Design 21: Social Design Network

I have recently noticed many colleges offering various certificate programs in sustainability. Other than MCAD's sustainable online design course, does anyone know of any other colleges offering sustainable design education programs?

A BRAND FOR PRODUCTS WITH A HIGH-ADDED HUMAN VALUE

We want to develop a new understanding: a very personal view on products able to transmit the values of an human experience. Products are for us the meeting points between cultures that dialogue, create together and evolve: the place to make ours a renewed sense for beauty as an ethic and an aesthetic value as well. We believe in a world of possible beautiful things and we want to reveal their soul together with their collective meaning. Products are talking, carrying values, ideas, emotions and with their knowledge represent social relations. From here, WHOMADE is born: a brand for products with a high-added human value. A communication project that invites products to talk about their stories; from the creative plots that gave them shape and meaning, to the cultures that have inspired them, to the hands that have created them. And if the products start to talk, it is still of us the will and the pleasure to listen to them.

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WHOMADE is an initiative launched and supported by Todomundo.org, and it is from the premises and the experiences of the organization that the idea of the brand took shape. WHOMADE is an open project and includes people through a series of events for meeting and exchange, workshops and exhibitions, to extend its own vision, share its experiences and build up a network of common resources for a new generation of objects. WHOMADE is born as an ini...

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view.

Exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. Plenty of info on the website and from Free Range Studios and on Youtube.

Always curious about the interior designs of public transport, Japan's "child-friendly public transport" certainly woke me up this morning.

Designed by freelance designer Eiji Mitooka; the Omoden ("Toy Train", in English) and the "Ichigo Ec" ("Strawberry Train") run on the 14.3km Kishigawa Line and contain hundreds of toys, TV screens showing cartoons, immaculately clean wooden flooring / play spaces and cots for younger children.

Read more about Transit Interiors at Hitachi-rail.com. Via. Reaction and Deputy Dog.

Nokia has already done a "greener" phone with the Nokia 3110 Evolve model, but it also has a "futuristic Nokia Eco Sensor Concept" phone, reports Unwired View.

"Nokia Eco Sensor concept includes a wearable sensor unit that will house a number of optional sensors to monitor environment, health and local weather conditions, a dedicated mobile phone and a set of dedicated mobile software applications and services. The carrying strap made from solar cells will power the sensor unit and all the devices will "talk" to each other via low power near field radio technologies.

Concept phones are like concept cars: not designed for production. But the Eco shows the sort of things Nokia is considering for future products. And with the baby boomer population now entering old age, it's probably right on the money with the idea of incorporating health monitoring."

Via Guardian.co.uk

N'Djamina,The reason Zoe's Ark Charity workers have begun a hunger strike is they feel abandoned by the French Government and are concerned they will not receive a fair trial.

Former President Jimmy Carter has just returned from Darfur. He has been traveling with a group called "the Elders". They are attempting to negotiate a peace agreement.

200,000 Darfurians have been killed. 2.3 Million have been displaced out of their homes.

I first discovered this beautiful home while browsing fabprefab and fell in love with it immediately.

The miniHome is a four-season dwelling that offers a modern and comfortable living environment suitable for a wide range of climates. With passive solar heating and passive cooling, its own power utility, waste treatment center, and rainwater collection system, it uses some of the most efficient technology available and functions completely off-the-grid.

The miniHome SOLO measures 8'-6” in width, 36' in length, and 13'-6” in height, and is classified as a 'Travel Trailer' under Canada's CSA Z-240RV Standard, which means it does not require a police escort for transit on federal or international roadways. They've also just announced the miniHome DUO SE which provides a little more room and better energy performance.

Check out sustain.ca for additional info!

This is a map of an 'edible' town in the North of England.

It was created by architects Bohn and Viljoen as part of an initiative called Dott07, a year of design projects in the North East of England devoted to examining and visioning a sustainable region and supported by the Design Council and One NorthEast.

The map proposes a landscape plan for Middlesbrough that integrates food and water systems in to the future strategic planning of the town - and formed part of an urban agriculture project that I led there.

This month's Blueprint design magazine calls the idea of urban farming deeply dotty.

The magazine extols the virtues of globalised food production as a route to cheaper, affordable food and denies the value of home-grown food as a route to sustainable communities and economies.

Saying no to blueberries, editor Vicky Richardson writes, is all about gesture...

Just like putting a windmill on your roof, buying local food, or better still growing your own, shows that you are being responsible and 'doing your bit'.

O.K.

So what's the answer to global food price inflation, food shortages, the need for new controls and forthcoming water shortages?

Should we just not bother to respond to the fact that in developed countries, it takes ten calories worth of energy from fossil fuels - in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation and transportation fuel - to get one calorie back in the form of food?

I guess one answer is to go to the food hall at the swanky Harvey...

Unsubscribe-me.org offers an initiative to "unite against human rights abuse in the 'war on terror'." An interesting initiative. The audience action?; to sign up and add your name to another online community listing, but what else does it mean and do!?

Via. SwissMiss.

Born in 1945, designer-artist Barbara Kruger looks to be inspirational, in my search for revolutionary AND socially conscious Visual Communication. Reminded of her talent today, when I opened The Guardian Newspaper to find a "free artist wrapping paper" by the aforementioned artist, which screams Frantz Fanon's statement "Blind Idealism is Reactionary".

After attending Syracuse University and Parson’s School of Design in New York, Kruger obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. Working for Mademoiselle Magazine, she was quickly promoted to head designer. Later, she worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor in the art departments at House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications.

This background in design is evident in the work for which she is now internationally renowned. She layers found photographs from existing sources with pithy and aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to. In their trademark black letters against a slash of red background, some of her instantly recognizable slogans read I shop therefore I am, Buy me I'll change your life and Your body is a battleground. Much of her text questions the viewer about feminism, classicism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, although her black-and-white images are culled from the mainstream magazines that sell the very ideas she is disputing.

As well as appearing in museums and galleries...