An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Indigenous Arctic Fish Skin Heritage: Sustainability, Craft and Material Innovation

The use of fish skin for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by coastal Arctic societies as a subsistence lifestyle depending on aquatic resources for food and clothing. Arctic Indigenous Peoples need formidable resourcefulness to thrive in inhospitable ecosystems; fish skins provide them physical and spiritual protection. During the last century, they resisted not only colonisation and repression by humans but also dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. Fish skin craft became a way to communicate traditional knowledge where practical benefits combined cultural resilience. As market goods have replaced traditional fish skin clothing, the need for the skills required to create these items have diminished. The decrease of local natural resources also threatens the craft. The focus of this research is primarily to propose a vision of sustainability as an anthropological study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples, their lifestyles, and fish skin practices. Secondarily it identifies the historical, cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic importance of fish skin as an innovative sustainable material, explored through the study of materials, processes and artefact analysis. Thirdly, the application of fish skin materials and craft practices has been tested through participatory workshops to explore how this material and the skill transmissions can contribute to sustainability practices in fashion. The contribution to knowledge is firstly the mapping of fish skin craft participatory practices with Artic Indigenous communities as this is the first time that such a survey has been undertaken. The material study of fish skin and its contribution to fashion sustainability forms a secondary contribution

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart”. IBA Berlin 1979 – 1987, the drawing as tool to read and disclose

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Costanzo, 1991, p.14) On the occasion of his direction of the Berlin International Bauausstellung (IBA 1979-1987) the German architect Josef Paul Kleihues referred to the fable of Antoine de Saint - Exupéry to encourage architects to awaken the values of ingenuity and imagination. He emphasized the Imago, as a point of reference and stable values at the base of human consciousness. The problem is based on the dialectic between tradition and modernity, the field of experimentation on which he himself elaborates the concept of "critical reconstruction". According to the architect, the rediscovery of the laws of the historic city is a decisive instrument for Berliners to recognize themselves in it. Another important concept which Kleihues placed at the base of his guidelines is the "poetic rationalism" presented during the Triennale di Milano exhibition entitled "The cities of the world of 1988 and the future of the metropolis". On this occasion, he maintained that "the possibility of a new rationalism exists only when the deterministic tendency is questioned by poetry". (Kleihues, 1989, p.57) Through this “poetic rationalism”, he criticizes the excessive bureaucracy that conditions and limits the creative process. One of the most interesting areas of the Berlin International Bauausstellung is the Südliche Friedrichstad. It is interesting to take into account the rules imposed by Josef Paul Kleihues about the permanence of the existing layout and the reconstruction of the continuity of the facades along the plot perimeter and to see how the architects Aldo Rossi and Rem Koolhaas stand about these principles. The proposed study investigates their interpretation of the concept of "poetic rationalism" through drawing, considered by the author as a fundamental interpretative, creative and cognitive activity

CHANCES. Practices, Spaces and Buildings in Cities' Tranformation

CHANCES has been an international conference that was aimed to explore, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the fragile but continuous urban transformation through the effective contribution of culture, nature and technology. The aim of this conference was to provide a deeper understanding of urban transformations’ research and practices, focusing on the use, re-use, design, renovation and innovative governance and management of public spaces, urban commons and buildings. We believe that these thoughts will largely contribute to shape and increase sustainable design, construction and planning in constant cities’ transformation. Contributions could build on reflections and studies concerning current or historical approaches that are changing or drastically changed the cities we lived in

Indigenous Arctic Fish Skin Heritage: Sustainability, Craft and Material Innovation

The use of fish skin(1) for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by coastal Arctic societies as a subsistence lifestyle(2) depending on aquatic resources for food and clothing. Arctic Indigenous(3) Peoples(4) need formidable resourcefulness to thrive in inhospitable ecosystems; fish skins provide them physical and spiritual protection(5). During the last century, they resisted not only colonisation and repression by humans but also dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. Fish skin craft became a way to communicate traditional knowledge where practical benefits combined cultural resilience(6). As market goods have replaced traditional fish skin clothing, the need for the skills required to create these items have diminished. The decrease of local natural resources also threatens the craft. The focus of this research is primarily to propose a vision of sustainability as an anthropological study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples, their lifestyles, and fish skin practices. Secondarily it identifies the historical, cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic importance of fish skin as an innovative sustainable material, explored through the study of materials, processes and artefact analysis. Thirdly, the application of fish skin materials and craft practices has been tested through participatory workshops to explore how this material and the skill transmissions can contribute to sustainability practices in fashion. The contribution to knowledge is firstly the mapping of fish skin craft participatory practices with Artic Indigenous communities as this is the first time that such a survey has been undertaken. The material study of fish skin and its contribution to fashion sustainability forms a secondary contribution. 1 Within this thesis, the terms fish skin and fish leather are used to indicate different processes of the same material. Fish skin. Skin indicates the superficial dermis of an animal. In the thesis fish skin is referred as the historical raw material tanned following traditional methods: mechanical, oiling, smoking, bark, brain, urine, fish eggs and corn flour tanning. Fish Leather is used to indicate that the fish skin has passed one or more stages of industrial vegetable or chrome tanning production and is ready to be used to produce leather goods. 2 Subsistence activities of hunting, herding, fishing and gathering continue to be of major significance to the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic in providing food, social relationships and cultural identity. 3 Indigenous Peoples are descent from the populations which inhabited a geographical region at the time of colonisation and who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions. In this thesis, I use the terms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Native’ interchangeably. In some countries, one of these terms may be favoured over the other. 4 The specific Arctic Indigenous groups with historical evidence of fish leather production are the Inuit, Yup’ik and Athabascan of Alaska and Canada; the various Siberian peoples, such as the Nivkh and Nanai; the Ainu from the Hokkaido Island in Japan and Sakhalin Island, Russia; the Hezhe from northeast China and the Saami of northern Scandinavia. 5 Arctic Indigenous Peoples believed that humans, animals and nature shared spiritual qualities. Arctic seamstresses decorated hunters’ fish skin clothing with motifs imbued with spirits, which gave protection from danger. 6 Arctic Indigenous Peoples have become a symbol of cultural resilience, actively adapting to colonisation, place dislocation due to land dispossession and resettlement, challenging the persistence of Indigenous knowledge systems

Sustainability in design: now! Challenges and opportunities for design research, education and practice in the XXI century

Copyright @ 2010 Greenleaf PublicationsLeNS project funded by the Asia Link Programme, EuropeAid, European Commission

The Whitworthian 1963-1964

The Whitworthian student newspaper, September 1963-May 1964.https://digitalcommons.whitworth.edu/whitworthian/1047/thumbnail.jp

Bestsellers in Nineteenth-Century America

Bestsellers in Nineteenth Century America seeks to produce for students novels, poems and other printed material that sold extremely well when they first appeared in the United States. Many of the most famous American works of the nineteenth century that we know today — such as Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick — were not widely read when they first appeared. This collection seeks to offer its readers a glimpse at the literature that lit up the literary horizon when the works were first published, leading to insights on key cultural aspects of the nineteenth-century United States and its literary culture

The Granite Monthly, a New Hampshire magazine, devoted to literature, history, and state progress. vol. 55

Covers January - December, 1923. Vol. LV, Nos. 1-1