw that food on the ground was trampled and wasted. Food was an expensive commodity which required many hours of dangerous hunting, plus preparation and cooking. By reducing food wastage the designer had improved the tribe's chances of survival. Thus the role of the designer was established to improve their chances of survival. Up to a point it could be intuitive but with time it also became a learned skill.
As humans slowly developed, designers played a crucial role in ensuring survival by constantly thinking about, and improving, conditions. They gave us clothes to keep us warm in the cold and houses to shelter us from the weather. They created boats for travel and for fishing , as well as such items as food traps and baskets for storage. All this was necessary because humans were weak and ill-equipped physically to survive, while the environment they lived in was hostile and powerful. Unlike other creatures they survived because of design more than their physical attributes.
Sometimes designers were more clever in their thinking. In a Corsican stone age village I saw large stone menhirs with carved faces, which may be the earliest example of such carvings. They are thought to have been placed around the village to scare off possible attackers, maybe persuading them that these superhuman giants protected the inhabitants. In a different more subtle way the designer is still helping to ensure the survival of the tribe.
Another example of such thinking is a carved figure-head on the prow of a canoe from Vanuatu. It is a stylised frigate bird, and also the perfect way to finally end the long forward sweep of the canoe's lines. The beautiful bird sits poised, expectantly gazing ahead, every simple detail perfectly expressing its purpose. However, it is not just an attractive form - it has a purpose. The frigate bird spends its day flying over the ocean looking for food, but it always finds its way home to land to roost for the night. So, to the islanders, this bird symbolises a safe return for the fishermen out in their canoes. With its unerring instinct it will guide the canoe home with its precious catch of food. Here the designer not only creates the boat for fishing, but also imbues it with the magic required to ensure both the survival of its occupants, and the tribe depending on their providing food.
Humans are not just surviving creatures. We have deeply felt beliefs, religions and superstitions. Throughout history designers have found ways to reinforce those beliefs by creating holy statues and paintings. These beliefs have given humans more confidence of their place in the world and so a greater survival instinct. Humans were supplicants to nature, mitigating its power over them through religion. In doing so they have bequeathed to us some of the pinnacles of human genius in the great cathedrals, temples and religious paintings.
During this period nature was strong and humans were weak, but they lived in a balance with their surroundings. This is best illustrated by the house of the Chencha people in Africa. It is in effect an upside down basket woven from bamboo. The vertical sticks are placed in the ground with horizontals woven through them. The whole is covered with ‘tiles' made from the papery part from the top of the bamboo. In local currency, these are expensive and it takes a long time to afford and to collect enough for a house. In fact it takes about 20 years. By this time the bamboo at the bottom has rotted and the house has slowly sunk into the ground but now they have enough materials to build a replacement. This is sustainable design: materials are only used as fast as they are replenished and life can continue in this balance indefinitely.
All that changed with the industrial revolution. Suddenly the means of multiple production became available and this radically changed the role of designers. For example, highly intricate and delicate forms could be made in large numbers out of cast iron that would have taken countless hours to cut and shape by hand one by one. Instead of creating things to ensure the survival of their immediate social group, designers ensured their own survival by producing whatever goods they could for others to buy. So the emphasis changed from survival to selling. And as prosperity grew so did the number and possibility of goods that could be sold. The only justification for making something was that it could be sold.
2 THE SITUATION TODAY
In our day, designers rarely work alone, but for large companies. These companies constantly need new product to sell, not primarily because the buyer needs them but because they need to sell them. Their commercial viability depends on their bringing out new products each year so that the buyers keep on buying. Therefore the role of the designer is to create a new look, a new styling or a new fashion and if it is too durable in its manufacture, or too timeless in its look then that is not in the best commercial interests of the company. On top of that there is the enormous advertising industry employing graphic designers and image makers whose role is to persuade us to buy these things we probably don't need. The cell phone is a typical example, being replaced on average every 18 months despite the fact that they can be made to last ten times as long. This is done by constantly adding gadgets and functions, and changing the look, not all at once but incrementally. Advertising pressure makes you feel inferior and breeds dissatisfaction if you don't have the latest version. An abundance of glossy magazines support this superficial culture, each one consuming, on average, a quarter of a litre of oil in its production.
This is a radical reversal of the role of the designer and begs the question, who is the designer working for? It is clearly not the consumer any more whose needs can usually be fulfilled far more simply and for far longer than is allowed or is possible under our current commercial model. There would be no problem with this if it was done in a sustainable way like the Chencha house. But it is not and irreplaceable material and energy resources are being strip mined and discarded, solely in the name of short term business profit, with none of the long term costs (such as full clean-up or replacement) being paid. Both designers and consumers are complicit in this extravagant waste. Far from design being a tool for survival, it is now a threat to survival.
Architecture has come a long way too from bamboo houses and one has to also question who are the architects working for? The Millennium dome in London was purely a statement of aggrandisement, designed to reinforce the importance of ‘cool Britannia'. It was built at vast expense yet engaged with none of the issues of our time. It thus shows a contempt for the public who are reduced to consumers of infantile games, illusions and bright lights. Closer to home, the same fault of aggrandisement applies to Federation Square in Melbourne. The artist in me wanted to marvel at the complex forms, but all I could do was stutter, "why?" , " . . .of all the trillions of tones of materials we make, move, transform and manufacture with, as little as 1% of them are still in use in products six months after their sale." (Architectural Review 092) The rest ends up as landfill. When you consider how much material does last longer than this in the form of buildings and cars, then you realise just how much stuff has a very much shorter life than six months. Most of this will be all the unnecessary packaging and throw-away implements whose life is often measured in minutes after purchase.
"The British may waste more food than any other nation, throwing out 30 - 40% of all the produce they buy and grow each year." (The Guardian, April 2005). There is no room for moral criteria where economic criteria are the guiding factors. If it is cheaper to plough surplus food back into the ground this will be done despite millions starving in the third world. At the same time large amounts of luxury and out-of-season foods are imported from the same third world countries.
Now we have 4WD monsters that are sold as being able to drive up rivers and conquer mountains, which are a symbol of the arrogance of our times. For less adventurous owners, or those who buy them as status symbols, there is spray-on mud to make it look as if the truck that never leaves suburbia actually does what it pretends to do. There can be no justification for vehicles that use such excessive amounts of fuel (and energy to build) for trips around town. The roles are reversed and nature is weak and we are strong. Collectively we have the power to change the face of the earth and its weather systems, and instead of facing up to this responsibility, we are riding roughshod over the earth.
3 THE EFFECTS OF OUR LIFESTYLE
There are two main results from the way we in the developed world live now: pollution and global warming. There are no reputable scientists who disagree that humans are partly or largely causing global warming. Those few who do try to dispute the fact can invariably be shown to be connected to an interest group such an energy company or the US government. All the scientists I spoke to in Antarctica (usually working on the effects of climate change) agreed with this, but in their detached, unemotive way. One even said to me that these are fascinating times and he hopes to live to see the outcome!
Antarctica is made up of two ice masses: the much larger east mass is locked up and will remain stable for a long time. But the west mass is worrying scientists. It is an area of much higher precipitation and its many glaciers move quickly. Some of it is also below sea level and it could break up relatively quickly causing unprecedented sea level rises and weather changes. There are already signs that this is happening: Peter Blake's expedition down the Antarctic peninsular could not find a 100 metre thick ice shelf that had last been reported in 1977. Last year I was also in Greenland and saw the same retreating glaciers there. The current scientific debate is whether or not we have already passed a tripping point of no return. As the ice melts there is less white to reflect the sun's heat (called the albedo effect) which causes faster warming and more ice-melt in an out-of-control acceleration. In the same way vast amounts of methane are being released from tundra melting in Siberia for the first time in millennia, which then causes even more global warming.
Global warming causes worse weather effects. We have always suffered violent tropical storms but now they are more destructive more often, such as the one in Bangladesh a few years ago that killed 1300 people and made 3 million homeless. If it is proven that we are largely responsible for global warming, then there is a direct causal link between our lifestyle and third world suffering. You could say that an unnecessary trip to a dairy to buy a Sunday paper in a 4WD actually played a part in someone loosing their home or even their life in Bangladesh. Or, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, the trip was an "act of violence."
Pollution is another outcome of our lifestyle. Nowhere is clean, including New Zealand, despite the marketing hype. The atmosphere contains dust and toxic particles slowly damaging our lungs. Ironically if these were removed from the air, global warming would be worse because more of the sun's heat would get through. The seas have often dangerous levels of metals and toxins in them which are run-offs from irresponsible land use and mining. Tests on sea water around the globe systematically reveal minute particles of ground up plastic which are building up in the food chain and coming back to poison us. This mostly comes from the casual indifference of throw-away packaging.
These results come from a rampant consumer binge that is rapidly using up non-renewable resources. The true price of extracting these resources is not being paid by current consumers, but being irresponsibly passed on to unfortunate future generations who will have to live with the mess and the exhaustion of oil and minerals.
4 UNCOMFORTABLE FACTS
20% of the world's population consume 75% of the resources. It is this privileged minority that is doing all the damage, causing pollution and global warming. What about the other 80% of the people? They also have a right to our lifestyle and luxuries, and some countries like India and China are starting to claim it. But to bring that 80% up to our PRESENT standard requires a 400% increase in production . . . at the CURRENT population level. However by the time they reach our level in say 50 years, the population may have doubled, which will instead require an 800% increase in production. This is clearly impossible given that we are already causing so much damage and seeing the finite limits of resources.
But it gets worse than that. Our economic model requires growth, ideally at least 3% per annum. If the economy is not growing people start to get worried and talk of a recession or even a depression. We are told we must buy more. So if we factor in a 3% p/a growth the 800% increase becomes a staggering 10,000% increase in 50 years time. This is utterly impossible, so we are faced with two choices:
- If we want all the world to share its dwindling resources evenly and fairly then we must accept a drastic reduction in our consumption, or
- If we want to maintain our current levels of consumption, that is only possible when the remaining 80% are kept in poverty.
(These figures are taken from an Australian website The Simpler Way which gives full references)
In its document "The seven Pillars of growth" Business New Zealand (BNZ) lays out its commitment to sustainable growth through free enterprise. ‘Sustainable growth' has to be an oxymoron and an impossibility. Growth is by definition exponential and infinite, which is the contradiction of sustainability. In its document BNZ says, "Sustainability can be a controversial issue. The term has been used differently by different groups, sometimes to try to prevent any development whatever, and sometimes to undermine legitimate business activity. We reject that notion of sustainability. Our view: the ongoing competitiveness of NZ business through responsiveness to the legitimate needs and interests of stakeholders, including customers, staff and the community." There is absolutely nothing sustainable about this ‘competitiveness' at all! And note the repeated word legitimate: as long as international law (drafted by the same people as in BNZ) allows unfair and damaging exploitation of resources and people, then it is acceptable. This morally bankrupt attitude is designed for short-term, selfish gain for the few, at the expense of the poor and of future generations. Clearly, hope for the future does not lie in these people's hands and a better way forward must be found elsewhere!
5 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
Thankfully not all is gloomy and there are some people trying very hard to find solutions. While London was irresponsibly wasting resources on its Millennium Dome fiasco, there were others following a more positive route. Down in Cornwall I visited a dome of a very different sort: the Eden Project. This is in effect two giant greenhouses built to create a tropical rainforest and a Mediterranean environment in Britain. The Project's main aim is to demonstrate the incredible diversity of such habitats and to show how we are far more dependent on these trees and plants than we might realise. What is heartening is that despite its location at one extremity of England, just about as far from a major population centre as you can get, it is incredibly popular - far more so, in fact, than the Millennium Dome in the heart of Europe's biggest city. So it would seem that the environment means more to the British than feelings of self importance despite their government.
A quite different Millennium event was held in Germany. The Hanover Expo 2000 looked ahead at the issue of sustainable development in the 21st century, and how the 1992 Rio Earth Summit declaration was being implemented. Countries were asked to include the architecture of their pavilion in this. Shigeru Ban designed the Japanese pavilion with a structure built entirely from recycled cardboard tubes. The Zero Emissions Research Institute (ZERI) in Geneva asked the Columbian architect Simón Vélez to build their pavilion in bamboo, but the German authorities refused to allow it because bamboo had no structural standards. So Vélez first built one in Columbia to prove that this was possible. A team of German engineers was sufficiently impressed and allowed it to be built in Hanover. This was the largest structure ever built in bamboo with a 7 metre overhanging roof, and illustrates the enormous potential of a material that can be sustainably managed in vast quantities thanks to its fast growing nature.
Like these architects there are many designers for whom ethical issues are more important than style, particularly among the young emerging designers. They are coming to realise that the designer of a product has a responsibility for that product. They have to ensure that it uses as many sustainable or recycled materials as possible, and that its production embodies as little non-renewable energy as possible. This includes oil used to transport raw materials and the finished item. They have to avoid materials that give off toxins, both in manufacture and during the product's life. And they have to consider how the product will be finally disposed of or, preferably, recycled. Landfill is no longer an option and zero waste is the ultimate goal where everything is reused. The challenge is to incorporate these principles without making the item impossibly expensive.
One example is the Campana brothers from Brazil. They have drawn on the resourcefully creative culture of the Brazilian favelas, or slum dwellings, where poor people use whatever waste they can find for the things they need. So the Campanas' furniture is assembled in a seemingly haphazard way from off-cuts and throw-away materials. The fact that these are then also manufactured in Italy at expense from non waste undermines the intent, but it can't change the fact that the Campanas have altered our aesthetic, making such ‘non-minimal', random assembly acceptable.
In my own design practice I am investigating how to create the maximum structure with the minimum amount of material. Conventional structural design, be it for a building or a table, could be called the beam and post method: two upright posts are joined by a horizontal beam. The structure is in tension and gets its strength from the massiveness of the beam and the rigidity of the junction with the posts. This is a classic Graeco-Roman, and very male form of construction and uses relatively large amounts of material. By comparison a dome structure is in compression and gets its strength from the compound curvature of its components. This can be achieved with minimal use of material. I have built a structure, which incorporated an integral light shade, in Milan 2.5m high by 2m by 1m with a pile of plywood pieces that I carried with me from New Zealand in a suitcase. Naturally all the wood was from plantation grown trees that are planted as fast as they are cut down.
Other designers are taking it one stage further and also incorporating a message into the item. My favourite example of this is a drinking glass I was given in New York by a young designer. It simply has a hole drilled in it half way up the glass. Engraved on the glass next to it is a line with the words NEED below, and WANT above. Living with this I am constantly being goaded into thinking, is this something I really need or only want? So this object is not just providing us with a tool but it also has the power to change, in the way that art does. And by taking up this responsibility, design is reverting to its original role as an aid to survival -- not, as we have seen it is now, as a part of a threat to our survival.
6 THE WAY FORWARD
I have been invited to teach some summer design workshops organised by the Vitra Design Museum from Germany and the Paris Pompidou Centre, at Boisbuchet in France. The aim of my classes was to promote sustainable design, and to change the emphasis of design away from objects towards processes. The group had to stage a meal for everyone at Boisbuchet on the final night. The class included people from 15 different countries from every continent and this represented a rich source of cultural traditions. They had to think first, not about objects, but about the ritual of eating, or as I put it: ‘don't think table, think eating.' In this way design can be weaned off its obsession with objects and directed at questioning the way we do things. So objects become things that are made, not just for the sake of it, but because of their role in the ritual. And if the ritual or process is designed sustainably for survival, so too will be the objects, if they are required at all.
At this time I was still thinking about design as ultimately being about objects. But after Boisbuchet, I went on to Iceland where I had been asked to work with a group of students on the subject of whales. The objective was to take to the upcoming Stockholm Design Fair some designs that promoted the concept of sustainable whaling (see my booklet ‘Iceland and Design' for more about this) preferably made from whale parts. We discussed and argued the issues for a week without making anything and finally came to the conclusion that it was the message alone that mattered and that the designed objects were not needed. This took the radical step of separating design entirely from physical matter and proposing that it is primarily about process or the way we do things.
And this is where the hope for the future lies. Suddenly designers find themselves in a critically important role. They have the training and the ability to question and re-evaluate every process, every system and every way of living and doing. No-one in the developed world wants to give up more of their privileged lifestyle than they have to, or the comforts and luxuries that they take for granted. So the challenge for designers is to find how to fulfill those needs in better, more sustainable and often different ways. The guiding principle has to be to fulfill our own needs without jeopardising the needs of future generations or those of poorer people in our world. If our grandchildren receive a legacy of depleted oil and water reserves, polluted and empty mine sites and rivers, and an overheated planet with hostile weather, they will sift through our landfills and ask, "You did this for WHAT?"
Before I left Iceland one of the students came up to me and thanked me for giving her a new reason to study design. She had been attracted to the profession by the glamour of rock star designers like Philippe Starck, but soon became disillusioned by the indifferent manner in which design promoted consumption. Hearing me talk about sustainable design gave her a new, more motivated and idealistic approach to design. This is a common response I have found in many design schools and it gives me hope for the future.
EPILOGUE
Antarctica was the site of the last heroic age of exploration. On Ross Island I visited the historic huts of the Scott and Shackleton expeditions. In the very dry air these memorials have survived for 100 years as a vivid and poignant reminder of the hardships these men endured. I also saw a number of weathered wooden crosses set up to commemorate the deaths of some of the explorers. In his 1907 expedition Shackleton traveled to within 100 miles of the great goal the South Pole. He knew they did not have enough supplies to get to the Pole and back again so he turned for home and survived. Three years later Scott was in the same position and chose to continue, driven by the race for glory for King and Country. He reached the South Pole but did not survive -- all his party died on the way back. The memorial cross to his party stands on top of Observation Hill, from where the base members watched out hopefully every day for his return.
Today we face a similar dilemma over our survival.
Will we respond in the manner of Scott or Shackleton?
