GULF COAST DesignLab’s Local to Global Approach

THINK SMALL, ACT LARGE

What’s at stake for Gulf Coast residents when we think about the climate crisis: sea-level rise, more intense weather events, subsidence, species and habitat loss, industrial pollution and ever-increasing development? Of the almost seven million people living in counties bordering the Texas Gulf Coast, it’s the livelihood of shrimpers and oyster farmers that are at stake; it’s losses to the multi-million-dollar recreation industry that relies on tourists each year; it’s the inequity suffered by minority neighborhoods that are at the frontline of climate change; it’s diminished fishing, birding, kayaking; the petrochemical industry threatened by more severe hurricanes and more intense storm surge; it’s the beauty and peace found in serene back bays; the rhythm of tranquil ocean waves, or kayakers slipping through rich wetlands, or simply watching the sun setting in the west. Even if we all stopped emitting hydrocarbons today, temperatures will continue to rise that inevitably bring about greater fire-risk, crop failure and increase poverty; oceans will still continue to warm, melting more polar ice to bring about continued ocean level rise. By many accounts, we’ve passed the tipping point on this. The loop will continue for centuries, there’s no holding it back.

This degradation however is not just impacting those on the Texas coast or even the Gulf of Mexico. Its occurring worldwide at an unprecedented scale, as it gets worse every day. Many people the world over, particularly the poorest, are dying everyday, they’re being displaced, losing their homes, their land destroyed, their livelihoods ended. As the crisis builds this will continue to worsen, millions soon becoming climate refugees with no place to go. Coastal edges comprise about ten percent of the earth’s surface. Yet, this thin strip is now home to over half the world’s population, about 4 billion people; ocean edges the fastest growing places on earth. Eleven of the world’s sixteen megacities are on the ocean; Shanghai, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Manilla, Calcutta and New York, to name a few. And places like the Mekong Delta and Bangladesh, some of the most densely populated and poorest, are being impacted the most. These communities on the edge face grim economic conditions in the coming decades, not to mention cultural loss which can never be regained. And not only the destruction of human inhabitation, the grief-causing loss of some of the most viable natural habitats on the planet are at risk.

But there’s even more than this. The quality of belonging to something greater than ourselves is at stake. That deep-seated need we have of being close to that which is the living, verdant wild, what E. O. Wilson calls biophilia, (love of life) the abiding affection for living things is in jeopardy. Our connection to, our love of, life is as old as we are. Just consider the ocean: i was our first home, still, the salt ratio of our blood is about the same as ocean water. The way most of us are magically drawn to it, offers testament to this connection, a calling back to our ancient domicile.

What is happening around the world is also happening here on the Gulf Coast. Working locally while thinking globally, the Gulf Coast DesignLab is in the thick of this, allying with coastal communities to help increase equity through supporting environmental education, pitching in to revitalize degraded wetlands and coastal edges, addressing community need–particularly environmental inequity–as ways to bring about much needed change. The DesignLab focuses on what is close to home while keeping in mind our local-to-global relationship, so that what we do at home applies to a world threatened by the climate catastrophe we all face worldwide.

THINK LARGE, ACT SMALL

As coastal edges experience this dynamic change more, comes action (often in the form of reaction). And in the form of “Big Action,” of armored coastal edges, taller levees, more massive flood gates, longer jetties. All of this brings about ever-bolder technological fixes, more applied technology, which the experts say is needed to protect ourselves against this environmental mess we’ve made. Yet our predilection toward Big Action solutions is cut from the same cloth that produced the calamity of climate change we now face. Hardly anyone sees these fixes as the best possible outcome, but instead as short term band-aids requiring frequent redressing. What’s at stake in this approach is an even greater disconnect that might allow a more intimate relationship to our surroundings. These massive undertakings distance us even more from that something we long to be in touch with. Nonetheless, these big fixes are still the customary approach for holding back the sort of change that is the natural world.

Loosely attributed, Einstein is reported to have said, “The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.” With Big Action contributing to increasing climate meltdown in what’s been termed “the sixth extinction” his words are more true today than ever. As designers, whether we face it or not–and most of us don’t–we play a significant role in that devastation. If designers are to remain consequential place-makers, we need to ask deeper ontological questions about our role in society, those that offer new meaning for how we might help make a better world. We need a different vision, a fresh outlook on how to design more fulfilling communities that bring us more in touch with our world.

It is about slowing down, looking deeper, focusing on the long-term, embracing the fact that all things work in unison. It’s acknowledging the issues we face when we ask “what is our vision” instead of “what it ought to be holistically,” taking into account the rhythms of life, instead of working against them. We need to encourage our students to look more deeply at when and where to build and when and where not to build; to begin to imagine how to design in ways that actually work with ecological systems and natural cycles that support richer habitats instead of armoring against them.

This is about our students learn not only to do no harm, but to reach out and help, to help improve the places in which they work. It’s about not only opening their eyes, but opening their hearts, to sense the world around them and how what they do as designers make a difference. It’s about testing their design approach by asking whether what they propose benefits all living beings, and not just the few of us who call ourselves human beings. For our students, the notion of “just because we can” should be deeply suspect. For them, it can be about developing an attitude that takes into account long-term consequences. When taken as a whole, these attitudes lead to a design approach built around: 1) moderation as a first principle; 2) embracing a “small is beautiful” approach; 3) not only being open to change but designing for it; 4) designing with the whole in mind and not just its parts; 5) humility towards others (and this includes all things).

Using these five points as a basis for design, students are encouraged to critically look at the society in which they work, to consider the needs of all and not just the 3 to 5 percent who typically work with architects. They’re asked to think about equity for all. They’re asked to find meaning in what at first might not seem so apparent, as a source for a fitting design. And through that adopt an all inclusive ethics, practice stewardship, care for their environment more deeply and become better citizens of the earth—better earth citizens. So that what they build, betters the whole community and in doing so motivates others about their own possibility to make change and make their world more fitting.

ASK BETTER QUESTIONS

This way our students reach out with care to those they’re building for. They learn to nurture an approach that wishes others well, work regarded as an act of promoting well-being, which encourages goodwill. This is had through reflection, non-prescribed reflection that questions without customary dogma. It takes insight and courage to step off the long-accustomed path and venture down new ones like these. But thinking back to Einstein, by setting aside the same thinking we’re accustomed to, we designers can learn to make places that retrace our past missteps, so that what we design and make will inspire greater respect and awe of our world, so that we want to protect and safeguard it, for everyone and everything. If our students gain anything, it is learning how to reflect on what’s right before them; asking better questions; inquiring more deeply about what they do so that they make not just better places, but places that are sacred to all.