COLLECTIONS
RE
Parsons School of Design
Sustainable Systems
Anais Marechal
May 10 th, 2023.
Subject teacher: Eric Romeo
Semester - Spring 2023
precious plastics
This project is about the consumption of plastic in our daily lives. In this project I recorded all the types of plastic I threw away in a week. In order to record this I marked every item I threw away in an excel spread sheet.
In this project I also learnt about the types of platicss were able to be recycled or not.
Through this experiment I was able to realise how much plastic I use in my everyday life. this helped make me more conscious about my habits.
Since then I also thought about hte different ways I can upcycle plastics . I used this project as an inspiration to my ART NOT WASTE project (page 9)
FOODSCRAPS
I initially thought that I didn’t waste much food. I usually eat in recyclable containers or plates I can wash. Most of the time I do not leave food as leftovers. I did not think about the waste I throw away like fruit and vegetables peels.
I eat at least one orange and one banana everyday. If I were to compost this it would create quite a bit of compost. While doing this exercise I also kept track of the plastics and paper I threw away. This reminded me of precious plastics. As I eat more at the cafeteria these days I realized I use a lot more plastic then I use compostable materials.
75% of the materials listed in the excel spread sheet were recyclable materials. There was a suprising amount of paper receipts. This week taught me about how much each individual litters.
NATURAL DYE EXPERIMENT
METHOD:
- Cut the beetroot in cubes
- Put the beetroot in the pan
- 2:1 water to beetroot ratio
- Put water + beetroot in the pan for 20 minutes
- strain the mixture
Once the pieces of beetroot and the liquid are apart:
- Divide the liquid in 4 parts in order to create 5 types of samples.
1. Control - beetroot liquid only
2. Salt - beetroot liquid + salt
3. Vinegar - beetroot liquid + vinegar
4. Baking soda - beetroot liquid + baking soda
5. Washed - beetroot liquid + salt (after dried wash dye away)
Once the pads are soaked in the solutions -> dry the pads
B
OPLASTIC SCIENCE MODULE
Ingredients:
- 250 ml of water
- 15 g of agar agar
- 15g of glycerol
- I put 250 ml of water in a pan and then added these quantities.
- Stirring to allow the flakes to melt
(I stirred the mixture, however the agar agar flakes were not melting. I therefore let the liquid boil in order for the flakes to melt)
- Pour the mixture onto a flat surface
- I then let the liquid set for 2-3 days.
OBSERVATION:
It only took about 10 minutes for the liquid to harden into a jelly like texture
SYSTEMS MAPPING
CLIMATE COLLAGE
This collage reflects climate and times infleunces in our daily life. I took inspiration from the Archigram and Super Studio. I chose to portray how over time things around us become more and more digital and are more easily controlled. In this collage I also played with the sense of perspective and colors.
In order to represent this collage I used pool floaties and sunset images (on the bill boards) to represent a fun time. I chose to not include people to represent an off fealing. Through the use of a light stand I am simulating the fake heat from the sun when resting by the side of the pool.
Reflection:
In this project I was able to improve my ART NOT WASTE 1 project. This made me think of other ways of creating a similar product. I was able to create a more detailed a complex structure bag compared tot the first one. I was initially going to up cycle a metal wire based art work and use the wire to make a rigid frame to the bag. I decided not to because I felt like the metal wires would tear the plastic or the content of the bag.
ART NOT WASTE
For a future project I think I would explore up cycle ropes or string in order to combine it with a similar plastic bag structure as shown above.
Process
1. I first cut thin strips of plastics form a plastic bag.
2. I then knot the thin strips of plastic together.
3. I attached each of the knotted strips to one another.
4. I added 2 plastic bags to use it as handles
5. I cut of the excess plastic from the plastic strips
:
AMBIGUOUS EDGES OF LANDSCAPE IN MOTION MARINO TORNATORA
Facts
• Water has strongly affect urban landscapes throughout history
• Environmental disasters have been increasing
• Strong cementation have interrupted the natural evolution of the beaches - changed the line of the land
• “The status of italian territory 2012” - describes the strong risk of our country ot natural hazards
• Data collected from the ISRA
• Highly hazardous areas are 12 218 km2
• Average hazardous areas are 24 411 km2
• Low hazardous areas of 32 150 km2
• In order to help defend the coat lines new advances an be done such as using biology to architecture
• SOAK strategy - carried out by Landscape In Progress Laboratory proposes different ways to protect the coast line
• Different level of the river defines a new controlled and flexible design
• Building defensive barriers and embankments
• The design proposed the restoration of the aesthetic landscaping conditions through the replacement of the wall barrier with the a more flexible cage system
• Cage system would be permeable to the wave motion that forms dunes
• Transform the boundary line of the beach into a flexible barrier system that has less impact on the wave motion
• More permeable
• Cheaper
• Easier maintenance over time
Key words
• Water
• Geography
• Coast lines
• Hazardous
• Italian coasts
• Hydrological plan
• Biosphere capabilities
• Digital capabilities
• Replacement
• dunes
• restoration
• Aesthetic
• biology
• architecture
•
• Questions
• Would these implementations affect the wildlife around
• Can these advances be incorporated in other parts of the world with similar problems?
READINGS
JOURNAL
OMNIVORE’S DILEMNA
Facts:
Chapter 15
• While hunting one has the full consciousness they are killing a living creature
Chapter 16
• Our stomachs produce an enzyme specifically designed to breaks own election, a type of protein found in meat
• “Our metabolism requires specific chemical compounds heat in nature can be gotten only from plants (*like vitamin C) and other that can be gotten only from animals (like vitamin B-12)”
• “Evolutionary trade off between big brains and big guts”
• Koala is one of nature’s pickiest eaters
• “The adult human brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but consumes 18% of our energy, all of which comes from carbohydrates”
• “Pregnant women are particularly sensitive to bitter tastes, probably an adaptation to protect the developing fetus against even the mild plant toxins”
• “Humans also learned to overcome plant defenses by cooking or otherwise processing foods to removed their bitter toxins”
• “Cooking is often cited as evidence that the human omnivore entered a new kind of ecological niche in nature”
• “Rozin suggests that cuisines also help negotiate the tensions between the omnivore’s neophilia and neophobia”
• Big brain big gut evolutionary theory
Chapter 17
• “In recent years medical researchers have raised questions about the good to eat part”
Questions:
• “Upon this paradox people built a relationship in which they felt they could both honor and eat animals without looking away”
• Most industrial animal factories treat animals poorly
• Domestication is evolutionary
• “The industrialization - and brutalization - of animals in America is relatively new, evitable, and local phenomenon”
Keywords:
Chapter 15
• Infectious disease
• Malnutrition
Chapter 16
• Monarch butterfly
• Zoologist
• Energy
• Rozin
• Freud
• Diet Chapter 17
• Vegetarianism
• Homospiens
• Animal liberation
• Marginal cases
• Domestication
• Darwin
• What would happen if the majority of the population would become vegetarian ? Would this be sustainable?
• What is the global impact of the majority of the population being omnivores?
• Why are animal rights less enforced in America?