Useful reading and viewing materiels

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (Audio-CD)

by William McDonough and Michael Braungart;
with Stephen Hoye (reader)
Published by Tantor Media (2008)

McDonough and Braungart argue that the traditional recycling and eco-efficiency approach does not actually prevent ecosystem damage but merely delays it because wastes will eventually be landfilled along with the toxic substances (described as a “cradle to grave” scenario). They contend that the end of a product’s usefulness should provide nourishment for something new; thus, their design philosophy is based on the principle of “waste equals food.” It takes nature as the model (e.g. animals die and their carcasses feed fungi and microbes) for

developing sustainable products and systems and “ecoeffectiveness” of materials and material flows becomes the new standard.

The authors call for a new level of eco-consciousness among product designers, architects and corporations. Their philosophy can inspire innovation in the manufacture of products and design of the built environment. They prescribe strategies that give importance to design and planning as solutions to protect the environment. But because of this focus on design as the solution, some of their envisioned scenarios may seem too good to be true. Nevertheless, the book provides hopeful vision especially for product designers and architects to create things that are not just “less bad” but that are 100% recyclable, toxin-free, and therefore positively good for the environment.

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash

Edited by Elizabeth Royte
Published by Little, Brown and Company (2005)

Elizabeth Royte, a journalist who lives in New York City, tracked down where the solid and liquid wastes generated in her household go. She started by carefully quantifying the things that end up in their trash and this investigation leads her on a garbage route leading to the landfill. Along the way she encounters sanitation workers and men and women in facilities where wastes are diverted from the landfill – composting farm, paper recycling center, scrap metal yard, (hazardous) metals reclamation center, electronic waste transfer station, plastic recycling plant, and sewage treatment plant.

The book is an enlightening look at the propensity of people to discard because of upwardly mobile lifestyles, the continuously growing waste stream, technological fixes, and how the waste that we generate can circle back to bite us (i.e. groundwater contamination, air pollution, high toxicity levels of farm produce). The author’s exploration into her own trash trail is interesting.

The information in this book encourages one to look out for environmental benefits in purchasing a product, like being conscious of toxic ingredients as well as the percentage of recycled content in the packaging. Ultimately, it reminds us that both environmentally-responsible producers and consumers are needed so that our garbage trail may lead us to sustainability.

The Edifice Complex:How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World

by Deyan Sudjic
Published by the Penguin Press (2005)

Architecture critic Deyan Sudjic explores the edifice complex or the tendency of politicians to erect massive structures to perpetuate their power and preserve their legacy. He shows how architecture was used as a political tool and as an expression of power by twentieth-century autocrats such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and Saddam Hussein. He gives a wide range of examples of grandiose buildings created to glorify a leader, to establish an identity for a nation, or as an attempt to make a mark for immortality. Some of these buildings effectively impressed while others were considered monumental failures.

Sudjic also gives us an inside look into the careers of prominent architects who design these buildings and their relationship with rich and powerful clients. These include early modernists such as Mies Van der Rohe and Phillip Johnson to contemporary architects such as Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, and Renzo Piano. A short section on Imelda Marcos and Leandro Locsin is also included. Readers who are familiar with the buildings and architects mentioned in the book will find the narrative engrossing, as it contains gossip on how the buildings were designed and built. The unfamiliar might not fully appreciate it because this is an architecture book without pictures. Googling some of the buildings and architects while reading the book would help.