Critical Contextualisation

Published in

DesignStudies1

8 min readJul 17, 2019

“What we really ought to fear is not ‘oblivion’, but rather irretrievable decline” Bruce Sterling (2005)

Starting off with a somewhat scary insight, but one that is most importantly a realistic one sets the tone for the state of our planets welfare. Rather than worrying about the inevitable worlds end with grim current affairs, our actions that lead us to the point in which the damage becomes irreversible is the real test for your peace of mind.

We as designers have the capability to alter the path our future takes.

Design is a key factor of modern day life, influencing almost every decision people make. Using this power, designers can alter the way we look at products through educating people on what will benefit the planet and what products, ingredients and materials add to the problem. However, not all designers put their skills to good use.

Erik Spiekermann states:

“Whatever our good intentions may be, we cannot ignore that the reality that design is a business and has to live by the rules of business.”

A true statement that humans would cease to function without business, as sadly without it technology wouldn’t be as advanced as it is today without competition. But now we’ve came to the realisation that how ‘advanced’ we are may well be the reason for our planets destruction. Modernisation led to materialism and consumerism which has put us in the position we are in today.

Spiekermann adds:

“And as we have seen recently, those rules need to be rewritten”

The rules of business do need to be rewritten, making way for further improvement, trying to fix the damage that has already been done before it is too late.

A scary example of how powerful design can be when it comes to branding is Fiji Water. The branding of the bottled water somehow has the ability to make people pay more for water than for refined gasoline. The company presents themselves as environmentally friendly, stating that they help reduce carbon emissions and protect Fijian rainforest. But the reality is; their production plant runs on diesel fuel 24 hours a day, the plastic used to make their water bottles is transported from China to Fiji then to America once filled with water and nearly seven litres of water is contaminated manufacturing just one 1 litre bottle through a stretch-blow mold method.

This is not a sustainable company and portraying so to the world is a blatant lie.

Design for the environment (DfE) is a programme which has the sole purpose of “incorporating environmental considerations into the design of manufacturing processes and finished products.” Each year, this process successfully prevents millions of pounds of waste through creating new manufacturing methods and ensuring products are made to have a longer lifetime and be more efficient, as well as incorporating the distribution and disposal of their products into account.

Victor Papanek in his book titled “Design for the Real World” states:

“Design, if it is to be ecologically responsible and socially responsive, must be revolutionary and radical in the truest sense.
It must dedicate itself to nature’s principle of least effort.
That means consuming less, using things longer, recycling materials, and probably not wasting paper printing books.”

If design is to be put to good use like Papanek suggests, it must be forward thinking, encompassing a “less is more” outlook. Designing for a reason- for the future, not just for the moment.

This diagram presents ideas for improving sustainability within design, starting off by using Industrial ecology. This science studies industrial systems in order to find new ways to lessen their environmental impact.

A smart shift in approach towards handling pollution is simply avoiding it. If there is no pollution being pumped into the world there is, there is no need for treatment.

screenshot from Extinction Rebellion website

Another aspect of our planet that is under great threat is the increased rate of animal extinction. A new peaceful protest movement called the ‘Extinction Rebellion’ states how species around the world are going extinct at a rate of 1,000 times faster than compared to the Earth’s past.

The Extinction Rebellion has put in a great deal of effort into the design of their movement, creating a range of beautifully designed posters that give a powerful message through imagery and typography used. This draws more attention to the aims of the protests, having seen numerous posters pasted up around the city giving details of demands, facts and statistics and clever plays on imagery. Using an interesting and unique style of design for something such as important and urgent as global warming is a great way in drawing as much attention to the matter as possible, and a great example of design being put to good use.

image of pasted up posters in support of the Extinction Rebellion.

Continuing on from the topic of increased rate of extinction of our planets beloved animals and ecosystems, another area which needs attention to it is the work that goes on across the world within zoo’s. Zoo standards are monitored by associations starting off from the RZSS, to the EASA and covering the world; WAZA . These organisations ensure a high standard of zoo enclosures are met, animals are looked after and that conservation is the number one priority.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland strives to “connect people with nature and to safeguard threatened species.” Working with Edinburgh Zoo and the Highland Wildlife Park, educating, spreading awareness and highlighting the importance of helping endangered animals and continuing scientific research on species across the world.

Sadly, one of the most detrimental factors to the safekeeping of a species is human activity. The way we live our lives can affect species at the other side of the world quite often without us knowing, this is an are that RZSS wants to focus on, educating visitors, children and their parents, family and friends on what actions adding to increasing levels of endangerment can be brought back to us.

A way this can be done is through installations placed throughout the grounds of the zoo, in enclosures, playgrounds, walkways etc. Having being tasked with the job of designing a micro-memorial for RZSS Edinburgh Zoo with the aim of engaging and educating visitors in the topic of humanities responsibility within animal conservation, a great deal of research was put into action so we could make ourselves aware of areas within the zoo which needed aiding.

An area in which we felt passionately about is the zoo’s three species of lemur. 95 per cent of all known the species and subspecies of lemur is expected to be at a very high risk of extinction, making them the most endangered primates in the world. Lemurs are at great risk due to several factors led by humans.

Destruction of their natural habitat the tropical rainforest in Madagascar with illegal tree logging and charcoal production and mining being the primary causes.
Lemurs are also increasingly illegally hunted for restaurant food and captured for the pet trade.

An are we wanted to touch on is when imagining a lemur it seemed to be common to think of the recognisable ring-tailed lemur, forgetting about the red-bellied lemur and the crowned lemur species that also have a home in Edinburgh Zoo. We felt that it only seemed fair to draw some more attention to these two species of lemurs as well as the more recognisable ring-tailled lemur.

The intended function of our design is act as an interactive device which will attract the attention of a younger demographic.We wanted to create a design which appears fun and child friendly, whilst also educating and making children aware of endangered species.

Since social media plays such a key role in society we incorporated hashtags on the design which invites parents to share Edinburgh Zoo’s conservation strategies within the photo opportunity, opening up the memorial to a wider audience outside of visitors of the zoo.

#swingintoaction

is the hashtag created for the memorial. A play on words related to how lemurs swing from tree to tree.

The design was inspired by the Madagascan BaoBao trees. Lemurs like to spend a lot of their time up in the tree tops, inspiring the nature of our design that allows the users to hang from its branches.

Text is engraved on each of the pieces within the memorial. Starting at the base of the memorial the text states the reasons for lemurs being endangered, like the root of a tree they are the roots of the issue (deforestation, loneliness habitat loss, hunting). Working your way up the memorial on the ‘branches’ there are further engravings stating several ways in which visitors could do their part in helping lemurs be saved from extinction. For example,

Adopting a lemur; a subscription with in which money raised helps aid and fund research and improve enclosures etc. There are different levels of subscriptions which give different levels of access, so it’t up to the person how much they are willing to donate.
Donating to the zoo; money donated goes straight toward the RZSS charity.
Volunteer; the zoo gives visitors the opportunity to volunteer in animal enclosures through paying to be ‘a zoo keeper for the day’. This allows visitors to gain access to enclosures with activities such as feeding the animals.

Furthermore, we took into account how our memorial could be used on a larger scale throughout the zoo, opening it up to other animal walk-through enclosures. By adding a featrure which would incorporate a playful aspect of collecting a series of engraved animal paw-prints that children can take rubbings on with paper, this would open up the design and encourage visitors to visit areas of the zoo they perhaps never knew about.