Material Science makes Yahoo!?

Today I found this article on Yahoo!'s front page. A new lattice structure of metal created to make ultra light materials from the researchers of HRL Research Laboratories, The University of California at Irvine, and the California Institute of Technology .  It is certainly nice to see something AWESOME instead of the lives of celebrities int the headlines.  I would love to know if other people are interested in this, and how our collective knowledge would be effected if this is the news we were given?

Book Club Meeting!

So there has been a change in plans... A new book has been chosen. "The Lab: Creativity and Culture" by David Edwards. We will be discussing soon, with the first topic being that of the barbeque utensils on the cover.

If you would like to join us, let me know.

Book Report: something on Nanotech

This is going to be a rather lack luster book report, but I felt I should write it anyhow. I read a book recently on the ethics and pitfalls of Nanotechnology - I think it was an Earthscan book if that helps at all. It was a great series of chapters from many different sources all about the future developments of nanotechnology looking at the ethical development of the industry, and many of the up and coming developments - soooo exciting (I love science) . I found the book - its called Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law, and overall it was great for an overview of the future of this field.
.

Anyhow, the only thing that I can actually remember from the book - is that we should approach the developments in nanotechnology with caution, as the full ramifications of each of the new technologies are unknown, and when we are looking at particles at that scale, it could have dramatic effects on life from the cellular level. That, and that the name for the thing we should be concerned about is AWESOME - 'Free Radicals', I want to be a 'Free Radical' - if I was cool/geeky enough to have a band I would name it 'Free Radicals', I can picture the punk inspired font right now...

Green Products Innovation Institute

I wish the Green Products Innovation Institute was a real place where I could go and study... but I guess it is in its own way... Basically, its seemingly the next step in Cradle-to-Cradle in the creation of a more holistic design economy. It is seemingly being implemented in California in order to create a 'sustainable economy' (sorry for the quotation marks, but I had to - I believe everything to do with sustainability needs to come with quotation marks). Pretty awesome, and I can't wait until the toxicity database is ready to be perused....

Something to remember... about persistence

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

– Calvin Coolidge

Thanks SwissMiss for the link

Awesome...

A whole manifesto about awesomeness... what can I say other than awesome (you do know its one of my favourite words, right?)

Fall Reading List

You might know that I read quite a bit (I think a profession as a 'reader' would be quite appropriate for me)

For the fall, I've decided to put together a specific reading list (separating out the 'must reads', from my reading list on the sidebar) - so here it goes...

Design is the Problem
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millennium
The Archaeology of Knowledge
Silent Spring

I'll start with those... As I usually take notes, check back here for book reports...

Pondering

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when on is fully aware of blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some mof the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."
- Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

Thank you to Paul Hawken's book Blessed Unrest (of which I am in the middle of reading) for this quote.

Generation M

I hope I fit into this new Generation... Generation M (according to the manifesto), is about doing things that matter... Here's a little excerpt...

"Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences (...)

What do the "M"s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It's a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth "M"s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday's way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who's Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from."

Written by Umair Haque as a message for the G8. Thanks Putting People First for the link!

Michael Braungart Lecture and my scanner is broken...

How exciting its is to go to lectures by people you hold in high regard. I recently got the opportunity to go to a lecture put on by the Design Council and MADE at the RSA featuring Michael Braungart. I was so glad to have been able to go. I often use Cradle and Cradle principles as a starting point for my design process - thinking about how things could be better. I've scanned in my notes for any of you who might want to read them. I must say so many things stand out as being little gems of wisdom - I think my favourite is "[sustainable design is] not about being less bad but more good" - if that make any sense out of context. PS - my scanner is broken so the notes have had to be slightly touched up in photoshop. The pic above is a raw scan of the cover of my notebook - kind of interesting I must say.

Summer of Hardly any Posts

Sorry about the lack of posts. It seems as if I've been rather busy (thank goodness for that). Spending lots of time gallivanting around London and elsewhere a little too. I've been busy working as well - you know jobs and stuff. I'm working on Nobel Textiles - very cool project, my job is organization for the exhibition, its sure a lot of work, but its very exciting. Its going to be amazing, I can't wait to see all of the designer's final exhibitions! If you want to check out my photos from some of my recent trips - check A Brave Toned Timid Girl. The summer has become very social - which is awesome, and I'm enjoying discovering the city, and all the fun things going on. I'll have more interesting posts soon - I promise.

Another Book Report

Well I just found my notes on a book I read awhile back... In The Bubble by John Thackara. I have TONS of notes on this one. They were lost for awhile (they got tucked in with souvenirs from Romania). Really an amazing book. I would have to say, its one of the most well rounded and thoughtful book that I've read so far. If you are thinking about reading something - I suggest this one. I'm not posting my notes, because there are way too many of them. I'll give away one thing, solutions will become about interconnectivity - which I'm coming to realize is extremely important. He talks about schools and colleges not just being a 'teaching place' but more a of a place that is a network of organizations - a hub at the center drawing connections between things that are seemingly unconnected. Just re-reading my notes, makes me want to read the book all over again (it was that relevant)! If you want more of his musings - I have a link to his blog on the sidebar "Doors of Perception".

Trite, Expensive or Impossible

As I'm in the process of reading a few more books on sustainability - I realized one thing.  All of the books seem to offer solutions that are either Trite, Expensive or Impossible.  I hope there is some better theories to come.  I doubt I'll come up with any, but I will certainly continue to read them.  I think I'm going to start classifying the main theories with those labels... Oh, I must be in a horrible mood - I'll have something more hope-filled for you to read tomorrow, I promise!

Notes from a nice Day

I went to MADE's event on Textiles and Clothing Sustainability last week (Thursday). It was a really great event with speakers from many diverse fields - it was great to see such a mix! I've scanned in my notes and if you would like to read them in their utter flawed manner (don't use any of the figures I'm sure some of them are wrong). I also met Mark Liu - one of last year's graduates of Textile Futures. He makes some very beautiful pieces all cut with zero fabric waste in the cutting process. I'll write another post about his work as soon as I find all the of the pertinent links. Back to the original reason I'm writing... notes... here they are...

Textile Group

So I'm always looking for groups doing something more organized about sustainability and textiles.... Well I found another one.  RITE (Reducing the Impact of Textiles on the Environment) has a mandate of exactly what their title says, and has founding members from Leeds University, Marks & Spencer, and EcoTextile News.  They are having a conference on October 7th, 2008 - which I'm pretty sure I'll be going to (wild horses couldn't keep me away).  Thanks to EcoTextile News for the info (and thank you to the UAL library for finally getting EcoTextile News in the library).

Great Postcard in the Mail

From my Lovely Jenn... I got a wonderful postcard with this image on it - and most importantly this quote....

"If I was concerned about being accepted, I would have been doing Ansel Adams lookalikes, because that was easily accepted. Everything I did was never accepted... but luckily for me, my interest in the subject and my passion of the subject took me to the point that I wasn't wounded by that, and eventually people came around to me."
Duane Michals

Conference Craziness

So last week I had a bit of conference/workshop craziness... Went to one conference and one talk and a workshop, and then attempted to learn some computer programming skills (to no avail... there were tears). So the conferences I went to were... MADE's Waste Not Want Not - which was an excellent day of talks about using recycled materials! Great talks, many of them went over my head, but its great to know there is something going on in using all of our 'garbage', and to meet other people who are designing based on waste (though in a much more technical way). Then in the evening I went to the RSA's Art's and Ecology talk by Jeremy Deller - Culture in a time of Crisis... which was a great overview on his work. Then I went to Manchester (after a very rushed crit in the morning), for the FEI Conference: Ethics of Fashion or Fashion of Ethics?. A great event for students on the fashion industry and the ethics of labour practices. After careful consideration, I think the people being highly educated on this topic should be the Buyers of the world, not the Designers... so often the Designers have little to no say in the entire manufacturing process, and the buyers do have so much more power in terms of pricing, and confirming of ethical standards. Just a thought. Then I tried to learn Processing at a workshop... yikes, I think I will leave the programming to people who are really good at it... you know who you are :) The picture is from my daily stroll to the DLR, a lovely tree already in bloom. Looks beautiful, but is it time yet?

book report time!

I think the book review might become a somewhat regular feature, depending on how often I read a whole book. Anyhow this week I read 'Green is the New Black' by Tamsin Blanchard. It was a pretty good book, the tone was not so great, it read like a London tabloid magazine (basically assumed little to no intelligence from the audience, and sounded very gossipy). The information that it held was great, but only if you live in London. It might have been more aptly named - Green Fashion for the High Fashion Twits of London. Some of the wording and referencing wouldn't make sense to anyone who doesn't live in the UK, I wouldn't have had a clue 3 months ago what half the book was talking about, or who. Maybe there needs to be a follow-up that is less Londoncentric, and deals with the issue as a whole, and gives global sources. I haven't checked out Tasmin Blanchard's blog yet, maybe that's going on over there... I guess I would have to be compelled to find it first, and I'm not really all that compelled. The resource list in the back is fantastic if you live in London or are visiting. All in all I wouldn't really recommend it, unless you are looking for a book on finding environmental fashion in London.

Love of Green Resources

So I've noticed that there isn't any good resource for green design... its kind of hit and miss on resources, so I think I'm going to try to put together my own little green guide... I'm not sure what or how I'm going to do this - whether it should be a wikki, or if it should be a pdf type file, or if it should be more or a webpage type thing. I've pretty much ruled out a blog... too much searching. Let me know in the comments what you would think would be the best method... I'm going to start compiling.

Book Recommendation

So... as you all know I read a lot about sustainability, and I've read quite a few lately. I wanted to let you know that I highly recommend "Eternally Yours - Visions on Product Endurance" (there's a link over in the side bar). Its a book on Emotional Sustainability (in all its horrible glory), but it was a book of different essays, so there were lots of really great opinions all in one place, which was wonderful.