Moving Beyond Sustainability: Seeking Authentic Rhetoric, Design, and Practice in an Ever-Changing and Complex World

Bambi Yost PhD in Design in Planning (ABD), Iowa State University
Leila Tolderlund University of Colorado
Lynn Paxson Ph.D., AICAE, AIA assoc. Iowa State University
Robert Flanagan University of Colorado
Joseph Juhasz University of Colorado

Learning Objectives:
- To question language, meaning, and intention related to sustainability, authenticity, and design
- To better understand cultural and physical factors which influence design thinking, design theory, design ideation, design applications, and design processes
- Challenge existing policies, standards, and limits on sustainable design and discuss other ways of doing things to allow for growth and regenerative design
- Define authenticity in a constantly changing culture and place

Session Abstract:

In this 1/2 day intensive, presenters will continue an on-going discussion about authenticity in today's world. Authentic design implies that there are accepted beliefs or norms or facts driving the design (at least within specific cultural groups) however, many of our practices and beliefs are mired in faulty assumptions, misused terms, poor word choices, and unchallenged evidence. How might we move past the limits of present-day sustainable design, past notions of sustaining anything, and into a more authentic way of being, seeing, and evolving in the 21st century?

As part of this intensive series, we will 1) challenge the status quo and the concept of parks, parking, and other oxymoron terms prevalent within our society asking important questions about how and why we name things in remembrance of that which we remove; 2) revisit the idea of Seqways and small electric powered machines as multi-modal opportunities for sustainable transportation design; 3) question the role of EDRA with respect to placemaking and Indigenous populations; 4) ask who has the right to the right-of-way and why?; and 5) challenge the idea of sustainability, introducing the concept of regenerative design which aims to push beyond USGBC LEED and Living Building Challenge certifications.

The Garage Underground

Joseph Juhasz

For my part in this intensive, I will introduce the multiple levels of un-innocent and thoroughly inauthentic word-play around the word "park". I hope that a vigorous discussion will follow and that we will be able to dream up a reality devoid either of Parkways or Driveways or Underground Parking Garages or especially of Underground Parking Garages buried under Parks--not to mention streets lined on both sides with "parked" cars.

I will try to lead the discussion by starting at the site of the conference and of the workshop and then moving outward therefrom. The aim is not merely a "sustainable" compromise with the "parked" car, the "parking place" not to mention The Garage Underground!

Electrifying the Mini Transportation Corridor: Segway Revisited

Robert Flanagan

Parking, the bane of the architect/developer's existence, mandates precious non-productive space be set aside for burdensome parking requirements. The traditional view is that the automobile is integral to core building and zoning considerations. Therefore, zoning codes stipulate the minimum parking requirement, i.e., .5-1.5 parking spaces/unit. Countless public/private strategies devised to ameliorate this burden have met with limited success.

While public transportation improves on the cost-environmental burden of the automobile, as do bicycles lanes and walk-to-work programs, nothing comparable to the promise of the 2001 Segway transportation device has taken hold--but an authentic substitution is emerging. The exuberant adaptation of the electric scooter is revolutionizing what Segway did not. Dedicated biking lanes are adapting to the grassroots popularity of battery-powered scooters, skateboards, and bicycle assists. The anticipation is that the mini-electric will at least partially displace burdensome automobile parking mandates and commuter lanes--the unfulfilled Segway promise. As urban lifestyles and behaviors adapt to these evolving technologies, sustainable strategies benefit.

Authenticity in Colonization and Resistance: Native Americans and Design Beliefs and Practices

Lynn Paxson

The Nations Within is how some people have described the population(s) of Indigenous people of the US. These peoples developed their places for thousands of years, the colonization of the "new world" changed this, it changed the places of most of the Peoples, and limited their choices and means to create their own places. On paper these Indigenous Peoples may be granted government to government status and sovereign independence and self-determination, however the reality has been for the colonizers to control the placemaking of the Indigenous Nations. Since the beginning EDRA has been concerned with participation, providing a voice and agency to marginalized users of environments. How can voices of Indigenous people be heard and how can they use their own design beliefs and practices in designing their everyday places or everyday place-making? Does edra and its work in the coming 50 years have a role to play in allowing or assisting Indigenous Peoples in making places that celebrate Indigenous core values and respect the cultures and environments they are part of? These topics will be explored using various contemporary Indigenous projects and examples.

The Right to the Right-of-Way - Residential Front Yard Gardening

Leila Tolderlund

This session suggest alternative ways to understand and use the space between the parked car and city dwellings, often referred to as the 'right-of-way'.

The right-of-way is typically defined as a legal right of passage over another owners ground. In cities and residential areas the land is typically used by public utilities(1) and is often referred to as the 'tree-lawn'. Although access is allowed through the right-of-way, the owner typically keep the privilege and benefit of the passageway land(scape).

(Re-)claiming the right-of-way for urban gardening has become increasing popular in residential areas. By nature, gardens holds the ability to be ephemeral and flexible, and can recover relatively quickly (within one growing season) if designed accordingly. Growing and gardening the right-of-way can help transform the threshold between the city and the private dwelling into a place of aesthetics, biodiversity, food production, and seasonal change.

Three case studies, documenting unconventional ways people garden their front yards in an old Victorian neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, will be used as a departure point for a discussion about the value and importance of interpreting and re-inventing the right-of-way. Additionally the discussion will focus on how to use the right to the city (2) and the right to the right of way to achieve more sustainable and democratic blue-green cities, one residential lot at a time. (1) Merriam Webster dictionary/right-of-way.

(2) Mitchell, D. (2018). Revolution and the critique of human geography: prospects for the right to the city after 50 years. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 100(1), 2-11.

Doing More Than Good: Designing for Regeneration, Evolution, & Growth

Bambi Yost

In this session, we will challenge definitions of sustainable design and ask important questions such as, What is sustainable design? What are we trying to sustain? Is there a magic moment in time that we wish to keep or maintain? How might we move beyond sustainability to something more authentic and more beneficial than simply "doing good?" Is regenerative design the answer or simply another buzz word?

In particular, we will explore the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's (CBF) Brock Environmental Center, an award-winning Platinum USGBC LEED (net-zero energy, waste, & water) & Living Building Challenge certified building located in Virginia Beach, VA. In this participatory design case study, ideas about current sustainability metrics and regenerative design, process-oriented design, living systems, and evolutionary building/site design will be shared.

Landscape architects have always designed with living, regenerative, and adaptive materials in mind. Students in my advanced, multi-disciplinary action-research studio collaborated with CBF, the Virginia Beach School District, 3-12th grade students and teachers, CBF educators, community members, professional architects and landscape architects, and others to create design documents for a 1,500 sq. ft. public classroom addition to the Brock Environmental Center. Living systems are a key component of this addition providing educational and experimental opportunities, enhanced HVAC and building efficiency, and new ways of thinking about evolutionary, regenerative buildings. Natural systems can, and should, be integrated into the built environment.

How might we help push sustainable design into a living systems, process-driven, user-based, regenerative future? What might the built environment of tomorrow become? And how might we best achieve it using biomimicry and complex adaptive systems thinking?