EcoLabs - Ecological Literacy Initiative

We are accustomed to assuming that we have control over the future we build, and so when we ask if change should be radical, what we mean is; 'should we instigate radical reforms and policies?' The word radical comes from the Latin rādīcālis meaning 'having roots'. Radical change generally refers to drastic political, economic and social reforms. But radical change can also happen as a result of dramatic environmental factors. Scientists are now unanimous: "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal" (IPCC 2007). Unprecedented change in the ecosystem is happening now. These changes are the result of the products and systems we have designed in the past and continue to design. So fundamental change is happening irrespective of our belief in radical change. The question we face today is whether we will pro-actively create the kinds of systems that will mitigate the radical change now already happening.

Climate scientists warn that carbon concentrations in the atmosphere are already damaging the ability of the ecosystem to maintain homeostasis. James Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, claims 'recent greenhouse gas emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures' (Hansen 2007:1925). The trajectory of emissions levels is vital: we urgently need to stabilize emissions if we hope to avoid a tipping point when feedback loops take effect. Dramatic environmental danger demands a major response, and nothing short of radical and systemic change will achieve the necessary reductions in carbon emissions.

This paper is about projects that are leading these changes in the built environment. The dematerialization of design and systems design provide new models for dealing with our environmental crisis. We will need to harness all of our critical skills at this point to develop sustainable methods & systems to develop a low carbon culture. We can no longer indulge any type of design that is not grounded in ethics and sustainability. While discussing these issues, this paper will examine a few models for radical change within the design and activist communities: the Open Architecture Network, Massive Change, and Transitions Towns.

Following Einstein's now famous dictum, 'The world will not evolve out of it current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation', we need first to dig a little deeper into the 'roots' of our problems and examine how we managed to create such unsustainable systems. For many years we have operated on a particular highly reductive model of design. We set ourselves narrow problems and solve these in a blinkered way, with a disregard for wider consequences. Simplifying modes of action will not be effective now in addressing our environmental crisis. There are no simple technological and/or practical 'fixes', technological improvements at best stabilize the carbon dioxide emissions due to the growth in consumption (Barrett 2006). A more fundamental approach is required to build sustainability into the system as well as embrace technological improvements.

We must find a much deeper level of understanding. We must learn to design systems that engage with complexity and work with the laws of Nature. The imperative as designers is to shift our thinking, life styles and organizational behaviours by grounding them in systemic principles. This adoption of systems thinking in design has the capacity to radically change the way that our society functions. Changes in the design model will change consumption patterns because the physical properties of designed spaces and objects will change as a result. A new design model is developing which has this capacity for this radical change. The new model has two characteristics that I will be briefly describe below.

2. The Democratisation of Design
The democratisation of design refers to methods of designing whereby the consumer and other non-designers become active participants in a collaborative design process. The UK Government's Sustainable Development Strategy sees public involvement as 'essential' (DETR 1999). New methods such as citizens juries or panels, round tables, visioning, charrettes and new 'consensus conferences' have become necessary, and they arise from the realisation that environmental values are not preformed, but rather that they 'emerge out of debate, discussion, and challenges, as people encounter the facts, insights, and judgements contributed by others' (Owens 2000:1144). New design models have participants rather than passive consumers and these active agents seem to be a pre-requisite for a sustainable system.

Design theorist John Thackara explains the shift and its relation to systems thinking: 'Old-style top down, outside-in design simply won't work. The days of celebrity designers are over. Complex systems are shaped by all the people who use them, and in this new era of collaborative innovation, designers are having to evolve to being the individual authors of objects, or buildings, to being facilitators of change in large groups of people' (Thackara 2006:7).

The open source design movement is an example of this new design process. First used as a means of collaboratively developing computer software, now open source methods are being employed in the creation of physical products, architecture and systems. Here individuals apply their skills to projects for the common good to help to spread ecological or cheaper technologies. In Wired magazine, Thomas Goetz states 'open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production' (Thackara 2006:222). Despite the hype, in practice open source projects are often only as good as the expertise of their moderation.

Manifestations of Radical Change
This paper will now examine three manifestations of radical new design processes and projects in action. Redesigning our systems and our physical space, each is characterized by the two principles above. Although all three have great potential, each is still in an early stage of development and so results have yet to be seen.

A. The Open Architecture Network
The Open Architecture Network (OAN) is an online, open source community dedicated to improving living conditions through sustainable design. The network is a project of Architecture for Humanity (AFH), a charitable organization seeking architectural solutions to humanitarian crisis. AFH won the Ted award in 2006 and used the resources from this prize to establish an open source architecture network (launched in March 2007). The OAN allows architects, designers and engineers to share information, assess and modify designs, and develop new solutions. Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity explains: 'Think of it as the Wikipedia of humanitarian design, the first big step towards open source design… We aim to prove that you don't need $15,000 worth of CAD programs to come up with design solutions. You can participate with a napkin sketch, a borrowed scanner and a public Internet connection.'(Steffen 2007).

The OAN is made possible by the use Creative Commons licensing. Creative Commons has facilitated the process of innovation by permitting more rapid, cooperative development and allowing design to be distributed widely. On the Open Architecture Network designers' works are protected by Creative Commons licences. This enables designers to share their work freely, while protecting their intellectual property rights from being exploited by competing commercial interests.

Sinclair intends that the system will create a mechanism for informal designers in developing countries to leapfrog through earlier innovation and have access to the most current and effective design strategies. Sinclair would also like to see humanitarian architecture and design competitions change the way they operate in light of the network's possibilities. He asks; "What if design competitions were based around a particular set of criteria, but at the end, you made the good thinking in all the designs open and available to everyone?" Furthermore, "If the system works, it's a call to action... It'll be interesting to see if the design community rises to the challenge" (Steffen 2007).

B. Massive Change
Massive Change is a project run by Canada's Bruce Mau in the collaboration with a small inter-disciplinary team of students at the Institute without Boundaries. The team's first project; 'Massive Change: The Future of Global Design' became a website, a radio show, a book, and a major exhibition that toured North American Art Museums. The project explored and sparked a discourse on the future of design by creating visualizations of design solutions including work from the most forward thinking eco-designers of our time including John Todd, Janine Benyus, Jaime Lerner, and William McDonough.

The first Massive Change project was responsible for documenting innovations & bringing them into the public domain in an original fashion1 - but not actually creating the innovation in the first place. The project has functioned as a public platform for some of the most radical ideas in the design world - and as such it has worked to facilitate the process of radical change by circulating critical ideas. Mau has been accused of expanding the definition of design so widely that it has become meaningless (Kerry 2005), yet Massive Change is an example of the systems thinking that establishes the connections between traditionally disparate disciplines. This widening of the scope of design to include the built environment, transportation technologies, revolutionary materials, energy and information systems, and nature – creates an arena for the design of systems, organisations, and programs that could create profound change.

The first part of the Massive Change project has functioned as a platform to bring innovation as well as ecological and systems literacy into the public domain, and as such is has provided a valuable role in helping making systems intelligible. John Thackara lauds the exhibition as a 'response to our pressing need to make visible the as yet invisible'. This is important he says, because 'the point of systems literacy is to enable collaborate action, to develop a shared vision of where we want to be' (Thackara 2006:168).

The Massive Change project is now embarking on their second project: The design of a sustainable house: The World House Project. The website asks,

What if we could design buildings that produce their own oxygen, distill water, accrue solar energy, change with the seasons and produce no waste? What if we used biomimicry to foster development of sustainable homes and communities? What if the strategies of conservation, stewardship, regeneration, health and ethics were applied to building both the home and the city?

The ambitious World House Project aims high. As a model for design education the project is inspirational: more institutions must now focus their collective intelligence on equally aspiration goals.

Conclusion