Lea Schick is the editor and moderator of this debate forum. During the RETHINK exhibition she will facilitate the RETHINK Technology discussions here on her blog. We will very much encourage you to participate in the debate!

Use full technology for a greener future

“Will technology save us all?
Yes - But only if we RETHINK our perception of energy consumption and the role of technology” (Entwistle)

In her article, Rethink energy consumption and the role of technology, Johanne Mose Entwistle presents eleven meaningful voices that constitute the emotional, social and cultural meaning of energy consumption, which we will have to take into account in order to rethink our perception of energy consumption and the role of technology. Her article is based on the major anthropological research and development project ‘Minimum Configuration Home Automation’ carried out by the Alexandra Institute in order to find methods to make use full home automation technology that can help us reduce our consumption of energy.

“The voices point towards a role for technology as a helping hand and an added value in everyday life.” (Entwistle)

Read her article and learn more about how to take all levels of individual, social, and societal life into account to design use full technology for a greener future. Is this survey sufficient? Is it applicable to the design of technology you work with?
 

Comments

Rachel Armstrong: Is sustainability enough?

Advanced Technology enables us to fundamentally rethink our relationship to the environment and can have a radical effect in developing solutions to climate change. It is important not just to focus on energy based solutions alone and address the fundamental causes of Global Warming - the production of greenhouse gases. We currently aspire to 'carbon neutrality' in our development practices. However, with anticipated population growth associated with urbanization we will feel the full effects of the effects of our environmentally toxic buildings that we currently produce. Using current building practices the most we can hope for is an innocuous environmental presence. The time for sustainable development has long passed. What we need instead of sustainable development are development approaches that can remedy and heal the environment. Our current aspirations for environmental health are simply not ambitious enough. We must aim to produce architectures that benefit the environment, not harm it or remain
'impartial'. Although we have not yet reached a point of developmental 'neutrality' our long term endpoint should be high. We need to be even more creative with our strategies for human development and find ways in which human activity can have a positive effect on the biosphere.

This may be possible using Living Technology and new technological systems such as, the protocell. I am researching the technological potential of this programmable, environmentally responsive technology, with colleagues architect Neil Spiller and chemist Martin Hanczyc and are currently engineering the protocell system to make materials that are capable of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the built environment.

A protocell is a primordial molecular globule, situated in the environment through the laws of physics and connected through the language of chemistry. Uniquely, protocell technology possesses a material simplicity
that forms through self-assembly. Yet the globule can become dynamic because it has an embedded chemical metabolism.

Protocells can be made from pre-existing biological materials or can be fabricated from scratch using a highly simplified set of organic and inorganic chemicals. This protocell globule can possess life-like properties but yet is engineered as a material. This gives this type of matter the ability to self-regulate in response to cues from its environment.

We are investigating the potential architectural outcomes of this new technology as Protocell Architecture, to generate the first buildings that will have a restorative impact on the environment.
02-12-2009
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Contributions for RETHINK TECHNOLOGY

 

ABOUT RETHINK TECHNOLOGY

Experts estimate that in order to avoid catastrophic conditions, we must reduce our CO2 emissions by 90% within the next four decades. But the people of the developed world are reluctant to embrace austerity, and the people of the developing world desire for themselves the goods and lifestyles that developed countries enjoy. New technologies and design solutions are our only hope of bridging the divide between the human desire for luxury and the ever-sharper threat our changing climate promises us. New inventions and technological implementations have an essential role to play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as improving living conditions for the millions if not billions of people who will be negatively affected by climate change. Some argue that we are on the edge of a new industrial revolution, marked by renewable energy and green technologies. But unlike the first industrial revolution, this second, green revolution will be ineffective unless these technologies are made accessible to both developed and developing states, many of which will be among the nations most profoundly affected by climate change.

What can be done to make this vital, green technology accessible to all the people of the world? How can the challenge of serving local and at times unique situations and needs around the globe be met? How can we design and invent our way to a more sustainable lifestyle in the limited time that we have left? How can technologies make it possible for us to change the way we consume without reducing our standards of living? And can artists and designers contribute in the development of new creative solutions?

We here encourage you to read and discuss if and how new renewable technologies, green design solutions, techno-geological fixes, awareness technologies, and so on will possibly influence our lives in the future and perhaps help us to both mitigate and reverse the course of climate change as well as adapt to the inevitable changes we are already beginning to experience.

 

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Discuss the RETHINK TECHNOLOGY contributions on the blog to the left.