Breaking the ice!
27.09.2022
It’s a beautiful day out! Head over to the hunter building early in the morning for the reading group. It was a chill and relaxing session to know each other for the first time. Govian is trying his best to get everyone comfortable, seating in a circle, so that we’re closer to everyone. It was a short and sweet session. Nice to hear the reason why everyone chooses this course. Whether they were forced or it was their first choice, it is still interesting to hear everyone’s first thoughts on the subject. Everyone was from different courses, countries, and of course, very different backgrounds. An hour was not really enough to really introduce ourselves but it’s nice to know a little bit about everyone.
Lets take a loot at these amazing view of our classroom! I am still amazed everytime. Edinburgh landscapes has never been more than amazing.
Heading over to the next day –
Theme 1: Experience and the environment
Design and humans. We’re pretty much apart of each other. But do we actually benefit both parties? Or only one of us is making more benefit than the other?
Some of the points that I found interesting in the lecture were:
- The environment is never complete, is like an endless construction. As a living thing on this earth (as a human) there’s always a new cycle, or a reused one. I don’t see anything that has an end. Even if any of those things end up in landfills, it really never ends. If anything were ever disposed of, it probably did end up somewhere. Whereas from the natural world, it’s the same cycle, whether it’s organism or grass, they are fed or feeding others.
In an age of mass production when everything must be
planned and designed, design has become the most
powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and
environments (and, by extension, society and himself).
This demands high social and moral responsibility from
the designer. It also demands greater understanding of
the people, by those who practise design, and more
insight into the design process, by the public.
– Victor Papanek, 1977[1971]: 9
- It can be said that humans or designers had influenced or affected a high percentage of what has happened to the environment. There’s a good and bad side to this. Designers’ pure intention was to make it liveable for humans to inhabit this world by making a different environment for us. But that can separate us from the natural environment which is an issue the world is facing right now.
- Some people will find themselves to be inseparable from nature like the indigenous people. It’s like life and death for them. Whereas it’s different for people who live in the 21st century. They consider plants and animals as person and that they are living together.
Summarizing what I have learned:
Humans or designers are said to make major changes to the environment. But there are actually reasons why such things happen. What can be avoided and what cannot be avoided. Or limited resources and such. It is hard even up until today to blend ourselves with nature. But looking at the brighter side, we might want to look at the world as something that is continuously changing. to be better. Designers strive to make things better, to reinvent, and to repair.
Love, aliah
You raise some helpful questions in this post, particularly as you reflect on the various ways in which people understand and act on their relationship with their environment.