Artificial Natural

( home constructed with 6000,000 lbs of recycled materials
from "future-forward design for the world you inhabit")


(Rana Creek's " these giant metal wall panels deal with integration of greenery into built environments" - inhabitat )

Because of the negative effects mankind has had on the earth everyone must be held responsible for not only his of her past actions but the actions they plan to take. Because of their position in the shaping of our world, designers have an ethical responsibility to preserve and protect nature. It is their plans that plot out the shape of our visual world; they must acknowledge global warming and take responsibility for the changes to come and the problems that can be prevented.


Of course, the rebuttal to this belief is expressed in the common quote that “art (should be) for arts sake”. To this Frank Lloyd Wright replied, “Art for arts sake is a philosophy of the well fed.” Indeed this proves even truer today. With the greater frequency of droughts and fires, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes doubling in the last 30 years and the spread of Malaria to higher altitudes (in such places as Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet about sea level), the problem cannot be held off any longer (An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore). It has been proven that the raised level of Co2 in the air, causing global warming, is a direct result of artificial and unnatural causes. It is predicted that deaths from global warming will double in 25 years, or, 3000,000 people a year. (““) Wright’s argument implies that art simply for the sake of art cannot stand on its own without a stable economy and environment. The current pressures of global warming and the dramatic changes, which are expected to affect our environment within the next few centuries, should arouse the ethical obligation of designers and artists. Though art for art’s sake may be an freeing “minimalist” philosophy, it won’t be possible if the new building you are designing next to the Thames becomes part of the river itself. Though these environmental changes may not immediately affect artists as much as the threat of poverty (which the Wright quote is aimed at), their hypothesized affects will spare no one.


In her paper Reconfiguring Kinship in Techonscience, Donna Haraway states that “ Most Western narratives of humanism and technology require each other constitutively: how else could man make himself? Man births himself through the realization of his intention in his objects.” (299). Man must realize too, his position in the world around him. Nature has been turned into the unnatural. Though designers have the challenge and responsibility to attempt to achieve aesthetic perfection they also have a responsibly to the future of our world. If Man births himself through the discovery of himself in what he makes, let him save himself through his accountability. After all, designers can help the environment from their choices of materials to the very structures they sculpt. Because of the effects of their artificial creations, designers have an ethical obligation to acknowledge and protect the environment.

sighted sources:
Inhabitat, www.inhabitat.com/sustainablebuildig.php: Future-Forward Design for the World You Inhabit.

The Haraway Reader, Donna Haraway. Routledge New York and London (2004).

An inconvenient Truth, Al Gore.
The Science. Al Gore: http://www.climatecrisis.net/thescience/