BODIES &

BUILDINGS

NYU ITP LECTURE COURSE FALL 2014

OCTOBER 20, 2014

JEN VAN DER MEER @JENVANDERMEER WWW.JENVANDERMEER.COM

ASSIGNMENT: Prepare a written and spoken argument (2 pages, 5 minutes) clearly outlining your position on the topic of mobile health innovation. Prepare for the midterm: a written and spoken argument (2 pages, 5 minutes) clearly outlining your position on one of two viewpoints:

Topic Options:

a) Propose a way to contain the spread of Ebola virus

b) Propose a way to improve the quality of life for people with chronic conditions

c) Your choice

This is taken from the Op-Ed structure. (From the Op-Ed Project)

Format:

1. Introduce from the context of the current discussion (LEDE)

2. State your thesis argument – what do you believe

3. Provide three relevant examples proving your point (evidence point one, evidence point two, then conclusion)

4. “To be sure” Provide the counterpoint, then argue against the counterpoint.

5. Conclude with a recommended action.

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PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM:

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards)

11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows

10. The structure of material stocks and flows (transport networks, population age structures)

9. Length of delays, relative to the rate of system change

8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against

7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops

6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to what kinds of

information)

5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints)

4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure

3. The goals of the system

2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system – its goals, power structure, rules, its culture-

arises

1. The power to transcend paradigms

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4. The power to add, change, evolve, or

self organize a system structure

The most stunning thing living systems and

social systems can do is to change themselves

utterly by creating whole new structures and

behaviors.

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Ebola – 2

weeks later

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Ebola – 2

weeks later

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Can we create new structures and

behaviors?

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Ebola – 2

weeks later

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https://www.hackerleague.org/hac

kathons/hack-ebola-at-nyu

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3. The goals of the system

The goal of the system is a leverage point

superior to the self-organizing ability of a

system.

That’s why I can’t get into arguments about

whether genetic engineering is a “good” or

“bad” thing. Like all technologies, it depends

upon who is wielding it, with what goal.

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3. The goals of the system

Whole system goals are not what we think of

as goals in the human-motivational sense.

They are not so much deducible from what

everyone says as from what the system does.

Survival, resilience, differentiation, evolution

are system-level goals.

Even people within systems don’t often

recognize what whole-system goal they are

serving.

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What is the goal of this system?

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What is the goal of this system?

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What is the goal of this system?

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BUILDINGS:

THE

ENVIRONMENTAL

MOVEMENT + THE

SUPPLY SIDE BODIES & BUILDINGS

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ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT:

SUPPLY SIDE

Most of the technological interventions in the global

environment have focused on the supply side:

The availability of land (conservation)

The availability of fuel (gas crises, investment in clean tech)

The availability of greener products with greener materials

(green product development/greenwashing)

In this class we focus on the demand side – making buildings

so that they demand less from the earth. But to understand

the context, we need to know our recent history.

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HISTORY

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1845: Thoreau Walden; or Life in the

Woods

1864: Yosemite

1886: Audobon Society

1892: Sierra Club: John Muir

1910: Lakeview Gusher San Joaquin

CA

1916: Nat’l Park Service

1848: Donora PA, Zinc

1962: Silent Spring, Rachel Carson

SILENT SPRING

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These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost

universally to farms, forests, and homes- nonselective

chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good”

and the “bad,” to still the song of the birds and the leaping of

fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and

to linger on in the soil – all this though the intended target

may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is

possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the

surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They

should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.”

Rachel Carson

SILENT SPRING

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There is still a very limited awareness of the nature of the

threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his

own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger

frame into which it fits….

It is a public that is being asked to assume the risks that the

insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether

it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can only do

so when in full possession of the facts. In the words of Jean

Rostand, “The obligation to endure gives us the right to

know.”

Rachel Carson

CARSON’S LEGACY

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Environmental Defense Fund (1967)

EPA (1970)

Clean Air Act (1970)

DDT Ban (1972)

Deep Ecology (1972) Arne Naess

Carson “quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American culture.” – Mark Hamilton Lytle, biographer

Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964)

DEEP ECOLOGY

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Naess saw two different forms of environmentalism:

Long-range deep ecology movement: deep questioning, down to fundamental root causes. Involves redesigning our whole systems based on values and methods that truly preserve the ecological and cultural diversity of natural systems. Without changes in basic values and practices, we will destroy the diversity and beauty of the world, and its ability to support diverse human cultures.

Shallow ecology movement: stops before the ultimate level of fundamental change, often promoting technological fixes (e.g. recycling, increased automotive efficiency, export-driven monocultural organic agriculture) based on the same consumption-oriented values and methods of industrial economy.

LATER HISTORY

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1969: Cuyahoga River on fire

1970: Earth Day, NRDC Founded

1971: Greenpeace Founded Canada

1972: OPEC Oil embargo

1978: Love Canal

1979: Three Mile Island

1981: PETA Founded

1984: Bhopal Union Carbide

1985: Vienna Convention on Ozone

1986: Chernobyl

1987: Brundtland Commission

1989: Exxon Valdez

1992: Earth Summit Rio

2005: Katrina

2006: An Inconvenient Truth

BUILDINGS HISTORY

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1973: AIA committee on energy

1980: Sustainable Buildings Industry Council

1984: Sick Building Syndrome

1987: UN World Commision defines “sustainable development”

1988: PassiveHaus

1989: The AIA Committee on the Environment

1992: AIA Environmental Resource Guide

1992: Earth Summit

1993: USGBC

1998: LEED 1

THE DEATH OF

ENVIRONMENTALISM

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Today’s environmental leaders are addressing tomorrow’s

problems with yesterday’s tools: regulatory and policy fixes.

And because serious global problems like climate change

and the looming water crisis have been narrowly defined as

“environmental,” their equally narrow solutions are easy to

marginalize and dismiss by conservatives, cynics, and other

non believers.

Environmental leaders need to “take a collective step back to

rethink everything.” specifically, how to reframe issues and

build coalitions around big ideas and values, not specific

programs, much as the conservative movement has done

over the past 40 years. – 2004. Michael Shellenberger and

Ted Nordhaus.

THE GREEN MOVEMENT,

LATE NAUGHTS

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GREEN PRODUCT

PROLIFERATION

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CRYING AT TED

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Curbing climate change : “the largest economic

opportunity of the 21st century, and a moral imperative”

CLEAN TECH BOOM

In 2005, VC investment in clean tech measured in the

hundreds of millions of dollars. The following year, it

ballooned to $1.75 billion, according to the National Venture

Capital Association. By 2008, the year after Doerr’s speech, it

had leaped to $4.1 billion. And the federal government

followed. Through a mix of loans, subsidies, and tax breaks,

it directed roughly $44.5 billion into the sector between late

2009 and late 2011.

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CRUDE OIL PRICES.

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APPLIED R&D

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“WHY THE CLEAN TECH BOOM

WENT BUST”

There was an additional factor at work: impatience. Venture capitalists tend to work on three- to five-year horizons. As they were quickly finding out, energy companies don’t operate on those timelines. ...Of all the energy startups that received their first VC funds between 1995 and 2007, only 1.8 percent achieved what he calls “unambiguous success,” meaning an initial public offering on a major exchange. The average time from founding to IPO was 8.3 years. “If you’re signing up to build a clean-tech winner,” Nordanwrote in a blog post, “reserve a decade of your life.”

The truth is that starting a company on the supply side of the energy business requires an investment in heavy industry that the VC firms didn’t fully reckon with. The only way to find out if a new idea in this sector will work at scale is to build a factory and see what happens. Ethan Zindler, head of policy analysis for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, says the VC community simply assumed that the formula for success in the Internet world would translate to the clean-tech arena. “What a lot of them didn’t bargain for, and, frankly, didn’t really understand,” he says, “is that it’s almost never going to be five guys in a garage. You need a heck of a lot of money to prove that you can do your technology at scale.”

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VERY RECENT HISTORY

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CLEAN TECH: CHINA + GERMANY > US

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SOLAR PV .

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NATURAL GAS .

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CLEAN TECH INVESTING .

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SUPPLY SIDE TO DEMAND SIDE

For the rest of this course – we move from a supply side to a

demand side view of energy, choosing the BUILDING as the

place to intervene in the system.

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GLOBAL SUPPLY

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GLOBAL SUPPLY

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FIELD TRIP!

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MEET AT ITP

MONDAY AT

9:15

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ASSIGNMENT

FOR NOVEMBER 3 Assignment: In the same way we reviewed health apps for

our first assignment, find an app, website, or some other

technology service that gives an end user the ability to

interact with her environmental data.

Write a review of this experience – would you use this

system for your personal understanding? What kinds of

feedback loops are built into the design of the system?

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