The 11th Hour (37 of 49)

The 11th Hour

" And that energy needs to come from renewable sources, principally the sun...
and water needs to be clean and healthy as it goes through a system...
and we have to treat each other with justice and fairness.
So the design itself changes...
from mass production of things that are essentially destructive...
to mass utilization of things that are inherently assets instead of liabilities.
Our project today, for a new generation of designers...
is the welfare of all of life as a practical objective.
It goes beyond ourselves to include the entire ecological realm.
That all of life is actually a design project today.
That we have to design the capacity to sustain it in the long run.

Whether we' re talking about the design of a factory or a building...
or a road or even a town...
It 's much easier to design in isolation...
than superimpose a design on what exists.
But if we were to follow nature's operating instructions...
It designs in exactly the opposite way.
It brings onto the palette, so to speak, all of the kingdoms of life...
and then works symphonically to create an end result...
which might be a coral reef or might be a forest.
Well, you know, the interesting thing about sustainable design...
is that I don't think it has to look in any particular way.
One of the things that we discovered in the last few years...
is the new design is actually invisible.
It 's not about a visual boundary.