Designing Systems Interventions for Better Air Quality in Pittsburgh

Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design

Transition Design Seminar 2022, Assignment 5
Team Strange Attractor: Alexis Morrell, Emily Edlich, Hannah Kim, Kristian Pham, and Shariq M. Shah

Poor air quality in Pittsburgh is a wicked problem. If we’ve learned anything this semester, it’s that wicked problems are deeply entangled, multiscalar, and systemic. If we hope to design systems interventions for these problems, they must be just as connected and resilient: one standalone solution cannot contribute to lasting change.

For such a design, we should aim to:

• work across different sectors and scales
• create resilience through synergies
• involve diverse stakeholders to encourage future, healthy relationships

Our Process

Previous Work

Before we started thinking of how we might intervene in the system, we had to understand the problem, the system, and those involved, including those who are disadvantaged by the system or who may not have a voice. The following research activities helped us to do so:

• Mapping Wicked Problems | Poor Air Quality in Pittsburgh
• Stronger Stakeholder Relations Could Improve Pittsburgh’s Air Quality
• Multi Level Perspective Mapping | Poor Air Quality in Pittsburgh
• Designing for Transitions

All of our previous work, along with the accompanying readings from Terry Irwin and Gideon Kossoff’s Transition Design Seminar, informed where and how we chose our systems interventions: we used our wicked problem map to help us identify systems interventions across sectors; our stakeholder relations map helped us generate creative ways to achieve difficult stakeholder buy-in (U.S. Steel); Multi Level Perspective mapping helped us to understand our current regime and surface potential niche innovations that could disrupt the regime; and our futuring and backcasting map (Designing for Transitions) provided our team with the space to find multiscalar solutions and to creatively and boldly envision a future in which Pittsburgh has pristine air.

Each step of the process was important in how we approached the next, and as we moved forward we did not forget our previous work. On the contrary, it reinforced it and helped us to understand Pittsburgh’s air quality with greater depth, intention, and sensitivity.

Designing Our Systems Interventions

We followed the Transition Design Institute’s Designing for Systems Interventions template. In doing so, we mapped our systems interventions along two axes:

• sector (Infrastructure/Technology/Science, Politics/Governance/Legal, Business/Economic, Social, and Environmental)
• scale (Household, Neighborhood, City, State/Region, Nation, and Planet)

We had thought in terms of sector for our Wicked Problem Mapping and in terms of scale for our Designing for Transitions project. It is important for us to identify where each intervention lies in terms of both so that we can garner the support needed at each level to affect change piece by piece. After all, systems change is unlikely to happen all at once or overnight, and it is important that we consider this as we design.

Along with considering sector and scale, we also aimed to incorporate what we learned from Transition Design Seminar readings. In particular, we aimed to:

• encourage the use of local resources
• build community
• transition away from harmful fossil fuels
• create material and non-material solutions
• identify and promote synergies

Interventions

Designing Systems Interventions map for poor air quality in Pittsburgh, PA.

When designing our systems interventions, we noticed three synergistic themes emerge:

• energy ⚡️
• reuse and repair ♻️
• grow 🌺

Having these synergies at different levels of sector and scale will allow the systems interventions to be more resilient. If one intervention fails or does not work as intended, another intervention can be leveraged to regain system balance.

Additional research has been done to find existing programs that synergize well with proposed interventions. Interventions have also been given titles to help frame their proposal and make them more memorable and easier to garner support from grassroots organizations and groups that are well-funded. Descriptive connecting lines help to explain the synergized connections.

Energy ⚡️

The systems interventions for Energy and the synergies between them.

Energy was one synergistic theme to emerge. Within this theme there were several subthemes: renewable energy alternatives are considered for homes and transportation; rewarding alternative forms of energy; education for green energy jobs; factories turning into recycling facilities and maker spaces; and decreasing utility usage.

Interventions

• Rays Your Roof | Each household is powered by solar energy.
• CONNECT Pittsburgh | Revamp Pittsburgh’s public transportation services, focusing on incentives to increase long-term ridership through existing CONNECT system. Public transportation is now free and electric.
• Amassed Production | Transforming old factories and power plants into robust recycling facilities and free public maker spaces. Public maker spaces receive free resources sourced locally from the recycling facilities.
• The National Circuit | Fund EV charging and invest in electric public transportation nationally.
• The Clean Ride Act | Proposed measure to phase out new gasoline-powered private vehicles.
• Re-Factory | A government incentive to help industry level producers (like U.S. Steel) transition their businesses to become local and regional recyclers.
• Paris Climate Agreement: 2060 | As an extension of the Paris Climate Agreement, nations pledge to transition infrastructure to hydrogen-based energies by 2060.
• Save at Home | Households are required to share accountability and responsibility for their utility usage.
• Alternative Energy Credit | Neighborhoods that implement renewable and hydrogen-based energies receive tax breaks and are tracked using existing Renewable Energy Credits framework, which will be adapted to include hydrogen-based energies.
• Green Job Initiative | Establish a trade program that teaches the skills necessary for green energy. The program will leverage support from existing organizations, such as the Pittsburgh Green Jobs Program when applicable for specific locales.

Synergies between Interventions

• The Alternative Energy Credit is an incentive at the local level that encourages people to apply for the Green Job Initiative, which helps train the local workforce needed to get more AECs.
• The Green Job Initiative can help industry level producers transition their workforce into industry level recyclers. Re-Factory can help provide jobs to newly qualified green energy workers.
• Training workers to have the skills necessary for green energy jobs (Green Job Initiative) will help provide the workforce needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement: 2060.
• The National Circuit will help our nation to meet the Paris Climate Agreement: 2060, both in terms of EV charging and electric public transportation (nationally and on a local level).
• Local public transportation (CONNECT Pittsburgh) can now more easily transition to EV-only, thanks to The National Circuit funding.
• CONNECT Pittsburgh can provide a free form of EV public transportation for those who cannot afford to buy an electric vehicle or for those who prefer to travel in an electric vehicle.
• The National Circuit helps reduce the financial burden of transitioning public transportation vehicles to electric (The Clean Ride Act).
• Newly transitioned industry level recyclers (Re-Factory) can provide locally-recycled resources for the free public maker spaces (Amassed Production) from shut down factories and power plants.
• Rays Your Roof will help transition away from fossil fuel usage, helping to transition toward the renewable energies required in the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Understanding the household’s utility usage (Save at Home) and the amount of solar power generated (Rays Your Roof) will allow households to make more informed energy-usage decisions.
• Rays Your Roof will allow neighborhoods to collect Alternative Energy Credit, receiving a tax break.

Reuse and Repair ♻️

The systems interventions for Reuse and Repair and the synergies between them.

Reuse and Repair was another synergistic theme to emerge. Within this theme there were several subthemes: encouraging reuse, repair, repurposing, and proper recycling; old factories becoming recycling facilities and free public maker spaces; recycled resources returning to regional communities as free public resources; and globally people are encouraged to live locally, share resources, and conserve.

Interventions

• Co/Re: Coworking + Recycling | Flex spaces where residents collaborate to upcycle waste and discarded materials, for example mending existing products, growing food, and making new products.
• Amassed Production | Transforming old factories and power plants into robust recycling facilities and free public maker spaces. Public maker spaces receive free resources sourced locally from the recycling facilities.
• Re-Factory | A government incentive to help industry level producers (like U.S. Steel) transition their businesses to become local and regional recyclers.
• Waste Less Home | Educational campaign that encourages and shows individuals how to reuse, repurpose, and donate unwanted and unused goods. When an item cannot be repurposed, individuals are encouraged to properly recycle.
• Live Locally. Benefit Globally. | Global educational campaign that aims to encourage community-building with a focus on shared resources and conservation.

Synergies between Interventions

• The Waste Less Home and the Live Locally. Benefit Globally. campaigns both have a focus on local resource use and community buidling.
• Re-Factory provides a strong incentive for industry level producers to move to recycling, allowing individuals to Live Locally. Benefit Globally.
• Re-Factory helps industry level producers (like U.S. Steel) to become regional and local recycling facilities. Those that don’t become recycling facilities become maker spaces.
• Providing maker spaces and materials through Amassed Production will help individuals to Live Locally. Benefit Globally.
• Regionally recycled goods (Amassed Production) become the raw materials for neighborhood maker spaces (Co/Re).
• Individuals who learn how to reuse and repurpose goods from Waste Less Home use their newly found talents at Co/Re maker spaces.

Grow 🌺

The systems interventions for Grow and the synergies between them.

Grow was the last theme to emerge. Within this theme there were several subthemes: encouraging diverse local means for food production and consumption; reusing waste to grow food; providing resources for households to garden; restoring forests by planting trees, especially in areas affected by wildfires and drought; and planting trees in public urban spaces.

Interventions

• Co/Re: Coworking + Recycling | Flex spaces where residents collaborate to upcycle waste and discarded materials, for example mending existing products, growing food, and making new products.
• Growing Roots | Create collective community empowerment at a grassroots level through urban networks of planting, agriculture, and food production.
• Live Locally. Benefit Globally. | Global educational campaign that aims to encourage community-building with a focus on shared resources and conservation.
• Backyard Garden | Households are supplied a garden bed, seeds, and educational resources to grow food in their backyards.
• Beautify Pittsburgh | Trees are planted in parks and public spaces in collaboration with Tree PGH and Western PA Conservancy.
• Fund Our Forests | National funding is provided to replant degraded forests, beginning with areas that have been affected by wildfires and drought.

Synergies between Interventions

• Co/Re shows households how they can grow their own Backyard Gardens and provides them with compost for fertilizer.
• Community empowerment for growing food at the grassroots level (Growing Roots) leads to increased interest in growing Backyard Gardens at the household level.
• Communities are empowered to grow food at local levels (Growing Roots), further reinforcing the global Live Locally. Benefit Globally. educational campaign.
• A growing interest in Fund Our Forests synergizes well with the conservation aspect of the Live Locally. Benefit Globally. campaign.
• Pride in our growing national forests (Fund Our Forests) could lead to an increased pride in the trees planted in our local communities (Beautify Pittsburgh) and vice versa.
• Teaching communities to grow at the city level (Growing Roots) leads them to want to grow trees for parks and public spaces (Beautify Pittsburgh).
• Co/Re maker spaces encourage individuals to Live Locally. Benefit Globally.

Conclusion

Though wicked problems are messy, they are resilient. That’s part of what makes them wicked. To counteract the messy, tangled interconnectedness of wicked problems, we must design connected, synergistic interventions that meet individuals’ and communities’ needs at different levels.

Our group attempted to do just that. When implemented, we hope that these interventions can help provide lasting solutions for Pittsburgh’s poor air quality.

At surface level, some of our interventions may appear to be tangential (especially within the Grow category). However, the Grow category focuses on the local growth of vegetation, which greatly reduces the need for the transportation of goods on a global scale. Such global reduction over time greatly improves the air quality not only in Pittsburgh, but globally.