Greengaged

photo by: Rhea Daley-Serieux

On Wednesday, Greengaged warmly welcomed Michael Pawlyn, founder of Exploration Architecture to the curatorial stand. Before being joined by his speakers Melissa Sterry, Belina Raffy, Julian Vincent and Andy Middleton, Pawlyn began his day entitled "Biomimicry in Design: Learning from Nature" with his definition; "Biomimcry is looking at nature as a source of new sustainable solutions.”

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photos by Travis Drever

Showcasing great examples of award-winning British design, the "Window on Design" at the Design Council offices in Covent Garden had a green inspired project on display during the Greengaged 2009 week! For those of you who didn't get the chance to see the display, we wanted to share the project with you.

Founded by Richard Sabin and Mark Laurence, BioTecture Ltd is dedicated to designing and implementing green wall systems for buildings and the built environment. BioTecture’s modular green wall system* have enabled sphagnum moss, spider plants and salad leaves to be grown up the sides of office blocks and schools and even inside shops. The green walls can help keep spaces cooler in summer and warm in winter.

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Greengaged curator John Grant was joined by three speakers after lunch on Tuesday: Shaun Nagassic, Dave Birch and Giles Andrews, who each, in the context of the day on co-opportunity and re-inventing the banking system for the common good, gave presentations of their work. Here we provide a summary of each of the talks.

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Just a quick post to say what an incredible week we all had during Greengaged last week. Thanks to all five of our curators, and their extensive list of participating speakers! And, of course thanks to everyone who came to the events of last week. We have had an incredible response and thank everyone who took part. We have a big list of blog posts and articles in the pipeline now, not to mention more events and of course our involvement at Icograda next month. Whilst we collate all the information and get the blog rolling, do check out our flickr channel to see the happenings of last week, and connect with us on Twitter too!

photo by Chiara Terraneo

Our second curator, John Grant kicked off Tuesday's session on "Co-opportunity", proposing the question; "How can we create (banking and financial) systems, for the common good?"

With speeches from Josh Ryan Collins of the New Economics Foundation, and Chris Wise & Ed McCann of Expedition Engineering, John led an interactive morning session. Beginning by sketching the agenda of the day into a flowchart, John quickly split the attendee's into smaller groups, asking them to discuss and brainstorm ideas on how, using models/examples of present day service design and system thinking, could they redesign a new system for banking.

Following her participation, Phd student Lauren Tan, offers Greengaged a great summary of John Grant's morning session...

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photos by: Travis Drever

For those of you who have been at Greengaged this week you will have spotted a curious looking confessional booth, and probably have been wondering what that was for. Well... on Monday at Greengaged, Ed Gillespie brought with him Futerra's "Earthly Sins Confessional Booth"! Ed didn't (until after hours) adorn the priest attire, however during the day on behaviour change, many of the attendees entered the booth to confess their 'earthly sins'. Alleviating guilt as a barrier to action, the booth allows us all to unveil those sins we are all guilty of. I'm sure, the more we all confess and talk about such environmental misdeamours, the more we will be able to reconsider alternatives. See more confessional evidence on flickr and do keep your eye on earthlysins.org 

So, what's your earthly sin? 

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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: Chiara Terraneo

Earlier this week Greengaged was pleased to welcome Sheena Matheiken of The Uniform Project to Ed Gillespie's panel on behaviour change in fashion and travel.

The Uniform Project is all about one ambitious and highly creative woman, who is wearing one black shift dress for 365 days. The project has two aims; 1. To raise awareness about sustainable fashion and 2. Raise money (through donations) for the Akanksha Foundation, a nonprofit group providing educational programs to children who live in Mumbai’s slums. At Greengaged, Sheena explained how she wanted to make an "extreme statement about consumers", "change perspectives about shopping and fashion", "to bring back the creativity into fashion" and prove that "with imagination and through creativity, sustainable fashion can be stylish." Keep up to date with Sheena's project (and outfits!) on her pictorial website and twitter feed (@UniformProject).

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