Integrating Architecture and Food, A Match Made In Heaven

I was so excited to discover an event that centered itself on both food awareness and sustainable design practices. Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, California held the event with collaborative efforts by the 2008 Architecture and the City Festival to present a collection of films and presentations, and best of all, a large variety of tasting pavilions, each showcasing a different locally- sourced ingredient. What I find most ingenious, is that the pavilions themselves were all designed to reflect the type of ingredient they housed. For example, the cheese pavilion and the chocolate pavilion both incorporated and referenced elements used in their production, sourcing only recycled objects and materials in their designs.

Possessing a passion for both good food and good design, I began thinking about their relationships, and specifically how both food and architecture reflect their immediate environments and contribute a sense of identity to those places. In architecture, we draw inspiration from our surrounding environments to develop a distinct structural style as we have all seen in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Architecture designs, for example. Architects must also be aware of the topographical, geological and climatic specifics of the region, which largely determine the final outcome of the design.

When we think about food in association with architecture, some interesting parallelisms arise. Knowledge and availability of local and seasonal ingredients is so important in our efforts towards more sustainable food practices, just as the source of construction materials are important in sustainable design processes. Foods naturally relate people to their environments and help to develop a distinct local and global identity. More and more, chefs are looking to their own backyards for inspiration from the freshest, cleanest, most seasonal ingredients available, making for simple menu creations that emphasize the natural flavors of the ingredient.

A blending of all the right elements creates the framework for the perfect dish, or even the perfect design. Food has always been a great way to reach people, so why not educate them on the issues pertaining to smart, sustainable food strategies while integrating relevant, equally sustainable design approaches? Love the idea!

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/03/slow-food-nation-2008-tasting-pavilions/

Making sustainable accessible!

In lieu of Katie's blog about the EQ3 project using the bottles, I wanted to post this link. It is a website for a company in San Francisco supplying reusable, recycled and remanufactured materials. I love the idea, and I think that people would be more interested in using such materials if they were more accessible. They are out there, but most of us don't know where to look. Also the access to workshops on using these materials, and on sustainable living, are a fantastic idea. The only way to make the changes we need to make is to bring them forward and into our everyday lives.

This goes beyond people's daily lives. It is also the responsibility of the companies providing the public with products to employ sustainable practice as the norm. Although I must commend companies like Jeld-Wen for their efforts in providing products with low toxicity, I believe that their claim as an environmentally friendly company is a stretch. Without a cycle of re-use of materials, they are inevitably always creating more waste. Perhaps Jeld-Wen could take back their windows when they are in need of replacement, and re-use the parts. A similar scheme is already implemented by a company in the flooring business called Interface Flooring. They rent carpeting, instead of selling it, and therefore accept the carpet after they are eventually replaced. They then refurbish the material, or recycle unused portions. Together with fantastic discoveries like the non toxic wood treatment by Jeld-Wen, and an attitude towards waste reduction, large companies can enhance the feasibility of attaining truly sustainable materials.

Buidling Resource

Giving Back to the Grid

Finally, an incentive for me to go to the gym. I've always had reservations about going. Mainly, because I could never piece together why I needed to spend so much money at a facility that consumes so much energy just so I could burn a bit off. All that energy expended by hundreds of thousands of people at gyms just ends up being lost everyday. The most logical thing to do would be to harness this energy people are PAYING to get rid of. Capturing the energy we burn is a more sustainable way to work out, but also more economically feasible for the gyms who would save on electricity bills. In turn that should slash prices on gym fees for customers too. Personally, I think this would put back some of the fun into a grueling work out. Knowing that I could contribute back into the system would motive myself and I'm sure many health conscious environmentally conscious folks to get active at the gym. Perhaps one day we can have this technology in our homes getting everyone to participate in a bit of physical activity on a regular basis. A reduction in North American obesity and energy consumption, talk about killing two birds with one stone.

The inventor, Lucien Gambaroto also makes a few important points about individuals and their ability to contribute at all levels. We don't have to be inventors or government officials to make changes in our environment. Each and every one of us has the ability to enforce change and we have to take responsibility for the decisions we make. As consumers we can choose to support services who are finding alternative ways to fuel themselves. We can write letters to government, invent our own source of energy, and even something as simple as educating others is contributing on some level. 

Creativity is key when solving any problem and luckily its a resource that is in abundance in the human population. I have a theory that if we have enough brain power and creativity to inflict so much damage to the Earth, there is certainly enough brain power and creativity to fix it.

Sustainable the New Postmodern?

In conclusion to a recent class, Jae shared his vision for the future of design. He stated that while previous stages of design included modernism and postmodernism, the next phase of design would be 'sustainable'. Jae warned us that as designers we would have to negotiate, and possibly even abandon our esthetic and creative desires in favor of sustainability. To really become sustainable, Jae insisted that we must relinquished some control of our designs to sustainable materials.

These insights enlightened me and made me aware that I struggle with these issues. In particular, when I designed my garment for our last studio project my greatest challenge was to let go of my desire to create a beautiful esthetic, and to instead allow ecological fabrics and the garment's function to dictate its form. Jae's comments inspired me to remove some of my own esthetic taste and become more sustainable. Since reflecting on these ideas, I have also become more aware of how my own preferences can limit my design choices.

As we move forward into a new era of sustainable design our greatest challenge will be to rethink our notions of beauty, or the artistic whims that Jae described. However, once we negotiate the use of sustainable materials and our own vision as designers, we will be free to create exciting new esthetics.

An example of this forward thinking design comes from 5468796 who in their redesign of EQ3 have:

"identified a large surplus of glass water bottles from restaurants in [Vancouver] as a material resource that typically ends up in the landfill. Instead, the bottles will be used to clad the existing facade to create a visually engaging and environmentally friendly feature - filtering daylight and protecting interior furnishings. The project’s innovation lies in its ability to combine opportunities for branding, community involvement and a new, greener direction for EQ3." (http://www.5468796.ca/)

Here the firm has merged its creative vision with sustainability. 5468796's innovation creates an interesting, fresh, and beautiful environment, exemplifying the sustainable phase design is moving towards. -Katie