WHAT IS A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM? / THREE WAYS WE LEARN:
SYSTEM
A system is something in which the constituent components work together in a cycle to create a whole and perform a function. An example of a system could be a government. The Indian government, for example, consists of the “Lok Sabha” or the Lower House whose members are elected by the citizens. These members elect the Prime Minister, who in turn makes policies to serve the people[1]. So, this forms a cycle that benefits the nation and could be called a system.
SUSTAINABLE
To be sustainable is to create a balance in a system and maintain it at a certain level. Usually in development it means to create advancements in technology for the future, but not at the cost of the resources of the present. Small, daily life activities could lead to sustainable development, like turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, riding a bicycle instead of driving the car for short distances or even remembering to turn off the lights while leaving a room.
THREE BASIC WAYS OF LEARNING
- Experiencing qualities: most times we tend to observe qualities of things like the smell, look or feel, and make judgements about them. For example, while buying vegetables we go for the ones that look and smell fresh and steer clear of the ones that have patches on them or smell stale. One does this based on instincts and need guidance or authority.
- Experiencing facts: often we rely on facts and figures that have been proven by people after years of research. For example, cutting trees causes environmental degradation is a fact. There have been years of research that proves that lack of trees cause loss of habitat for animals, soil erosion and increase in greenhouse gases to name a few. Therefore, after experiencing this fact we are encouraged to plant more trees to maintain a balance on the earth.
- Recognizing and generating patterns that connect: our brains get accustomed to repetition. That is, if you repeat something for long enough we start to see that as a routine or a habit. For example, if you are used to sleeping late at night, you will find it hard to go to sleep early, simply because your brain is not accustomed to it. It sees sleeping late as a pattern that it must follow.
HABIT
The habit that I’m trying to form is to go to bed early and wake up early in the morning. My goal is to get about 6-8 hours of sleep. Proper sleep will help me feel more energetic, think clearly, maintain good health and be more productive.
ART & SCIENCE = BEAUTY
My embodied experience of beauty was when I watched a video installation that was put up in the Parsons building. Initially it just seemed like a simple recording of a journey in a rainy night, but as I sat down to watch the whole thing, I was transfixed. The entire experience was very calming and nostalgic and reminded me of the road trips and drives in the rainy nights that I took with my family. I felt a sense of beauty in that video that took me back into my memories. And what was interesting was that different people could perceive it differently.
Before watching the video, I perceived beauty as the way people perceive something. For example, it can be experiencing the beauty of a landscape or even the feel of water running through your fingers. It is a very subjective topic and the definition of beauty changes from person to person and from time to time. Different cultures have different standards of beauty. But for all, beauty is something that pleases the aesthetic senses.
After watching the video, these were my observations:
Qualities:
- Something that one can feel
- Requires a sense of empathy
- Is highly subjective
Facts:
- People found that the slow dimming of lights in a BMW was better than the abrupt motion.
- A sense of beauty changes when people get to know about the story behind something.
- There are two kinds of beauty, intrinsic and extrinsic.
- A lot of experiments have been done on beauty.
- Beauty is not always about symmetry.
- A lot more effort and thought goes into a design than is actually visible (ballet dancers)
Patterns:
- People perceived slower dimming of lights as more aesthetically pleasing (BMW and movie theatres) because it creates a sense of anticipation.
- Beauty is subjective, some people like some things more than others.
- “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”
SOURCE: How Beauty Feels – Richard Seymour
DESCRIPTION OF A SYSTEM:
Qualities:
- Efficient
- Cyclic
- Different people working together
- Interdependent and dynamic
Facts:
- The body has an immune system that consists of smaller systems working together.
- In factory lines, different people perform different functions to make things more efficient.
- In the human body, cells repair themselves and excretion leads to the beginning of another cycle/system.
- The government of a country is a pyramid of power. It forms a system where there is transfer of power from one person to another.
Patterns:
- Systems reflect us. We create a system, we embody a system and we live in a system.
- Systems are interdependent and form a cycle.
- Systems keep changing with time.
- Outcomes are more successful and can produce more money (economically)
A system is a set of interconnected parts that form an efficient, working whole. It is dynamic in nature and may be voluntary or involuntary.
CONCLUSION:
The idea conveyed by each of the four presentations was very different but also interconnected. The ideas depicted were that beauty influences human behavior (rebuilding a neighborhood with beauty, dignity and hope), beauty is not only visual but is also something one can feel (how beauty feels), beauty is hereditary and is not always a good thing (looks aren’t everything, believe me I’m a model) and lastly that our standards of beauty are defined by our genes (a Darwinian theory of beauty). After seeing all of the presentations, I believe that beauty is definitely subjective, as a thing that is considered to be beautiful by one person may not be so for another. In fact even the qualities, facts and patterns associated with beauty vary from person to person. The different ways in which people perceive beauty can invoke different feelings. For example, a photo frame with a picture of one’s family can bring about feeling of nostalgia for that person. Sometimes the beauty of a thing is enhanced which one gets to know the story behind it. That is beauty requires a sense of empathy.
For me, a cup with a picture of my family serves an object of beauty. It reminds me happy times and memories associated with that image and this, in turn, makes me feel a sense of beauty. The fact that the cup holds a sentimental value for me may not be shared by anyone else because they don’t know the meaning associated with it. For the group presentation, we divided different aspects of beauty such as the qualities, facts and patterns, along with supporting examples, to different members. I was to speak on the patterns aspect of it and I supported it with an example that was given by Richard Seymour in his video. I spoke on how beauty is enhanced when people gain knowledge about something and I talked about how people perceived a drawing as beautiful when they got to know that it was the last act done by a 5-year-old girl who died of cancer. This means that the idea of beauty changed with empathy.
Beauty is a sustainable system. There is a relation between people and what they perceive as beautiful. It can be a physical or an emotion bond that connects them and this forms a sustainable system. It is almost as if the person gives the object value and the object gives the person a feeling to associate with. This forms a cycle and hence it serves as sustainable system. This relationship is also dynamic and changes with different circumstances and situations. This system of beauty is prevalent in everyone’s life and plays a very important part.
CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT IS IT?
Climate change is a very serious and relevant issue that make everyone question the state of the resources for the future generations. An event that I think has majorly contributed towards global warming is the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. Burning of these fossil fuels releases more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which causes them to build up and in turn raise the temperature of the earth. Normal human activities like burning coal or natural gas (emissions from cars) are the things causing this rise in temperature. The CO2 produced is responsible for the warming trends.
Another problem with the current environmental scenario is the lack of political interest in it. often large companies and institutions have ties with the government and use this fact to make profit, even if it is at the cost of the environment. Due to this the government spends a lot more money on things like helping companies bring in oil products from the middle east as compared to actually making reforms to save the earth. Rather this deteriorates the condition that we’re already in.
A defining moment in the history of environmental change was the grassroots mobilization on April 22, 1970. This event was very important as people finally started recognizing the importance of the condition we were in. 20 million people took to the streets, all over the country, to establish the first Earth Day. This also compelled Nixon to finally sign environmental reformation acts like the Clean Air act. This movement led to a very fundamental restructuring and a major step towards environmental preservation.
The interview that I liked the most was that of Keya Chatterjee, Director of Renewable Energy, WWF. She reinstated the fact that for change to take place it is very important for people to actively participate and voice their opinion. The issue of climate change has become so serious that every event that happens now is in the context of this and it has become the fight of and for our lives. She states that the cost of the impacts from things like sea level rise or wild fires are dumped on to us as a society and not on the companies or institutions that actually cause this. Also environmental preservation and creation of jobs can go hand in hand. For example, solar panels have to be installed by using human labor and this is also a source of renewable and environment friendly energy. It is important to consider the future and it is our responsibility to protect our future generations.
SOURCE: Disruption
RESPONSE TO FINN JUHL
In today’s world design is used not just to make things look more aesthetically pleasing, but also to change a system and make a difference in peoples’ lives. Finn Juhl as an architect and interior designer made revolutionary designs that served a much larger purpose than just being pleasing to the eye. His design of the UN Trusteeship Council Chamber is compared to structures like the Arc de Triumph and the Sydney Opera House. One of the disastrous restorations done to the Chamber, that is arrange the seats in rows like an auditorium, went against what the UN stood for, that every country is placed at an equal level. So when Kasper Salto and Thomas Sigsgaard won the competition, it counted as an opportunity to return to the democratic way of thinking and renovate the auditorium accordingly. It was also a chance to honor the original Danish design that was present. This video talks about how, we as designers have the power to change a system and make a difference.
[1] Kumar, Rajesh. Guide to Constitution. 72-73. Universal’s Guide to the Constitution of India. Universal Law Publishing, 2011.
