Sustainable Systems, Year One

Week 8 Reading + Reflection

Lost/Wasted Energy:

  1. Automobiles- about 75% of energy produced is lost
  2. When a stove is cooling down- the heat energy is being lost, not collected
  3. Planes- co2 emission and like automobiles, a large amount of every produced is lost
  4. Power plants- up to 75% of the energy in the fuel at the start of the process
  5. Opening the fridge- loosing heat energy
  6. Leaving chargers plugged in- when you are not charging a devise, leaving plugs in waste energy. it can also ruin your chargers!
  7. Throwing away food- food that has gone bad is usually thrown away and wasted
  8. Leaving tvs plugged in- when the tv is turned off, it is still using energy because it is plugged in
  9. Leaving lights on- wastes energy when leaving lights on and not in the room

Ways of Recapturing Loss of Energy:

  1. Build the perfect automobile that doesn’t lose energy! Or there can be a machine to extract the energy lost from the air and put it in a tank to then be used later on.
  2. Creating machine that is connected to the stove top to collect the heat- some type of wire that will collect it and store energy in a tank under the sink. Then the tank can be hooked up to the house and possibly used for electricity.
  3. Create machine to extract the energy lost from the air and put it in a tank to then be used later on.
  4. Create machine to extract the energy lost from the air and put it in a tank to then be used later on.
  5. Have a machine that can collect the energy when you open it. Or have a lever that realizes when the door open and it turns off the energy so no energy is lost. Food won’t go bad since the door is only opened for a very small period of time.
  6. Create a devise that can be put on the end of the cord and it can collect and store the energy that would usually be lost- Then you can use the devise as a portable charger.
  7. Use old food like fruits and vegetables for compost!
  8. Have a device connected to the tv that stores the energy that would originally be lost.
  9. Turn lights off! Have a device that will collect the energy if someone forgets to turn them off.
Sustainable Systems, Year One

Week 6 Reading + Reflection

1) How this is or isn’t a Design for Resilience methodology:

I would argue that this does play into the Design for Resilience methodology. There is a whole page in this exert that shows ecodesign strategy examples, which includes how the products are eco friendly, like having low impact and what type of materials it is made out of if it is created using sustainable resources. This is an aspect of the Design for Resilience methodology because the examples shown are products where the designer is aware and conscious of the materials used and how the impact the environment. The Okala Impact Factors describe how certain materials and factors effect the environment. This does play into the Design for Resilience methodology because it is providing knowledge about materials and their impact. With this knowledge, designers can be more conscious and be more informed on how to design for resilience.

2) How the design of the document itself helps you to understand its content:

The design of the document itself helps me understand the content better because of the use of graphics in it. There are many different types of graphics present, like line graphs, bar graphs, charts and Venn diagrams. These tools present the information in a visual way that makes it more interesting and easier to understand than just written in black and white in a paragraph form. Especially the charts and graphs are very informative because this makes it easier and quicker to understand the raw data rather than reading the information in a paragraph form and having to decipher what is being said. The page that talks about environmental impact categories is designed really well to help understand the content. To explain the types of ecological damage, there is not only a written description; there is a photograph that visually represents the ecological damage. To be able to visually see what it is that the text is describing makes me understand the content better.

Integrated Studio: Fake, Year One

Truism Brainstorming- 10 Versions

1. Don’t depend on anyone but yourself

2. Dependency and happiness do not go hand and hand

3. Only trust yourself

4. Don’t place too much trust in your family

5. The people who let you down the hardest were always the closest

6. Set free from the bondages that dependency creates

7. Wealth is more powerful than one thinks

8. Only you will always be there for yourself

9. Don’t place too much trust in others

10. If you never depend on someone else, you’ll never be betrayed

Sustainable Systems, Year One

Water Field Experience Follow Up

New York City is surrounded by water, so it is no surprise that water is an important part of the city. While watching WATER by Eric Goldstein, I learned that the Dutch and English settled in New York City because of the water. It is great location for commerce and trading. For drinking water, the Dutch and English used well water, ponds and springs or drank beer because the Hudson River was extremely polluted from dumping sewer and waste. Its interesting to note that the Hudson river is still very polluted today, showing how long this problem has been going on in New York City. While on the Cruise Line Harbor tour I saw first hand how polluted the water is, seeing actual garbage float around but also by seeing how dirty it is. At home, I lived near the Charles River in Massachusetts. This river is extremely different from the Hudson because it is not very polluted. The water that we drink from my house is filtered water from the Charles River.

According to Eric Goldstein, the Catskill Mountains are where the reservoirs were built and are still used for New York City water. About 1.1 billion gallons of drinking water a day comes from this reservoir. This water is unfiltered yet extremely clean, but it is endangered from pollutions that come from factories, sewer plants, and runoff water. Another important factor about the reservoir is that it does not use any energy to get the water from the Catskills to New York City. Only gravity is used to transport it, meaning that it is extremely sustainable and ecofriendly.

Throughout the world, wild oyster reefs have been severely impacted by the amount of pollution, 85% of oyster reefs are gone. According to the video, Shell Shocked, the Hudson River use to be the oyster capital of the world. It was economically and environmentally extremely important for the city. The oysters helped the ecosystem in the Hudson River; there were many other fish and animals in the water, stemming back to the need of the oysters. One oyster can filter fifty gallons of water a day, so this was keeping the water extremely clean. Oysters were eaten by most people, which made it an important export for the city. Oyster shells were also ground up and made into brick for buildings. Because of all the waste dumping into the river, oyster beds became polluted and were infected with disease, making people sick when they would eat them. This has hurt other organisms and fish in the water as well.

There is a movement to try and get oysters back into the Hudson River. One artist is making oyster shells out of nontoxic, natural materials like porcelain or marble, for oyster larvae to have a place to settle on. The water is so acidic that the oysters couldn’t live in the water anymore because the acid would eat the shells. The hope is that the oyster larvae in the water now can land on the man made shells and start producing oyster beds again. There is also the Billion Oyster movement that is happening to try and bring oysters back to the Hudson in hopes that it will help filter out the water and create a cleaner river.

Bhawani Venkataraman is a professor at The New School and talked about the chemistry of water and why it is so important. As most know, water is essential for life. We take for granted that water is a liquid, because if it was anything else we wouldn’t be able to survive. This is why treatment plants are so important because having safe water is needed for survival. This is also why it is such an important issue around the world that everyone should have access to clean water, especially in third world countries like Africa. To have safe water, there needs to be an analysis of water and then determine if there are threts for the water and if so, what level threat there is. The Safe Drinking Water Act established maximum levels of toxins to still be safe, drinking water. In New York City, there are water sampling stations after water is treated at the water treatment plant to make sure that the water still meets the standards after coming from the underground pipes.

It is interesting to note the difference between bottled water and tap water. Citizens of New York pay in their taxes for the disinfecting and treatment of water to make it clean and drinkable. This means that tap water is roughly $0.07 cents per cup, equaling 1 cent per gallon. Bottled water in New York City is around $2, and it is basically the exact same thing.

Kate Zidar is apart of the Newtown Creek Alliance so she was able to speak directly about the Newtown Water Treatment Plant. This is the most polluted area in New York City because it used to be the area for heavy industry. It is now mostly distribution centers. 720,000,000 gallons of water a day are processed in Newtown Creek. It is interesting to think about how much water New York City uses, how much waste is produced, and how much needs to be disinfected before being able to be used again.

Sustainable Systems, Year One

Water Field Experience

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OBSERVATIONS/SITES:

1. This is the site of the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Facility taken at 5:25. Not only the complexity of the entire system shocked me, but the actual shape of these specific “egg” looking structures was intriguing. I was wondering if maybe the structure has to be this shape because of the specific process to clean the water? Interesting to note that 1.4 billion gallons of water are processed in one day here.

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2. This was taken at the site of the Newtown Creek Water Waste Facility at 5:20. This specific circular instrument in the right hand corner of the picture intrigued me. What exactly is the role of it is in the process to make the water clean?

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3. These pictures were taken at 5:15 of the trash area while traveling through the Newtown Creek. I was shocked with the amount of trash. I had trouble hearing on the trip so I think I missed the explanation of what exactly this place is but it was crazy to see this amount of waste in one place… and then to realize that this is only the tiniest little bit of the waste in the whole world.

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4. This photo was taken at 5:12 while traveling down the Newtown Creek to get to the Waste Water Treatment Plant. I took a picture of it because of the name. The trucks have “City of Harvest” written on them. I was interested in what this means, and if it is a company that works for the city of New York to help sustainability or possibly something with farming.

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5. This photo was taken at 4:50 near Governor’s Island. Yes it is the type of iconic Statue of Liberty picture, but I took it for more reasons than just that. I was curious if landfill has increased the island that the Statue of Liberty stands on like it has to the coastline of Manhattan. I also took this photo because the water seems so beautiful and clear which seemed ironic because the water is actually extremely gross and polluted.

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OBSERVATIONS WITHOUT PICTURES:

  • rainwater and human waste is combined in the same pipe(s)… seems very inefficient
  • water isn’t clean- I saw pieces of garbage floating around many times
  • lots of boats out on the water- all using gas/oil that is probably adding to the water pollution

 

GUIDED QUESTIONS:

  • In what ways did we experience water?

We were experience water because we were on a boat, so though a transportation way. Also a human/land system and water relationship was seen through the piers where businesses sometimes have storage/areas there, wastewater treatment plants- specifically seeing Newtown Creek plant, many bridges we passes, and other boats and how they interact with each other.

  • How is freshwater connected to the urban ecosystem?

Freshwater is connected to the urban ecosystem through the usage of waste water treatment plants and facilities. Using technology and these plants, urban areas are able to get freshwater even though the waste and sewer pipes are not set up in the best way possible for the city (which ends up with sewer potentially in the water).

  • What evidence did you collect to ascertain the health/quality of the Lower Hudson River/New York Harbor estuary?

I saw that the health/quality of the Lower Hudson River/New York Harbor estuary is not very high. In the water, I could see waste in it at points during the trip. Buildings along the trip looked like they were in very poor condition and that paint from the buildings and possibly parts of them were going into the water. There was very little evidence of wildlife, which also makes me come to this conclusion. What I know about the oyster project off of Governor’s Island tells me that the Hudson is not a very clean river.

  • What new evidence would you collect to help ascertain water quality, in light of these biological, chemical, and physical factors we observed?

I would want to test the water for specific chemicals to try and understand what exactly is polluting the water and making it so awful. I would want to know more of the hard facts about what exactly is in the water.

Integrated Seminar: Fake, Integrated Studio: Fake, Year One

Analysis of Karun Sudhakar’s Self-Portraits

Karun Sudhakar’s self-portraits are a series of three pieces that together represent a moment in his life that affected his identity. Each piece shows a wallet displaying the content that would be found inside. The wallets are created with watercolor and the content is shown in graphite. Sudhakar’s cohesive series of self-portraits use color, medium, line, space, and specific content to tell a personal narrative.

In this series, each wallet in the piece is created with different colors. The first is used with olive green mixed with shades of orange and black outlining. The next piece uses a dark orange hue and the last is a light brown leather color. The olive green color with a mixture of orange represents an unsophisticated, young wallet since these are childish, bold colors compared to the adult light brown, leather looking wallet. The progression from the youthful wallet to the mature, light brown leather wallet shows the growth in his life from childhood to adulthood.

Not only does the color show this progression, but also the medium used describes his personal story. Watercolor is a very fluid, transparent medium that can be used to show looseness and carefreeness. This can be seen in the green and orange wallet in the first piece of the series. Watercolor can be saturated to become a more dense, mature and bold color shown in the light brown wallet. As the wallets become more adult in style and color, there is more content in each wallet. The use of graphite to draw cards, coins and money in the wallet increases in each piece in the series, which represents maturity and growth since it is a controlled and structured medium.

The lines used to create the wallet and the detailing shows personal growth. On the first wallet, the lines are loose and the black outline bleeds into the orange and olive green color to make a soft line. This symbolizes the freedom and carefree children have. The lines become more structured on the orange wallet and the brown leather wallet has meticulous detailing, representing responsibility in adulthood.

Sudhakar used the space on the paper to represent growth and maturity. The first wallet has a couple coins, the second uses more space with a couple cards, cash and coins, and the third has many cards and cash. Looking at the pieces together, it creates a rising bar between all three, demonstrating growth figuratively and literally with the amount of items in the wallets increasing with each maturing wallet.

The use of wallets as a self-portrait shows a different and more meaningful way to portray oneself. Although it does not show the viewer the actual image of the creator, it represents Sudhaker psychologically more than an image of his body would. Each wallet shows growth and also location. Each wallet has content specific to a country, like the MetroCard in the last wallet, representing where he is currently. This makes me infer that the wallets represent points in his past where he has lived.

The use of color, medium, line, space and specific content creates a cohesive set of self-portraits that creates a story about Sudhakar. At first, seeing three wallets does not seem like something that can represent some, but the artistic elements create a complex and interesting identity of the artist.

Sustainable Systems, Year One

Disruption Critique

I am really impressed with the quality of this film. The filming, graphics, and content is concise and to the point which makes watching pleasurable and informative.

For designers and artist, the message was that we need to come up with new ideas and products that will not contribute to global warming and help end climate change. This means that items need to be created that will use alternative energy and significantly stops the use of fossil fuels. The effects of global warming are so bad right now, the thought of what it will be like when the heat on the earth continues to increase. The messages to designers and artists was shown through graphics to help describe what the greenhouse effect is and complicated scientific concepts that create heating. The use of showing photos of how the earth is being affected was an important tool because it makes designers and artist want to help even more than before. It is discussed that the emotional and rational side of the brain are interconnected. This is an interesting marketing and designing tool for artists to note because emotions move humans to act.

The message for everyone is that something needs to be done about climate change because it is happening right now and we are living in it. For many years, science has proved that manmade climate change is happening. In this documentary, the history of where we are now, how we got here, and how we can change is shown by graphics to create a history of the science behind learning about climate change. Graphics are also used as a tool to describe scientific concepts that play a part in global warming to viewers. This is really helpful because it explains complex concepts in a simple way and it helps viewers see what is happening. This is important because seeing is better than hearing most of the time and it keeps viewers actively watching and interested. Throughout the film it is stressed that people need to work together and mobilize so we can fix this important problem. The use of new clips, images, and interviews work to paint a full picture about climate change and the effects it’s having on the earth and on humans because it is not healthy for us. It is also stressed throughout the film that economic opportunities will be created through moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources. This will create more jobs while helping decrease the rising temperature of our planet. The use of music is very important in the film. When the music becomes tense and “scary,” the viewer understands that it is a serious and bad thing they are talking about. This plays into a way to deliver the message that climate change is bad and needs to be fixed. I will be telling many people about this film and encouraging them to watch it. It is time that more people understand climate change and how we can work to fix it.