Sustaining the Unsustainable: Is “saving the world” still desirable/fashionable?

Hosted by Michael Trudgeon

Date: Friday August 16th
Location: Design Hub Level 3 Lecture Theatre
Time: 6pm Drinks, 6.30pm Start

It has become commonplace, even pedestrian, to act ‘sustainably’ and a particular type of supposedly sustainable design solutions are so ubiquitous that they may by now be obscuring rather than revealing the extent of the environmental problems we stand before.

Sustainable design is too often oriented towards ways of maintaining ‘business as usual’ in terms of our current practices, including patterns of economic activity, lifestyle and the over-production and over consumption of goods…but with reduced impact.

By instilling a false sense of relief and thus deflating the debate, is architecture and it’s closest affiliates helping to sustain the unsustainable? Has ‘sustainable’ design as it is most common practiced become irrelevant? Do the real problems of a changing climate require much more significant and systemic social change instead of actions that serve as political sound bites? What is the role of design in this regard and how should we be working towards sustainable change? Is it a designers place to change the world?

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