Special Supplement to the October 2001 issue: A
report on the proceedings of the Metropolis West Conference,
February 7+8, 2001, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San
Francisco, "Finding the Thread of Sustainability."
The bad news is that no architect, no interior designer, no industrial designer,
no graphic designer, no planner alone can hope to solve the mystery of sustainable
design. The good news is that each and every one of them is needed
to do their job, in collaboration with experts in the natural sciences and
social sciences, to make the world as good as it can be for us and for future
generations.
To find out how collaborations can work, we set up a test case for ourselves
in organizing the conference. We worked, mostly in the electronic realm
of e-mails and phones, with two impressive organizations: UC Berkeley's
College of Environmental Design put together the segments on planning and
architecture; and Frogdesign's mobility group took the lead on transportation
issues. (What we discovered was that collaboration is harder than we thought,
that it's a constant learning process, and that it's ultimately rewarding
but also a pain in the butt.)
To echo our magazine's mission of covering every aspect of design and its
many contexts, we invited design professionals from every practice as well
as marketers, an entertainer, a politician, an attorney, and a radio talk-show
host to share their points of view. We also ran a special student competition
("Designing Worlds") to test the next generation's understanding
of sustainability.
Together all these voices add up to what might be a fledgling design movement.
Susan S. Szenasy
Speakers in the Berkeley segment: Timothy P. Duane, associate professor,
city and regional planning, landscape architecture and environmental planning,
and faculty affiliate of energy and resource group, UC Berkeley; Harrison
S. Fraker Jr., dean and William W. Wurster professor, College of Environmental
Design, UC Berkeley; Randall Hayes, founder and president, Rainforest Action
Network; Judy Kriege [1], singer; Clark Kellogg [2], educator
and designer, Mary Jane McQuillen [3], vice president, social awareness
investment, Smith Barney Asset Management, a division of Solomon Smith Barney;
Sim Van der Ryn [4], president, Van der Ryn Architects.
In Frogdesign's Wires & Tires Segment: Sally Applin [5], interactive
media designer; Maria Ogrydziak, principal, Ogrydziak Architects; Susan
Shaheen, researcher, Partners for Advanced Transit and Highway, UC Berkeley;
Gary Starr, CEO, Zapworld.com; Dan Sturges [6], director, new mobility,
Frogdesign; Gary S. Vasilash [7], founding editor, Automotive
Design & Production magazine; Geoff Wardle, mobility program, Art
Center College of Design.
Metropolis's Wonderbrands Segment: John Burgess, principal,
Werkhaus Creative Communications; Chris Riley [8], chief strategic
officer, Wieden + Kennedy; Susan Rockrise, creative director, Intel
Inc.
Collaboration & Convergence segment: Warren T. Byrd Jr., principal,
Nelson-Byrd Landscape Architects; Mary Davidge [9], principal, RMW
Architecture and Interiors; John F. Igoe, vice president, real estate and
site services, Palm Inc.; Mark Otsea, senior vice president, project director,
HOK; Ricardo Legoretta, principal, Ricardo Legoretta Architects; William
McDonough [10], principal, William McDonough + Partners, Architecture
and Community Design.
Designing Worlds Student Competition segment:Jerry Brown
[11], mayor, Oakland, California; Edward C. Friedrichs, president and CEO,
Gensler Architecture, Design & Planning Worldwide; Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. [12], professor, environmental law and codirector, Pace Environmental
Litigation Clinic, Pace University; Betsy Rosenberg [13], Trash Talk,
WCBS; Joyce Cheng [14], student.
Conference and Student Competition sponsors: Autodesk Inc., ICFF,
San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Design Center, Herman Miller,
Vitra.
