Abstract
In this chapter, we provide with a brief historical overview of the encounter between design and the global environment in the Anthropocene, investigating the moment when the traditional figures of conception (namely the engineer and the architect) merged under the single term “design”. We then offer a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of design today, and the crucial role of designers next to engineers. We more particularly look at the issue of scales (space scale and time scale) in the context of the ecological crisis, and at the significance and the usefulness of an approach in terms of the “milieu” rather than of the environment. We show that the articulation of global and local is possible, as is possible a transition both digital and ecological, and that the important distinction is not between global and local design, but between two ideas of eco-design.
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Notes
- 1.
By contrast, one could quote the architect and designer Alvar Aalto, who never ceased to emphasize that art, contrariwise to technology, has to be anchored in that variability of the milieu (Aalto 2012 [1997], p.162).
- 2.
In France we used to speak of “industrial estheticism” and “milieu”, provided that estheticism is about the insertion into the milieu inasmuch as about beauty, as Gilbert Simondon exemplifies.
- 3.
New Territories/ R& Sie, Dusty Relief (2002). By François Roche, Stephanie Lavaux, and Jean Navarro.
- 4.
In an interview with Heinrich, Sloterdijk acknowledges his intellectual debt to architects, pioneers and visionaries of spherology, and quotes: Bruno Taut, Vladimir Tatline, Constantin Melkinov and Hermann Finsterlin (Sloterdijk 2011).
- 5.
The history of ecodesign proposed by Peder Anker (2010) takes place in America. It ignores divergences within the field, one effect of this view being to reduce ecology to the environment.
- 6.
According to Jonathan Massey “Fuller conceptualized design as the art of reconciling systemic rationalization with individual initiative” in order to solve the contradiction between his “technocratic conviction that there existed only ‘one best way’” and his belief in the “superiority of democratic governance and market economies” (Massey 2009: 191).
- 7.
One could make another bold comparison: in the World Game as in Facebook, the world has only friends.
- 8.
“Unlike the term environment, which denote one’s surroundings in a objectified sense, ecology by its very inclusiveness implied interconnectedness” (Todd and Todd 1994:3). However, the “New Alchemy Institute [1969–1991] to restore the Land, protect the seas, and inform the Earth’s stewards” (Todd and Todd 1994, p.172–174) is a good example of biological design, which opposes in every respect the Living Machines and the Conventional technologies. It is also a good example of environmentalism without political ecology…
- 9.
It is instructive that one of the guidelines for action of the DEsign EDucation & Sustainability (DEED) Project led (among others) by Alastair Fuad-Luke was entitled ‘SCALES’.
- 10.
As Professor Lorenz Hilty underlined in his conference at Lift in 2016: 1) Despite Moore’s Law, we are using more material for ICT hardware, 2) Despite Koomey’s Law, we are using more and more energy for ICT services. 3) Despite increasing service-sector outputs, total requirements are not decreasing.
- 11.
Ouishare and Openstate organized this eco-hacking event from August 15th to September 20th, 2015. In reference to the 21st “Conference of the Parties” (COP) of the UNFCCC, it was named “Proof of Concept” (POC).
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Petit, V., Guillaume, B. (2018). Scales of Design: Ecodesign and the Anthropocene. In: Vermaas, P., Vial, S. (eds) Advancements in the Philosophy of Design. Design Research Foundations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73302-9_22
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