ManTownHuman debate: audio on politics & architecture

I tweeted from the ManTownHuman debate about participatory design, development design, and sustainability on 27 May. Speaker Karl Sharro said that socially responsible design is irresponsible because as he sees it, there is a danger with sustainability now in the mainstream that architects will stop distrupting design with what's actually needed to conform.  Beware conformity and consensus. 

Sharro's point is well taken, but I think maybe his comments go too far in that perhaps disruptive design to the extent he suggests might be too individualistic in thinking when we are in a time that (arguably) calls for a new age with respect to collective thinking.

As far as architecture not being political, I don't buy that at all.

Here's the full audio of what he said (medium HT VoiceRecorder app, iPhone)

Socially Responsible Design Might be Irresponsible by Annlytical

Cities for Climate Resilience Conference 2010: Takeaways

I spent the weekend in Bonn at the ICLEI Cities for Sustainability Conference on Resilient Cities.*  I want to share some highlights before I get to work on the serious journalist articles from the conference: 



The most striking communication from the conference is that adaptation and mitigation, the all important structure for considering developing countries and climate change doesn’t actually have an “and” relationship.  In fact, they are very separate structures and will have different financial sources as well.  With regard to the NAMAs (nationally appropriate mitigation actions), the NAPAs (nationally adaptation programs of action) are the poorer cousin.  The NAMAs have a business sourced financial mechanism in the CDMs, the NAPAs do not, in so far as there is no market instrument to it, though the adaptation fund currently sources its funding from a 2% CDM levy.

Cities, as institutions will arguably be exposed to the most intense processes of change when it comes to adapting and mitigating climate change.  That’s why cities are beginning to structure their own adaptation and mitigation action plans, dubbed LAMAs and LAPAs by urbanists.

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