Greengaged

On October 12th 2009, London's Ecological Literacy Initiative EcoLabs are running their inaugural "Teach-In" - a student conference aiming to help the design industry embrace ecological literacy & systemic change. Several hundred of students are scheduled to attend the event at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, whilst the entire event will also be streamed online to dozens of participating design institutions around the world! Speakers include John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation), Richard Hawkins (PIRC), Ben Gill (BioRegional), Jonathan Crinion (Crinion Associates), Emma Dewberry (Open University) and Stephanie Hankey (Tactical Technology Collective. Questions from remote audiences will be taken, via Twitter @2012Imperative.

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photo by: Travis Drever

Our second guest writer for Greengaged.com this week is Dan Lockton, researcher in Brunel University's Cleaner Electronics Research Group investigating design for sustainable behaviour, in theory and practice. Dan attended Greengaged last year and having spent the day with us again on Monday, for Ed Gillespie's Design for Life session, has written a wonderfully intellectual review of the day as it happened. Read Dan's full feature story here, and to follow coverage on both his theoretical and practical work, visit his blog 'Design With Intent'.

read the article...

photo by: Travis Drever

On Monday 21st September, under the theme of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change", our first guest curator Ed Gillespie ran the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009. Joined by an esteemed array of guest speakers incl. Roman Krznaric, Professor John Wood, Martin Hoelne, Alastair Fuad Luke, Jamie Burdett, Richard Hammond, Kerry Seager, Fiona Bennie, Duncan Law, Greta Corke, Toby Hammond, Victor Buchli and Ben Reynolds, the day set out to informally debate, discuss and explore the reasons why and how change happens and what prevents it. With some innovative communication technology from the Talkaoke media team (which Gillespie aptly defines as 'question time on acid'), the day was fast paced, engaging and provided exhaustive food for thought for all those in attendance. 

• "Don't design alone" Alastair Fuad-Luke
• "We need a creative democracy" Professor John Wood
• "Designers should inspire to be generalists" Roman Krznaric
• "Use technology to hook up as teams" Martin Hoelne
• "Specialism is for insects" Roman Krznaric
• "Start to agitate" Sophie Thomas
• "Designers, try designing something for 2030" Fiona Bennie
• "Have fun with what you do" Sheena Matheiken
• "We are all in this together, we need to get out there, inspire and agitate" Ed Gillespie

Read Ed's great feature Exploring Behaviour Change Barriers all about his day, see the photographs, and hold your breath for the Talkaoke video footage, coming as soon as the 6 hours are edited!

read the article...

Is biomimicry at the core of your design process? Join Michael Pawlyn tomorrow at Greengaged to find out how it could be! All those in attendance tomorrow will be given the opportunity to win a place on a small group tour around The Economic Botany Collection at Kew Gardens, with Collections Manager Mark Nesbitt. Register here for the last few places at Biomimicry in Design: Learning from Nature.

photo by: Travis Drever

Early yesterday morning, Greengaged 2009 at the Design Council, kicked off for London Design Festival! Following a warm welcome from Greengaged co-founder Sophie Thomas and David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, the day was seamlessly handed over to the first of this weeks five guest curators, Ed Gillespie, Founding Director of sustainable communications agency Futerra.

Full coverage of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change" - the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009, will be online here shortly, authored by Ed himself and from our guest authors Dan Lockton, and Bonnie Alter of Treehugger.com

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Fancy a sneaky peak at Friday’s material ‘speed date’ session? Well, imagine a room full of makers and creaters, specifiers and promoters ...all waiting to talk to you and answer those burning questions you have about materials!

Next week, Friday’s morning session ‘the knowledge transfer workshop’ promises to take you step-by-step (actually stride by stride as we will be moving at pace around the tables) through that part of the design process where you decide on the material you will build, mould, construct and design with. If you are confused as to how to start specifying sustainable materials or if you want to question some piece of potential greenwash seen on a product then bring your questions and samples along to present to our amazing assemblage of experts which includes Chris Wise from Expedition Engineering, Guy Robinson from Sprout Design, Christopher Pett from Pli Design, recent RCA graduate Thomas Thwaite and other esteemed people from Arup, BRE, Giraffe Innovation, One Planet Products, Saint-Gobain, Smile Plastics and Wrap, with others still confirming.

Register your place here.

photo by: Kate Andrews

So, how can design save the world? Maybe it's about more than switching to groovy eco materials (bamboo laptop, anyone?).

Maybe we need to redesign the systems of society that produce unsustainability. A prime example is banking. It's a system based upon credit - spending today what we may earn tomorrow, creating problems of accelerated use of resources, waste, a lack of resilience (did you know that over two thirds of households in the UK are less than one month from bankruptcy?). And despite carbon neutral policies and Equator principles you could argue banking barely has a sustainable or responsible bone in its body. But as we explore banking we can start to find alternatives.

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Register for this unique trip around the Olympic Park with Dan Epstein, Head of Sustainability and Regeneration. This tour will have particular focus on the sustainable approach taken to materials used on the site.

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