In his introduction to Design Education for a Sustainable Future, published recently by Routledge/earthscan, Rob Fleming says his premise “is remarkably simple. It is based on a series of straightforward questions that seek to uncover the context, values, and behaviors necessary for effective twenty-first century design education. Is society moving towards a new sustainable or integral worldview, a new set of cultural values that are reshaping the very fabric of human existence? If so, how are such profound shifts in consciousness impacting the design and construction industries? And how can design educators better reflect the zeitgeist of the new century by moving from well-intentioned but lightweight ‘greening’ to the deeper and more impactful ideals of sustainability and resilience?

“The process of answering these questions begins with the requisite historical narrative which explores cultural evolution not as a slow and gradual rise to new levels of complexity but rather through a series of hyper-accelerated jumps in human consciousness. The jump from dispersed Hunter Gatherer cultures to centralized agrarian societies and then to industrialized nations correlates well to the convergence of new energy sources and the invention of new communication technologies.” What follows is Fleming’s opening salvo to a much talked about, much-overdue shift that needs to take place in design education:

Jeremy Rifkin argues in his book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis that “The convergence of energy and communications revolutions not only reconfigures society and social roles and relationships but also human consciousness itself.”¹ The early twenty-first century, as characterized by unprecedented sharing of information via wireless networks and by the emergence of renewable energy technologies, demarcates a threshold from one world view to another, a jump from an industrialized conception of nature as immutable and infinite to a Gaia inspired view of nature as alive, intelligent and, most of all, fragile in the hands of man.

The principles of sustainability, which emphasize ecological regeneration and co-creative processes, comprise a new and powerful ideal that is reshaping technologically driven initiatives, especially those associated with the design and construction of the built environment. Societal conceptions of money and profit, consumerism, design and technology are radically shifting to address the superficial but useful demands of “greening,” and are leading to finding deeper and more impactful processes to meet the much higher bar of sustainability. Read more…

Since 2007, Metropolis, with editor in chief, Susan S. Szenasy has traveled to more than 35 cities and 150 architecture firms, design organizations, and industry shows in the United States and Canada delivering the Metropolis Tour. With the help of various sponsoring companies through the years, this Metropolis-produced CEU-accredited film screening and discussion program continues to inspire, intrigue, and challenge today’s practicing professionals in architecture, interior design, product design, and engineering. Sponsors for 2013 include KI, Kimball Office and Universal Fibers.

In 2007, our editor took a close look at the winners and runners-up from our annual Next Generation Design Competition and decided that the projects, products, and ways of working submitted as competition entries were not only forward-thinking—they were inspiring, innovative, and brilliant. The magazine decided to produce a new film for the Metropolis Tour program based on these individuals and teams. In mid-2008, Brilliant Simplicity was born. The film is as inspiring now, as it was four years ago.

The film delivers an overview of what so many innovative designers are doing to have a positive impact on the world while maintaining a commitment to achieving excellence in design. It’s proof that good design and sustainability can effectively coexist on all scales. It emphasizes the necessity for research and an ever-widening collaboration that, in the most fortuitous circumstances, can lead to innovation. And today, that word, innovation, has become our culture’s mantra.

From the largest and smallest offices of Gensler, Perkins+Will, HOK, LPA, NBBJ, Leo A Daly, and SOM to the various groups at Studios Architecture, Callison, Mithun, Shepley Bulfinch, and Cook+Fox, we’ve gained insight further into our own industry, and the culture of the design firms, and we’ve learned from each audience in a different way.

In her May 2010 Notes column, Lifelong Learning editor Szenasy states that “the future is clear: designers need to learn cross-disciplinary teamwork; to create a more sophisticated understanding of sustainable design; to reach out to larger communities and groups that have a voice in reshaping the urban form; to harness a new generation’s enthusiasm for saving the environment as well as its understanding of technology and connectivity.”

The film had a slow start before the design world fell off the cliff as the 2008 recession hit. Then it picked up momentum as design firms began to redefine themselves for the “new normal” and it continues to ignite conversations about the importance of research, collaboration, and innovation. LPA Architects in Irvine, CA documented the Metropolis Tour program they hosted in June:

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A couple of weeks ago we received news that Lance Hosey, a former director with William McDonough + Partners and author of a new book, The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design (Island Press), had been named chief sustainability officer at RTKL, the global architecture, planning, and design firm. We wondered: what is a chief sustainability officer? So we reached out to Hosey, who was travelling in Asia, and asked him about his new job, the future of sustainable architecture, and his first impressions of China.

Martin C. Pedersen: You were just named chief sustainability officer for RTKL. What does that mean exactly?

Lance Hosey: I’m RTKL’s first CSO, a position we defined to signal the strategic importance of sustainability. Last year, market watcher Ellen Weinreb put out a study on the emergence of this role in a variety of industries (“CSO Back Story”). The first CSO appointed to a publically traded company was at DuPont just eight years ago, and there still are fewer than 30. So this is a nascent position in business, and there is little consistency in how it’s defined, but it demonstrates the evolution of sustainability from an ad hoc practice adopted informally among project managers to a more strategic policy among senior management. I believe I’m just the second CSO in a large architecture firm, and my role at RTKL is to help develop ways to stimulate more innovation in all of our work.

MCP: What did you find attractive about the position?

LH: With a thousand people in a dozen offices on three continents and millions of square feet under construction every year, RTKL represents enormous leverage on the marketplace and a powerful platform to promote change. With even modest improvements in the performance of our projects, we can have a significant positive impact on the built environment. We plan to take full advantage of this position by martialing RTKL’s considerable talent, opportunities, and resources in new directions. Architects don’t necessarily think of size as an advantage, but with hundreds of people exploring new ideas, the potential rate of innovation can be astounding.

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I first met Lucia Athens when I interviewed her while working on Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design with Lance Hosey. She has been a leader in the green movement for many years and is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the SXSW Eco (of which I am also a member). Athens is chief sustainability officer for the City of Austin, Texas, which is the host city for SXSW and its offshoot, SXSW Eco (October 4 through 6).


She’s a licensed landscape architect as well as author of the book, Building an Emerald City: A Guide to Creating Green Building Policies, published in 2010 by Island Press. She began her career in green building in the early 1990s, working on the development team for the City of Austin’s Green Builder program, the first such program in the United States.

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I was recently asked to join the Advisory Board for SXSW Eco, an offshoot of the huge SXSW conference now in its second year and coming to Austin in early October. In my new role I have organized one panel discussion and reviewed many others. Now as a member of the diverse Advisory Board, I decided to tap into their wisdom, starting with Jerry James Stone, an environmental writer with Discovery Channel’s TreeHugger.com who also writes for Atlantic.com, MAKE magazine, and Digg.com and focuses on food and wine. He has served as the first “Cool Chef” for Cline Cellars and is this year’s Twitter Shorty Award winner for the hashtag #green. Here he talks about the many sprouting green conferences, concerns about content, and greenwashing.

Kira Gould: It seems that “green conferences” are sprouting up all over. Why are you involved with SXSW Eco and what kind of impact do you think this conference can have?

Jerry James Stone: Yes, there is definitely a green conference trend emerging, for sure. It is one of those good and bad things. The fact that green is a trend is great because people recognize not only the value of protecting the environment, but that it has mainstream appeal too.  Of course, mainstream appeal comes with consequences—like greenwashing. That is why I wanted to be a part of SXSW Eco. The brand is proven, SXSW is known for innovating and being creative. With such strong brand recognition, it can really move the needle in a sincere and beneficial way. I am thinking about what SXSW Eco can be five years from now. That is what I am concerned about. How can we keep bringing in the right people, the right panels and the right attendees to really make a change. And I think it will happen.

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Five years ago, Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design was published after Lance Hosey and I spent 18 months interviewing hundreds of people and trying to understand why it seemed like there was a preponderance of women doing “green” in many fields. Individual stories poured out and we assembled a suggestive but hardly conclusive collective story. We had the privilege of dipping in and were the beneficiaries of the generosity of an amazing community of creative people—but it’s clear that there is much more to discuss on the topic. We came away with an understanding that there are some sensibilities typically categorized as “female” by contemporary culture that tend to be effective in advancing sustainability goals. I’m reminded of this as I recall a recent conversation at Portland’s Living Future conference where I asked six people to engage in a dialogue with me about these sensibilities and how we can all find ways to cultivate and apply them.

Architect Bill Reed, of The Regenisis Group, whom I like to refer to as the uber-unpacker, talked about the need for us to start personal. He’s not talking about recycling at home before you try to start a business in the green space. He’s talking about a deep and personal knowing of yourself/life/place as a precursor for engagement with others.

Stacy Glass who works with the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, talked about the importance of entrepreneurship and risk-taking. She used her experience of founding CaraGreen, a sustainable materials company in North Carolina, which eventually transitioned away from her original plans for it, as a demonstration of learning from failure.

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If we love it, will it last? This is a question at the heart of architect Lance Hosey’s new book, Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design (Island Press, 2012). Because the book is just out I want to offer you a quick peek, as Hosey starts talking about it; his first talk since the book launched this week was at SPUR in San Francisco. And in the interest of full disclosure, I must also point out that Lance, who is CEO of the nonprofit GreenBlue, an organization dedicated to making products more sustainable, is also a friend. He and I co-authored Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design five years ago.

There’s an ongoing disconnect between what is perceived as “good design” (like the Vanity Fair “A-list” published in 2010) and “green design,” as Hosey points out; he documented this when he polled for the readers of his Architect blog in response to the Vanity Fair survey of architects. The disconnect, to him, is more than something to lament; it’s actually something to mine. He writes:

“Following the principles of ecology to their logical conclusion could result in revolutions of form as well as content in every industry at every scale, from the hand to the land. Reversing the devastation of nature requires reversing the devastation of culture, for the problem of the planet is first and foremost a human problem. We create the crisis, but we can correct it—by appealing to both morality and sensuality, to both sense and spirit, together. Designers can promote sustainability by embracing what they have already cared about most: the basic shape of things.”

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We all fondly remember our college days and our favorite professor’s ‘additional reading’ list that always followed the 15 page syllabus. Those pages were chalk full of titles that, not being the classics, didn’t make the cut to be required reading. And while some of us still have those lists sitting painfully free of any check marks, others of you need to continuously find new books to feed your knowledge appetite.

So take out your pens, ready your computer’s copy function, because here is another list, and it’s one that will further your understanding of the great topic of sustainability.

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