Final Presentation Video

5/26 Reflection

While I think conserving before we load is the best way to tackle our problems of energy/water efficiency, the conservation must go back even further than turning off lights or shutting off the water while brushing our teeth. After seeing the short video clip today and remembering discussions from past material and lectures, the specific designs of our homes are the root of the problems. Where, direction, size, layout, and function are the core aspects in my opinion. Building smaller, fully utilized spaces in solar-friendly areas solves many of the problems with efficiency before they even have a chance to occur. If we don't have 15x15 dining and living rooms that see minimal use, we wouldn't have to heat and cool, decorate, and maintain them in the first place and would decrease the overall footprint of our indoor spaces. From there, we could design with ideas in mind of only using energy where absolutely necessary, similar to how the BIF building only heated and illuminated areas that humans occupied. That is brilliant in my opinion and has the potential to make a huge difference in energy efficiency. Loading on living machines, solar panels, wind turbines, etc. seem to be further down the road, but would be the ideal next steps after we start designing our indoor spaces conducive to sustainability from the ground up.

The main and probably most inevitable problem of indoor efficiency, is that we already have millions of spaces that were not designed with the slightest sustainability in mind. The repercussions of starting over would not only be non-ideal for occupants and astronomically costly, but wasteful in the first place considering the existing materials and embodied energy. Also, most people do not realize that their urban sprawl result of a home could be so much more sustainable inside and out, and in turn more energy/water efficient.

My thoughts have changed to wonder what we can do given the current status of our existing indoor designs and/or apply to new construction, renovation, etc. Seeing how drastically indoor spaces can be altered, granted it will be costly, we can do a lot with our current indoor design to incorporate energy efficiency. Not only can we do small things like use LED lights, water aerators, and use less energy that was pre-existing knowledge to me, but we can alter our space slightly so that it automatically consumers less water and energy without our input or continued effort. This is the kind of design we must start to look at, because regardless of how much less aerators and LED's use, they can only do so much

Rather than a question, I would like to see "outside the box" examples of subtle or large, free or expensive, alterations to indoor design that make the space extremely more efficient. These may be in the form of living machine types or energy generation, but it just seems like short of new construction, there are few examples of what can be done with a modern, existing space like the home I live in now.

5/26 Initia Thoughts

When I first looked at this question, my thoughts started to wonder what a home or building would be like if it incorporated some of the sustainable options that we discussed for use outside on a broader scale, inside. Since we have already neglected watershed in many areas, what if we opened up that watershed to run through our home or buildings? I try to imagine having a small creek or valley running through my living room and I actually like the idea of incorporating such nature inside. I often think of structure walls as a strong barrier between the elements of the outside environment, which really is their purpose. It wouldn't be so bad though, if we had green space in our homes, would it? We try to emulate it with fake plants, water falls, decorative fish takes, etc. so maybe we are already indirectly longing for nature indoors.

I think these imaginations kind of answer the question of how to bring energy efficiency and water conservation into the home. Living machines are certainly similar to bringing streams/nature into our homes the way they have plant beds that clean our water for alternate, on-site use. These are certainly feasible options, but it will take a strong force to start transitioning. Conserving though, would be the first objective to making our indoor spaces more efficient. Using less energy in our lighting, HVAC, electronics, etc. will make a huge difference alone.

Re-use is also a big factor in being more efficient. I think of my family's home, and realize we waste A LOT. Sadly to admit, we do not recycle and with six people living in the home, garbage bags pile up fast. My family, although I am trying to spread the education, does not make very sustainable conscious decisions. We use a lot of paper towels/plates/etc., waste a lot of food, use a lot of water, and run HVAC systems heavily most of the year. These are conditions reflective of a lot of family homes and indoor spaces around the country.

So again, conservation is a main component and a good starting point for energy efficiency and water use. Then when we add LED lights, automatic dimmers, automatic climate control, water aerators, etc. the efforts will make that much more of a difference.

5/25 Reflection

After listening to our guest today in class, my thoughts were re-affirmed that indoor design decisions are heavily weighted to one or two areas. Although she was very concerned about the personal inhabitant health, aesthetics and appeal trumped sustainability whenever the two clashed. In my opinion, this is the problem. Our culture obviously has strong ties to aesthetics and comfort with concerns for cost as well or our homes would consist of drywall and floorboard. Our tendencies to at least want to chose and utilize sustainable indoor design materials is a step in the right direction especially when supplies start meeting our needs in this way, but cost, comfort, and aesthetic confrontations are always right around the corner.

The conflict of indoor sustainability seems to be quite evident from listening to our guest. She would love to make sustainable decisions, but absolutely not unless they fit her aesthetic plan which she has an obviously great eye and knack for. I think her thought process of design reflects the general public quite well. An "average consumer" will chose non-toxic, re-useable, energy efficient, etc. to a certain extent or breaking point which usually will be cost, comfort, and/or appeal.

My thoughts have changed from the class lecture, because I really did not have many thoughts prior to it. I have never really designed an interior space and have just dealt with my surroundings. After seeing some of the beautiful examples of our guest's work, I can definitely identify beauty and comfort when I see it, but sustainability is much harder to spot. She made it very clear what we could do to minimize toxins in our design, providing numerous examples. These were all very feasible options that met all of the criteria of an average consumer, satisfying the comfort and appeal aspects quite well in most cases. This is a feasible answer to the problem of having non-toxic/harmful clashing with comfort and aesthetics. The only concern that I and most will still have is cost. For most people, health will have to be quite an important criteria to justify the extra cost that often, but not always is associated with less-harmful/toxic material. I think health is a significant enough factor though that most will opt for it, and luckily for sustainability, the two often go hand in hand!

The only questions I have for our guest is, and I suppose she kind of answered it, but what is keeping her from making more sustainable decisions. I understand she has aesthetics to satisfy, but I did not see much compromise at all when choosing more sustainable design features such as lighting. And second, like many other sustainable topics, how can we get the general public to start realizing what we discussed in class on a mass scale that provokes significant change.

5/25 Initial Thoughts

Balancing appeal, comfort, and non-harmful materials seems to be a generally hard thing to do. Often, when we design indoor spaces, we focus on one of these aspects, and go full force at doing the best we can achieve the objective given our resources and parameters. For example, when I think of an apartment, my personal goals would be comfort at an affordable price. Appeal would be a small part of my objective, but color or style matching would probably be the extent of the beauty I would design a space for especially on a typical, "tight" college budget. In another space, such as a newborn baby's room in a new family home, non-toxic paint and child-friendly materials will surely be at the heart of the design.

To illustrate my point, I've come across a variety of indoor spaces, with no two being for the same purpose. Often times, the three characteristic categories will overlap depending on the use and available resources such as space, cost, etc. One thing I have noticed, is that only until recently have I come across "sustainable" indoor spaces incorporating non-toxic materials. I think design focus has been so often on beauty and function with cost being a very limiting factor, that non-toxic materials have even existed. Recently though, studies and material has been circulated linking toxins in the paints we use everyday for wall coverings with cancer causing agents, etc. And in typical American fashion, most consumers, regardless of their knowledge or even if they knew what a toxin in paint was, feared the worst, jumped on the bandwagon and started demanding non-toxic wall covering paints, so producers answered the call and created alternatives.

I supposed when I think of indoor design, my thoughts specifically turn to furniture, decoration, wall/floor coverings, etc. I'm not all that sure what can be done indoors that reflects the sustainability we can design outside of our homes and buildings. A first start though, would be to not use materials that do contain harmful agents, have to be shipped half-way across the world, or will end up in a landfill should we need to re-design or dispose of anything.

Neighborhood Assessment

Ironwood Pictures

I conducted my neighborhood assessment project in Ironwood Gardens Country Club. My parents home and the one I grew up in and still live is located in the neighborhood and was built nearly 17 years ago when the neighborhood as a whole was just getting rooted. Our house is located at one of the far ends and at the time it was built was one of the few on the block, but to date I think the neighborhood has no empty lots left with the final lot being occupied within the last year or so. The neighborhood also centers around and is intertwined with an 18-hole golf course managed by the Town of Normal. The only structures, besides golf course related facilities, are residential single family or condo homes. There is an apartment complex located outside the west boundaries of the neighborhood called Ironwood Gardens but to my knowledge is a separate entity.

When looking at the entire neighborhood from a Google map or birds-eye view, the entire area is shaped like a bird or a obscure figure-eight. I live on the ONLY thru street in the entire neighborhood and even calling it such is quite a stretch as it is more of a detour from one side of the eight. There is also a single entry and exit point from the neighborhood. To me, this means an extremely inefficient and non-easily accessible location no matter where your home is located. The streets are roughly 3 car widths wide and are used for dual direction traffic and street parking, but parking is only permitted on one side. The streets are generally curvy, which is generally good for driver awareness of pedestrians and golf course, but like stated earlier, not conducive to easy access for any guests or owners. There is a sidewalk on the "inner" side of the streets that spans the entire neighborhood. The walk though, is roughly 5 feet wide and not comfortable to be used for more than 1 or 2 people walking. The cart paths spanning the golf course are wider but are only laid on the course and not so much integrated with the sidewalk aside from intersections and generally are to be used by golfers only during the season and play.

I walked, biked, ran, and drove around my neighborhood to observe. I gathered a far different experience from all three methods. Driving, I noticed much less of the fine detail and pedestrian activity. I was merely worried about traversing out of the neighborhood and most of my attention was focused on yield and stop traffic signs. Walking, I was able to absorb much of the great scenery and pleasant landscaping that many homes and the course contain. Pedestrian activity was quite high on my walks/bikes especially this time of year. I was aware of the cars and although I felt safe, I would not expect cars to halt for me to cross any of the streets or cart paths. With this, while driving I did not think about stopping for any pedestrians waiting to cross. I find biking to be difficult on the small sidewalks so I generally bike in the street or on the cart paths. Cars tend to yield well to bikers and I was able to take in much of the "natural" scenery and neighborhood similar to walking and running.

Most of my observations were done on a Sunday night around 7:00 pm. The day, and sundown was probably one of, if not the best of the year. The sun sets behind most of the houses as not to be a blinding, scorching nuisance. The temperature was an upper 70 to low 80. There was a slight breeze as well. This led to many grills being lit and dispersing much "cookout aroma" and a lot of pedestrian activity. This is common whenever the weather is tolerable to be outside. Many of the residents enjoy the weather in a similar manner to my family, consisting of walks, runs, rides, cookouts, and spending time on the patio and in the yard. Had it been during the winter, nearly all traffic would be from vehicles and the neighborhood would seem much more silent. Another thing to note, is many people walk their dogs around the streets and on the course. Considering I have lived in my house since it was built, I would like to think I have experienced everything there is to within the neighborhood. I have seen it from every angle, every day, every time, of every year. These observations recently conducted are an accurate sample of my lifetime experience.

My neighborhood has definite boundaries. Until very recent years, it was a neighborhood plopped in the middle of miles of farm fields with a strip of highway running along the south side. The north-south Towanda road runs pretty much through the entire BloNo area and takes you out to the entrance of the golf course and my neighborhood. Signs and a bridge over the highway inform you that you have entered the area. Medians split the main road at this entrance. This main road (body of the bird) runs through the middle of the figure eight and ends the neighborhood at a four way stop perpendicular with one of the most-norht roads, called Northtown road. There are several fingers off the main road before you come to a an intersecting road that enters the two side of the figure eights. The main road and inner facing rows of houses are what really signifies the boundaries. There are also two large ponds (man-made I assume) on either side of the main Towanda road. There is a raised hill that seperates the neighborhood from the apartment complex, and fields/ponds/golf course that separate the area from the rest of the environment.

Like I said earlier, my neighborhood was extremely isolated. It was recently attracted other neighborhoods within a couple miles to the northeast and southwest, an elementary school, a church, and a Casey's General store near the apartment complex. From my house to the single entry/exit/main road just to get out of the neighborhood is about 1 mile (2 minute car/15 minute walk) and 3 miles (7 or so minutes by car) to get to what I would consider the very north edge of "town." This makes it quite a task and nearly possible to get anywhere with meaning and purpose (school, work, store) by any other method than car. I do bike as much as I can given the time constraints of my schedule and weather conditions, but most of my travel is by car. I think the neighborhood blends and flows well with the region as far as natural environment and retention of natural landscape/environment. But in terms of being well integrated and sustainable with the town/city, the area fails quite miserably. With it being so isolated and with certain infrastructure design aspects, it is the opposite of sustainable, green infrastructure. The limited access, limited use, high energy consumption and attribution, generally oversized/underutilized homes spread fairly far apart, large lot sizes, limited use/high waste golf course space, etc. add to its non-sustainability and lack green infrastructure.

5/22: Reflection

After hearing and seeing a variety of perspectives on the uptown Normal area, our own LEED certified welcome center, and having a chance to spend a night in uptown over the weekend, I now have a new appreciation for the sustainable designs this community is moving towards. With that being said, I also experienced many areas which were neglected in designs that could have easily been improved to make a great difference in both areas.

Taking a tour of the welcome center, especially seeing perspectives of the gentleman giving us the tour and Professor Deal, provided very different takes on a single building and design. Granted, having a LEED certified building on campus and the community is a huge asset and stepping stone, it seemed as though our tour guide was selling the design to us instead of enlightening us with its sustainable design. I got the feeling that the main reason behind designing the building in the first place, was soley as a selling, advertiseable feature of the college's campus. To a similar extent, I got the same vibe going through uptown Normal, although the design of the area seemed much more for a sustainable purpose than our welcome center.

All of these realizations, made me wonder how great of a system LEED was. As professor Deal pointed out, although striving for a Silver or Certified standard is great steps above general contracting standards, they are still far from what our class would consider an optimal level of design sustainability. LEED standards and requirements do get people in the right state of mind and moving design of green infrastructure in the right direction, but allow designers to fall short and settle for less than can the potential that can be achieved in many instances. I suppose if I had to sum up the problem I witnessed from the two "field trips," is that green designs are either being done for reasons that do not match with sustainability all that well and/or designs are felling well short of what spaces are capable of in terms of how sustainable they can become.

When decisions made regarding the designs seen, it seems most answers come from balancing needs of the area, who is paying for it, and what the space is being used for. For example, the welcome center fully fulfills its function housing the career center, welcome area, etc. As far as IWU is concerned and seems evident, they want to be able to hang a LEED plaque on the wall to boast about to visitors and have a nice building for the allotted budget. I imagine, had they designed the center for the utmost sustainability and expanded the budget, the design would not have went over well at all with donors and decision makers about our class. Uptown Normal as an entire design is quite sustainable from what I have encountered and lived near. I still wonder why they did not attempt to incorporate any water re-use mechanism, or on-site energy generations, but for what is being done, it is on a whole different level from the rest of the Bloomington/Normal area. I know the tour guide stated funds as a main factor, and with taxpayers footing most of the bill I understand this being a valid concern. Why though, don't they attempt to educated the taxpayers on the capabilities of this space in terms of sustainability and open up their view to how extraordinary this large space would be if it was designed to its full sustainable potential.

My thoughts have changed mostly just from experiencing the area and seeing all of the aspects that went into the design. I had not taken note of them before and really have not spent much time in the area. I have a greater appreciation with what we are doing with uptown Normal and am anxious to see it when the planners deem the project complete. I am somewhat bitter though, after hearing about the welcome center and realizing some of the critiques Professor Deal made regarding the "short-cuts" that seemed to have been made and the bare minimum was done to reach the certification.

Questions I would ask everyone involved with these two sites would be first of all, was funding the main barrier in decisions? And if so, what more would it take to convince the funding sources how much better the space could be utilized and eventually give back in energy costs to a point where they would be willing to expand the budget to be a level that would allow for an extremely sustainable area and not just a LEED certified one?

5/20: Initial Thoughts

Being a lifetime resident of the Bloomington/Normal area, any progress is great in my opinion. For as long as I can remember, Downtown Bloomington has been the "place to be" and a lot more inviting to pedestrians than the Normal area. One of my biggest complaints of Normal has been its driving traffic. Granted the uptown area should encourage more walkers and bikers, with current transportation trends, it still must accommodate cars. Street lanes have always been extremely tight, with little parking, and extremely sporadic traffic control (which led to a traffic citation towards me on once instance)!

The new turnabout,widened streets, and less-clustered/parallel parking actually seems to decrease the congestion and making driving through the uptown area quite a bit easier. In turn, I believe this creates a more inviting and comfortable atmosphere for pedestrians when cars are whizzing by and turning around to avoid one-way streets. Hopefully the not so great drive-ability of the area will encourage people to utilize the trail or walk to uptown normal in the first place.

I like that uptown is trying to clean up the area and make it more sustainable. This gives community citizens a place to hangout without the congestion of vehicle traffic, and also encourages commerce and attracts many businesses and residents to the area, reviving the entire district. It compliments the nearby universities very well and provides an atmosphere that is diverse and generally representative of the entire community. Uptown Normal is very easily accessible from any direction especially utilizing the trail which enters the area north at the turnabout and extends in all directions. The activities available seem plentiful and quite diverse. My family and I, still have yet to go "hang out" in the area though, so it must not yet be appealing to everyone.

While I think the efforts are a great start and initiation, the area still could use some improvements. It's possible the development is still well underway, but I see little attempt to incorporate green space, trees, vegetation, etc. As well, the walkways aren't so large, plentiful, and inviting that they will be utilized like some of the downtown areas exemplified in class. Also, with so much renovation, I would think it would have easy and quite cost effective to utilize more energy efficient options such as living machines, on-site energy production, waste management, etc. The energy supplies and means still seem quite conventional and non-sustainable. These are improvements that could definitely be incorporated to make it a more sustainable area.

I think its location and accessibility contribute greatly to its sustainability. Also, the LEED building plans help. The actual land area isn't that large in comparison to other downtown districts, but the space is fairly well utilized. It is also a multi-use space and has accommodations for guests. I think what generally keeps me and my family away, is that it is not yet as popular. Possibly its just the norm to hangout in Downtown Bloomington, but I like to be around people I know, which aren't in uptown Normal. The Pub II is a hotspot that I go to sometimes, but it is not connected very well to the uptown area, so most visitors don't make it past the bar.

5/19: Initial Thoughts

Although human waste is a completely natural process, the way we currently dispose of it is not so. It seems second-nature to use urinals/toilets and the only option short of pissing and shitting on the ground is to dispose of our waste through current management systems. What if though, there was a way to eliminate the negative, disgusting vibe that human waste currently has, and still dispose or reuse it in a manner that did not involve so much energy, water, and human input. After researching living machines for a brief while, they could potentially be a very viable alternative to the current water/energy powered system we see today.

The reason for bringing up an alternative is to eliminate the need to use massive amounts of potable water, which takes a lot of energy to transport and treat prior to getting to homes/buildings, only to dispose of it through sewage system moments after dirtying it. I agree that leaving grey and blackwater sitting idle in our homes and buildings is not a feasible option to eliminating our need to potable water, but being able to manage and re-use these water forms on-site would be a huge resource saver in our society.

Initial problems will involve getting around notions that human waste can only be dealt with by taking it as far away from the site as possible. Instilling human trust that living machines can deal with their waste away from their contact, yet still on-site and allow them to re-use it in valuable forms will be a key factor in living machine adoptions. Most likely, up-front cost of new systems or retro-fits will scare some away, but seeing the endless cost savings benefit will hopefully lure societies into utilizing living machines in new and current development. In the long run, this tool has the ability to greatly decrease our dependency on potable drinking water, for which we mostly use for purposes other than drinking (90%) and with the current success, can be easily adopted in many infrastructures.

5/18: Initial Thoughts

We as Americans are being spoiled in terms of water supply and its quality. For most people in this country, we can use water almost unlimitedly, for fractions of pennies at a time. Not to mention, the usual sole source of water coming into our homes is perfectly suitable for drinking at any faucet output. For a variety of reasons though, we now over-exaggerate the quality of water in our homes. Much more is wasted when a false light is shed on our drinking water, and people are scared into believing waste water is similar to some deadly chemical. We are in the habit of letting faucets run without reason, flushing the toilet every time anyone urinates or even disposes a tissue in the bowl, and let our hoses run for hours watering our overly large yards.

Keith Hall's novel idea of utilizing the rainwater that spills off our roof, into gutters, yards, and streets inches at a time is a brilliant one in my opinion. Implementation aside, I would like to focus on the immense benefits that would come from rainwater storage and re-use. Considering only a small portion of the water our municipalities across the nation spend much time and energy resources bringing up to a standard suitable for drinking, actually makes it to the dinner table, why not use natural rainwater for the portion we do waste our potable drinking water on. Being able to capture and manage stormwater to use in an efficient manner, and at times we deem appropriate and to meet demand efficiently instead of the natural way in which stormwater reaches the land and disperses without us being able to control it. This is one way we can control the environment in a positive manner so long as we let water still run its natural course and provide nutrients and moisture to the land in a necessary amount to allow for natural life to flourish.

Being able to prevent pollution and incorporate rainwater into our current systems with less waste would be a great direction for sustainability. As with other efforts, rainwater management has a systemic impact and would reverberate in other areas of sustainability. I believe this area would do a lot for our environment in many areas of sustainability and hope that we continue moving in the direction of utilizing water falling from the sky.

5/13: Reflection

The problem with this area of sustainability, involving race, gender, age, etc. segregation, is a difficult one and is comparable to quick sand. After seeing many of the graphs and comparisons during the class lecture, my hypothesis was mostly confirmed in that the worst sustainable design areas of our nation are strongly related with income, race, and other demographic factors. I would compare these problem areas to quick sand, because from personal experience and statistics support, people of similar race, age, etc. tend to gather and flock together. Poverished, low income regions then, continue in their habits and spiral out of control. This effect is magnified when government funding and decisions ignore and neglect these regions, due to the power money plays in government decision making.

The conflicts and tensions then, are really a reflection of the problems themselves. The way our tax system works, and is likely changing to, taxes the wealthy more than the poor. Therefore, and I can't blame them, they don't necessarily want a larger portion of their tax money going towards helping the slums and povershed areas of cities especially when they pay significantly less and therefore aren't really helping themselves. Sustainability though, is a collective effort and the decisions and implications will overall help everyone. We have to see past the immediate costs of sustainable decisions and trust in them that they will benefit the entire nation over time.

My thoughts on this topic have changed in that, unfortunately, my thoughts on helping out those who don't seem to be helping themselves are similar to the high bracket tax payers. I didn't want my hard earned money helping drug dealers and other stereotypes typical of low income, poversh regions. I see now, that it is a collective effort and many sacrifices must be made in order to make this nation sustainable. These decisions will affect everyone, but must be trusted by everyone.

The questions I would ask the authors then, would be how can we convince everyone that sustainability will affect everyone differently, but must be accepted by everyone in order to be successful. Short of this class lecture, I would probably still be slightly bitter when I see my tax money cleaning up slums that I didn't create. How can we convince the wealthy and thos not in slums to contribute to the common good? And when we do start altering slums, will those that live in the regions, buy into our goals and start living better, more sustainable, productve lives, and overall, start helping themselves?

5/13: Initial Thoughts

Members of different age, race, gender, etc. experience regions in vastly different ways. I would say that regions shape the way members of the region live and feel about the region. Influences come from many different areas and a handful of small influences can shape a region's style and being to spiral and reflect that affect. Members of the region, will have their lives shaped by their surroundings, the other people in the region, and the opportunities placed in their environment. For example, there are many regions of the United States that are recognized and characterized by their reputation for having a majority of people being of a certain race, gender, age, economic status, etc. Areas like Naples, Florida and many places in Arizona are retirement hot spots for white, wealthy, seniors to live in during retirement. Realizing this then, the regulation, business attractions, and environments reflect the people that live in the region. Houses and living accommodations are more luxurious since these wealthy citizens want and can afford them. Luxury car dealers start popping up, and high-end retailers are seen all over the city.

Although the physical characteristics of a region are static to begin with when certain people arrive in them. The surroundings start to conform to the demographics of the people that live within them. Without getting into too much detail, there are obvious features of neighborhoods, communities, and regions that strongly reflect and correlate with the people in them. Like people are generally attracted to each other, so these regions attract more and more people of similar demographics. Regulation then starts to reflect regional demographics, whether good or bad in some cases. These occurrences can be great for sustainable design in some cases, and terrible in others depending on the demographics and what the people want.

Design that isn't directed towards certain demographics will be necessary to avoid the regional containment. Retail districts that invite not only people to them, but a diverse group of people by offering commerce options representative of all types of people in this melting pot of a nation. Living space that is reflective of not only cultural differences, but income spans as well will invite a range of demographic differences. There are many things we can do, but right now there is a lot of isolation in our regions separating different demographics from each other, and right now our regulation and design actually promotes this. These decisions are some that will need to change in the future in order to create diverse regions.

5/12: Reflection

After seeing another perspective through Professor Deal's lecture, it seems our sustainability problems are even further encompassing. He did a really great job of explaining the impact of our inefficiencies and in turn reliance on fossil fuels. I thought his illustrations and connectivity of our energy source uses and exactly where it is the energy comes from when we perform simple tasks such as turning on a light. I think the average consumer has knowledge that it takes a lot of energy to carryout the daily functions of our society. As Deal's lecture brought to light though, the systemic costs of even having the ability to burn the coal or natural gas it takes to produce on sight energy are much greater than the general public realizes. So sure a first step, as many advocate could be turning off the light switch, using less water during showers, driving hybrids, etc. These practices do a decent job of cutting back our usage, and is an initial step of conserving. This is the point though, where must un-sustainably-educated, greenwashed consumers will stop. This greenwashing has instilled in them the idea that they have saved the earth by taking a 9 minute shower as apposed to 10, or getting 27 mpg instead of 21. As Deal illustrated again, going a step further and conserving to the point of using more efficient energy sources, eventually alternate, and hopefully renewable, only then will we have conserved to a truly sustainable point and can then load from there.

The conflicts and tensions then, as discussed in the Growing Cooler article and reiterated in Deal's lecture is that we as a general public are first of all uneducated as to why we remain in such an unsustainable rate, don't take the responsibility for the problems, and are so used to our current way of life. Every day of every week we get up, use our cars to get to work, school, etc. and rely on them for transportation. Our communities and facilities, although not desirable in my opinion, are built to support driving. They and everything around them use energy and have become the American status symbol that is hard to avoid and live without.

My thoughts, now that I am becoming more and more informed and less of an average brainwashed consumer, have shifted to the how aspect of sustainable design. I am really interested in how we can get everyone to see our environment from the new perspective I have found. Once they are there, I don't think there will be much trouble in engaging in more sustainable activity and actions. I used to think these problems of unsustainable infrastructure, water waste, and poor economic decisions were not mine, but the problem of someone above me with more power. I figured these problems would work themselves out without my help, because for all I know ever time I flip the switch, the light comes on, what else should matter to me.

A question I would ask the authors and Professor Deal, would be first of all how do they choose and reach the audiences of their research, material, and findings. Secondly, what is their reaction to what they have to say. Is the message overwhelmingly absorbed, accepted, exciting, and involving to people? Does it spread easily this way? Do you find any people/audiences that blow off, or discredit what you have to sa regarding sustainable design?

5/12 Initial Thoughts

I think the first phrase of the Growing Cooler article sums up my reaction to the reading and thoughts, and that "you can't get there from here." When I look at my life alone, which I would consider fairly reflective of an average American, the phrase is quite fitting. Living at home still, several miles from school, work, shops, entertainment facilities, etc. walking is definitely not feasible without spending majority of the day walking. I ride my bike to school when I can but it's nothing short of a 35 minute drive. When it rains or I have to other places to go after school, riding my bike becomes a much less appealing option. There are no public transit stops within miles of my house, so my only option left short of quitting school and work is to drive a vehicle. This vehicle travel, is reflected for commuters, commerce, shipping, etc.

This sprawl is a very unsustainable example of infrastructure and development. With this current infrastructure and sprawl, CO2 emission reduction really is a point that we can't get to from here. My vehicle and VMT's is a similar figure to the other three driving members of family, all other families in my neighborhood, all other neighborhoods in this community, and all communities in this region. So now we have a nation made up of sprawling regions with very unsustainable infrastructure.

Similar to mass water use for domestic use, a similar statistic translates to fuel usage. Our lifestyles depend on the car. Granted I could drive a Prius and get better gas mileage, I would still be driving and filling up my tank in order to get those 50 mpg, which would reduce my fuel consumption but nothing more. It seems the only true solution to both fuel and water issues is re-structuring. This is a sustainable solution. By building with and in combination with our water sheds instead of on them, and constructing regions that allows people to walk or bike to school, work, shops, and entertainment, our water and fuel use would become much more sustainable. It's hard to imagine being able to walk to the places I drive to most, but I'm looking forward to the opportunity!

5/11: Reflection

Well after seeing what Curitiba, Brazil turned their city into, the conserve and load principle is a lot more feasible than I initially thought, and this is hopefully one of many exemplar cities to come. The challenge still, in my opinion, is getting a strong support group behind the principle and in-turn directing funds at sustainable design. Curitiba proved that the design is suitable, and one that is conforming and beneficial for all who are there to enjoy it from the slums to the prosperous. There are definitely problems of acceptance, but there is no contradicting the data and research backing it, which I think will prove to be a huge positive motive for sustainable design over time.

With so much controversy and tight budgeting practices currently seen on a global scale more or less, it's going to be extremely hard to get taxpayers and elected decision makers to make a shift to sustainable design. It is a shift that is going to be drastic and costly up front, and possibly well into the future. When I look at what all could and needs to be done to make our living space well paired with nature, granted any change helps, the changes that come to mind are drastic and I would consider an overhaul. Money is being cut from education systems, welfare, and all across the board, with very little in comparison being devoted to sustainable design in most instances. So for a tangent like sustainable design to get the significant attention and portion of taxpayers pocket books, it's going to take a lot of support.

Up until this point in my sustainable design knowledge, I would have considered myself somewhat "greenwashed," as previously admitted. Through this lecture and seeing all of the green infrastructure puzzle pieces starting to be put together in a place like Curitiba, I would consider myself a strong believer. Watersheds are something I would have never considered as a part of green/sustainable design. Not that my thoughts have changed, but seeing all of the design concepts of sustainability connected builds a foundation of support for me.

As eluded to earlier, I suppose the question I want to ask the articles, is now that we have a significant amount of support and proof that sustainable design works, how can we transform the rest of the country who hasn't seen the light after sitting in these class lectures into a believer of sustainable design. How can we get sustainable design to get vast support on our ballots and a piece of the pie in terms of our budgets? It has to be a strong commitment for every person of this nation, how do we make this happen?

5/11 Initial Thoughts

I would like the think that the principle of "conserve and load" can be used concurrently. Looking at the mess we've gotten ourselves into since day one, it seems that we designed in every manner and for every reason except sustainability. So the first portion of the principle being conserve will definitely be and is seen as we clean-up and make-up for previous non-sustainable design decisions that are still in place today. This conservation will not only involve cleaning up abandoned structures and "wasteland" sitting idle in many parts of the world but also conserving in the form of cherishing the natural resources we still have on this earth and finding ways to be less dependent on them.

Conserving fossil fuels and finding alternate energy sources alone is a giant leap for our population, but one that seems to be the hot topic of debate and research right now and will hopefully prove to be a great step in improving climate conditions in our environment. Then, once we can get to a point where we have reclaimed and salvaged the consequences from non sustainable decisions, we will have much opportunity to load on sustainable decisions. This principle will only result though, if we make our conservation efforts permanent and do not fall back into the traps of foregoing sustainable design options for ones that are more economical and equitable as the cycle will reoccur and I will be writing this same blog entry sometime in the future.

One example of conservation instead of restoration because of cost and scale constraints as outlined in the "Green Infrastructure Report," will be the preservation of critical ecological sites and links that can be connected to existing and future green infrastructure. Another factor of successful loading as pointed out in the same article, is that to be fully sustainable, the load must be all encompassing, holistic, comprehensive, publicly and diversely grounded, and have promised funding. These same factors must be applied when conserving as well in order for the efforts to achieve optimum results.

A final example of conserve and load I believe I have witnessed first hand, being a lifetime member of the Blo-No community is the transformation of the College Hills shopping area. Growing up I remember the College Hills Indoor mall being a thriving shopping center, as if not more popular than the Eastland mall. Over time though stores started to move away from the mall and much of the structure sat empty and idle. A couple years ago, a decision was made as an alternate to scrapping the entire structure, to turn it into an outdoor, central open-air shopping center retaining the core department stores that originally held the center together. This seems to have been quite a successful, inviting design in which the center wraps around central people. What would be an even more sustainable load decision would be to build on top of the shops, adding living space much like the downtown areas utilize. This would invite, and keep even more people in a central location with much of the life necessities s within walking distance. Incorporating more of the natural environment wouldn't be bad either but it seems to be a conserve and load step in the right direction.

5/10: Reflection

It would seem that the problem, after discussing during class, stems from our regions themselves. The way in which the regions, states, counties, cities, towns, etc. are laid out took into considerations many factors, but the natural environment doesn't seem to be one of them. The initial "land staking" was more of a whoever gets there first can take the land approach. The later blocking off the land was done in the most simple manner to make taxing easier which led into ease of government control.

Hindsight tells us that we should've developed regions around watersheds and built with the environment, instead of adjusting the environment for our economic and equity ease. Short of starting over, there is not much we can do to alter the regions we have put in place in a manner that binds with the natural environment. Having the knowledge and power to design sustainably from now on, any alterations and new regions, government, land decisions made should be done so accounting for the sustainability of our environment in hopes that one day we can achieve a design that we should've started with initially.

To be perfectly honest, I have never seen a topographic map of the United States and been able to analyze it in a manner that highlights the water sheds and natural flow to a central area. This insight though, is something that makes perfect sense in the way of sustainable design. It is something that would solve much of the water scarcity, flooding, and drought problems we see today due to our neglecting of the natural regions developed by our water sheds initially.

Again, I know it seems redundant, but I keep going back to the question towards the article's authors of how we can turn this sinking ship around when it seems like such a globally encompassing problem with little means of progress and short of starting from day one when foreigners first hit land in the Americas? Another question I wonder about, is if knowledge of the water sheds existed historically when regional layout and design decisions were made, and possibly neglected in favor of easier, less costly options made by those with power not representing of the people?

Digital Media Group Project: Sustainable Food - Produced by Nick, Laura, Liz, & Amanda for 5/10's class

5/10: Initial Thoughts

When VanDerRyn offers in his article that ecological design should be an engagement and partnership with nature in which we embrace and engage in the natural processes found in nature, the suggestion is one that theoretically should be applied globally in every aspect of the living environment. From the point we are at now as a country and planet, it is going to be a huge undertaking and timely process to apply ecological design on a global scale. Getting away from the negative habits we have already formed alone, would be a great start but one that will be years if not decades in the making.

With scale though, we are fortunate enough to see link betweens nearly all aspects of nature and because of this, I would foresee a chain of benefits to our environment when we start to make ecologically sound decisions. Similarly to the authors outlining the influences scale has on our perspectives when we look at ecological design from a massive to minute, decisions made will be affected by the scale used for targets of design. For example, if a decision is made to limit waste dumping in our water sources, is this decision going to be enforced on a local pond in your backyard, a lake in your city, or the Atlantic ocean. Granted all three are positive, ecological decisions, the resources needed to fulfill those decisions vastly differ from one source outlook to another. These scales must be accounted for in making sounds decisions. Making ecological decisions encompassing all factors surrounding scale, will lead to greater results and overall an ultimately sustainable environment from the ecological decisions we are starting to make.

From this, we need to first understand the different levels of scale and nature's geometry. Depending on how deeply we apply nature's geometry to which scales will determine how sustainable we can make the environment around us. Problems manifested at the regional scale are first encountered when defining the levels of scale and geometry we want to apply to a certain region. Creating a common gauge though, despite the different ecological constraints of different regions will prove to be the most affective when carrying out decisions though, as stated by the author.

5/6 Reflection

Initially I was not all that sure as to why our design methods have changed so much over time. The changes were something that were obviously occurring and I was witnessing, but I never gave much thought as to why. Looking at historical design of the first cities in this country, it seems there were a definite set of values that planners cherished when laying out city centers, shops, and living quarters. I would like to think that "values" have remained the basis of our design decisions since the post-war years when design ideas started to shift to the sprawl we see today, but the results don't reflect a very including human structure I would like the think this country strives for. Once again, the values I see pushing our design in dominate directions are those reflecting big business, corporate power, and superior government wants and needs instead of the best design for our citizens and the environment live in.

Although the information points out the design paths we took and decisions made which led us to the brink of disaster we are approaching, the material really doesn't provide much insight as to how we can salvage this sinking ship. It could very well be that the answers are unknown, far from feasible, or just haven't surfaced yet, but whatever the future holds, I hope the design decisions incorporate successes seen in the past and avoid mistakes we made in previous years.

Having only limited knowledge of our nation's history, and even less of our past as it relates to design, the information from Friday's lecture and readings gave a pretty eye-opening perspective linking the results to what we see around us today. I realized how much our lives are shaped by the environment we live in for better or worse, and unfortunately seem to have had little control over as the general public in the last 70 years.

As stated earlier, I am interested as to what the authors of the material suggest we do to change our environment and design for the better from now on. They offered great information as to how are design has been influenced in the past, but do they have any ideas of how we can move forward in an environmentally sustainable direction?

5/6 Initial Thoughts

Never before have I seen the built environment in this light as it is related to sustainability. I found it hilarious when the TED video pointed out the obvious, but unrealized to me, neglecting of building and sustainability. Once again, it's interesting to see that our initial development of city centers incorporating the natural environment and inviting close quarters involving human interaction existed prior to the WWII era and arguably before the term sustainability was coined. Although there was reasoning at the time, whether worthy or not, it seems ridiculous now that we abandoned the more sustainable design in favor or sprawling out and distancing ourselves from one another, putting miles between family homes. Opening up a world of waste and unnecessary production to accommodate and profit from was inevitable with this post WWII design era. It seems that the decisions to take transform existing city center design into urban sprawl were made by few people with majority power, and in hindsight, for reasons of minuscule worth seeing that the feared nuclear attacks never leveled the city centers planners so abruptly aborted.

The "value" that led to this relationship of the built environment seems extremely worthless and not encompassing views and well being of the humans that decisions greatly affected from the 1930's on and are responsible for stimulating the problems we are discussing in this class but rather thrust the views upon the citizens. When looking mainly at the United States, living on earth as a part of nature rather than separate entities seems to have been aborted about the time this new design took full force. The achievement of status symbols such as newer homes, autos, and a "modern" lifestyle replaced the fulfillment of a natural lifestyle when our content and sense of humanity was materialized by the amount and quality of our possessions. The once seemingly equal relationship between the built environment and sustainability now seems more of an inverse, as our motives for building on our environment stem from economic and equity reasons. The social and design changes according to these articles, and I agree, resulting from instilled fear of attack and our dependence on the auto, leading to big box stores plopped on altered seems extremely worthless now looking back on how we got here today. Not to mention, the attacks we refer to surrounding the wars and post-war fears that lead to built environment design were between groups of HUMAN BEINGS that all have the same physical and anatomical make-up and ultimately it will take a collective effort to solve the problems created by the separation and distinction between humans. The entire scenario seems as if it would appear to an alien observer like some bad "I told you so fairytale story" depicting our actions over the past century(ies).

Cinco de Mayo: Reflection

From the readings, I now have a reinforced generalization of my personal insight into sustainable design. I must admit, that I too was "greenwashed" as Laura put it from time to time and still find myself falling into these "go green" traps that in reality do little to improve the sustainability of our planet. Certainly, I don't have a problem doing my part to improve the way I live here on this earth, but in the back of my mind I always know that without the conscious efforts and changes that must be made by a large majority, much larger than current sustainability adopters, my efforts will more or less be in vein and have virtually no impact on how we sustain life on earth. Perhaps I have known, just like the farmers and many others that sustainability is a real, beneficial, feasible thing. Maybe it's not tangible or fully achievable, but sustainable design, use, and overall ways of doing things can prove to be measurable and do exist in this world. The problem though as I somewhat knew but never expressed like these articles have in more detail, is how do we accomplish this seemingly impossible task of first of all informing that sustainable design is the right way to do things, and furthermore, how do we achieve a mass, acting response to this realization. Much like Freyfogle (200?) referred to racial equality in his article being similar to the problems we are facing with sustainability adoption, the mere thought of having it prior to it being mandated was excruciating the mass majority of citizens in this country. Even the legislators and governors, both north and south, were frightened by the idea of having nonsegregated water fountains, restaurants, let alone schools when the idea initially surfaced. Once it became mandated and adopted though, looking back, I find it hard to imagine life in the United States without racial equality. So maybe the problem, is just getting over this initial help of becoming sustainable, granted it seems more like a mountain than a hump at the moment. I don't think it should really take laws and policies to get the ball rolling in the right direction and actually push towards a mass adoption to treat our planet in a decent fashion, after all it is the living breath of our existence.

As a supporter, I certainly benefit from reading articles such as these and discussing the material. But for me, my beliefs are only re-itterated and if these articles only reach people who are already accepting the task of sustainable design, how much good are they really doing. And when topics surrounding sustainable design reach audiences outside of adopters, what affect does it have on them. Do they simply disregard it, does it anger or offend them, or does it even create the slightest spark or thought in the direction of sustainability in their life. Should we try and find a different manner in which to expose the general public or nay-sayers to the material, and will it do any good when we do. I hate to think it would be or need to be a culture shock for people to give a passing glance to sustainable design, but the term has been around for quite some time now and has yet to catch on as rapid as something so seemingly less-valuable such as American Idol.

I wouldn't say my thoughts have changed after reading these articles, but rather expanded and reinforced. I now have a background and can put into words, the thoughts that have long wandered in my mind. I never considered the agricultural side of sustainable design and how farmers have been utilizing sustainability for a time long before we even had a term or definition for what they were doing. I find it interesting that they chose a method or design for the way in which they lived off their land without knowing what they were actually doing and with little external force. Surely the methods yielded and produced better crop, which in term gave them a better lifestyle, but being able to do so in mostly a win-win relationship between human life and the earth, leads me to believe that adopting this across many other areas of our lifestyle is quite possible. And it's our motives for making the decisions we do that is standing in the way for furthering our sustainability. Whether this be economical, tradition, status symbol, regulation, laziness, etc., I think the motives are something we should initially look at and try to conquer or alter which will in-turn make sustaining more plausible.

Refer to end of second paragraph for questions that arose from readings.

Cinco de Mayo: Initial Thoughts

Sustainable design attempts to solve problems that have recently surfaced and become known to the general public. These are problems that stem from our inability to continue living in the current manner without dealing with future & current problems arising from our past/present/future way of life. Solutions are being sought to salvage, preserve, and prevent these problems from continuing and surfacing from now on it seems, but the adoption of this style of thought surrounding sustainability is far from fully accepted throughout the general public. Sustainability has become a known, recent problem because I think the general public has realized the damage we are doing to our environment and is just starting to see the dialectic relationships between these problems and their direct prevention or hinder on being able to continue our current lifestyles. It's really difficult to pinpoint, generalize, or even categorize the problems that sustainable design attempts to solve. Surely, I can point to a gas guzzling Hummer or an extremely inefficient factory and label them contributors to the problems of climate change, waste accumulation, etc. that sustainability attempts to solve, but without putting a context, scale, result, value on these inefficiencies, they really don't seem like legitimate or specific problems. These problems thought are global and can really be lumped into a general category of "non-sustainable design decisions," and I suppose the best thing we can do is identify the most affective way to tackle these endless problems.

Sustainability is an important topic simply looking at life on earth. Theoretically, we could be a very short time away from not being able to sustain the current lifestyle we as Americans or even humans on this earth enjoy, should we keep exploiting resources without foreseeing or worrying about the consequences that result. Maybe at first this means something as simple as scaling back in certain expenditures of our life. This though, may not be so simple, feasible, let alone wanted by some people. Let's face it, sudden changes that initially seem for the worse generally don't seem very appealing to the people that are directly affected. Take for example how must citizens handle tax increases, even if this means better roads, schools, visually appealing communities later on. With this, I don't think we will ever know when we've achieved sustainability and nor is there such thing. Full satisfaction is something hard to come by especially to meticulous, perfectionist people that will forever be finding new technologies and ways to improve on current means.