The Culture Of Nature In The History Of Design

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design confronts the dilemma caused by design’s pertinent yet precarious position in environmental discourse through interdisciplinary conversations about the design of nature and the nature of design. Demonstrating that the deep entanglements of design and nature have a deeper and broader history than contemporary discourse on sustainable design and ecological design might imply, this book presents case studies ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and from Singapore to Mexico. It gathers scholarship on a broad range of fields/practices, from urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture, to engineering design, industrial design, furniture design and graphic design. From adobe architecture to the atomic bomb, from the bonsai tree to Biosphere 2, from pesticides to photovoltaics, from rust to recycling – the culture of nature permeates the history of design. As an activity and a profession always operating in the borderlands between human and non-human environments, design has always been part of the environmental problem, whilst also being an indispensable part of the solution. The book ventures into domains as diverse as design theory, research, pedagogy, politics, activism, organizations, exhibitions, and fiction and trade literature to explore how design is constantly making and unmaking the environment and, conversely, how the environment is both making and unmaking design. This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design confronts the dilemma caused by design’s pertinent yet precarious position in environmental discourse through interdisciplinary conversations about the design of nature and the nature of design. Demonstrating that the deep entanglements of design and nature have a deeper and broader history than contemporary discourse on sustainable design and ecological design might imply, this book presents case studies ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and from Singapore to Mexico. It gathers scholarship on a broad range of fields/practices, from urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture, to engineering design, industrial design, furniture design and graphic design. From adobe architecture to the atomic bomb, from the bonsai tree to Biosphere 2, from pesticides to photovoltaics, from rust to recycling – the culture of nature permeates the history of design. As an activity and a profession always operating in the borderlands between human and non-human environments, design has always been part of the environmental problem, whilst also being an indispensable part of the solution. The book ventures into domains as diverse as design theory, research, pedagogy, politics, activism, organizations, exhibitions, and fiction and trade literature to explore how design is constantly making and unmaking the environment and, conversely, how the environment is both making and unmaking design. This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.

Organised as a dialogue between nature and design, this book explores design ideas, opportunities, visions and practices through relating and uncovering experience of the natural world. Presented as an edited collection of 25 wide-ranging short chapters, the book explores the possibility of new relations between design and nature, beyond human mastery and understandings of nature as resource and by calling into question the longstanding role for design as agent of capitalism. The book puts forward ways in which design can form partnerships with living species and examines designers’ capacities for direct experience, awe, integrated relationships and new ways of knowing. It covers: • New design ethics of care • Indigenous perspectives • Prototyping with nature • Methods for new design and nature relations • A history of design and nature • Animist beliefs • De-centering human-centered design • Understanding nature has power and agency Design and Nature: A Partnership is a rich resource for designers who wish to learn to engage with sustainability from the ground up.

In this celebrated work, Alexander Wilson examines environments built over the past fifty years, as humans have continued to discover, exploit, protect, restore, and sometimes re-enchant a natural world in convulsion. Extensively illustrated.

How ecological design emerged in Scandinavia during the 1960s and 1970s, building on both Scandinavia’s design culture and its environmental movement. Scandinavia is famous for its design culture, and for its pioneering efforts toward a sustainable future. In Ecological by Design, Kjetil Fallan shows how these two forces came together in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Scandinavian designers began to question the endless cycle in which designed objects are produced, consumed, discarded, and replaced in quick succession. The emergence of ecological design in Scandinavia at the height of the popular environmental movement, Fallan suggests, illuminates a little-known reciprocity between environmentalism and design: not only did design play a role in the rise of modern environmentalism, but ecological thinking influenced the transformation in design culture in Scandinavia and beyond that began as the modernist faith in progress and prosperity waned. Fallan describes the efforts of Scandinavian designers to forge an environmental ethics in a commercial design culture sustained by consumption; shows, by recounting a quest for sustainability through Norwegian wood(s), that one of the main characteristics of ecological design is attention to both the local and the global; and explores the emergence of a respectful and sustainable paradigm for international development. Case studies trace key connections to continental Europe, Britain, the US, Central America, and East Africa. Today, ideas of sustainability permeate design discourse, but the historical emergence of ecological design remains largely undiscussed. With this trailblazing book, Fallan fills that gap.

Gathering his most compelling essays and addresses from the last fifty years in one accessible volume, this book looks at the pioneering ideas that underpin Sim Van der Ryn’s ecological design philosophy. It offers a unique decade-by-decade retrospective of the key issues in environmental design, beginning with the most recent years and looking back to the 1960s. With an introductory chapter and further recommended reading for each decade, this book is key reading for any architect or designer practising today, and students will find a wealth of knowledge with which to support their studies. The author’s beautiful illustrations, painted in a corresponding timescale to the chapters, offer further insight into the way he understands the challenges of humanity’s stewardship of our planet.

The Contextual Nature of Design and Everyday Things focuses on the history of industrial design beginning in the 18th century in principally in Europe and the United States but does so with a thematic twist. Instead of revealing the world of everyday things in a chronological manner as many books do, The Contextual Nature of Design and Everyday Things does so by way of different themes. This direction is taken for one principal reason: design never occurs out of context. In other words, the design of everyday things is a reflection of place, people and process. It cannot be otherwise. Consequently, these broader issues become the themes for the exploration of everyday things. There are ten themes in all. These are: World View of Design, which examines the very broad picture of industrial design as an everyday activity undertaken by everyone and throughout the world; Design and the Natural World, which explores the interdependence between the Natural World and the Artificial World; Design and Economics, which delves into industrial design as a force of both macro- and micro-economics; Design and Technology, which looks at the evolution of materials and processes and their impact on industrial design; Design and Transportation, which reviews the role that industrial design has played in the development of transportation, especially rail, road and air; Design and Communication, which situates the place of industrial design in communication, both human communication and technical innovations in communication; Design and Education, which covers the development of the teaching and training of industrial designers; Design and Material Culture, which considers several case studies in industrial design as contemporary examples of material culture; Design and Politics, which positions industrial design as an integral part albeit indirect of one political system or another; and Design and Society, in which the fruits of industrial design can be perceived as mirrors or reflections of societal values. The Contextual Nature of Design and Everyday Things is an ideal book for face-to-face courses in industrial design history as well as those offered as hybrid and online. "

Harman examines the emergence of modern ideas about natural history in Britain from the era of Newtonian science and natural theology to the equally radical Darwinism of the mid 19th century.