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."
Dan Sturges: I make a perfect car, she makes a perfect toaster, you
make something else. Then, when we pull back away from it, we say, "Yikes,
look at what this thing looks like!" In the computer age we can change
our vantage point and look at integrated solutions.
Geoff Wardle: If we are really going to get to grips with defining
viable mobility and living systems for the future, we need to encourage
design-oriented multidisciplinary institutions. I am not talking about making
everything look slick and shiny-I'm talking about a creative process. It's
not just mobility and transportation that has to be dealt with, it's everything
about the way we live and the way we think.
Tim Duane: What motivates an individual to buy an energy-efficient
refrigerator rather than commit to 10,000 years of future generations obligated
to deal with nuclear waste?
John Burgess: Design is generally thought about as solving problems
in different ways. But we're starting to think about design as storytelling.
Storytelling is something that unites us. We've used it forever, from parables
to ritual to handing down stories that tell us something about our culture
and who we are, and where we come from. And when companies think about storytelling
in that way, they're asking fundamental questions about values and what
they're passing on. Yes, design is solving problems; yes, design is telling
stories-but can design actually communicate values?
