Thursday, October 8, 2009

Blog 3

I really enjoyed Edward Ozimek as a speaker. I thought his presentation was both well thought out and aesthetically pleasing. I thought it was really great that he was familiar with our reading materials for the course and was able to relate what he was talking about back to what we have already read. It was also kind of cool to see him questioning some of the points that those authors brought to the table, because I feel like some of us have been doing the same things here in our blogs.

His critique of flaws within systems (food, architecture, recycling, etc.), were insightful and intelligent. Although he is an architect by discipline, it does not mean that he is not well versed in all of these other areas that are very important in the world we are living in. I think that oftentimes people become really comfortable in whatever niche they carved out for themselves and they stop asking questions, and stop trying to figure out what is going on around them (aside from the television news programs, of course). Edward Ozimek emphasized how imperative he feels it is to stay current with all sorts of issues going on around us. Personally, I feel that not taking things at face value is what makes you a smart consumer in society today, so I guess it’s nice to hear that echoed by someone who might have a bit more influence in the world; I would even say that was a major point in his presentation.

1 comment:

  1. October 8: Ozimek

    I was very taken by Edward Ozimek as a speaker on sustainable architecture Tuesday. He had such a fresh perspective that reminded me to remember to take a second look at the world around me. I think it is easy to become complacent and therefore its important to acknowledge what motivates us and ask why. The example of the featherless chicken stuck with me for the next few days and pushed me to analyze sustainability within differing contexts. It seems that the idea of sustainability gets naturally linked to questions of ethics, although there is no real reason that the two should go hand in hand on a definitional level. The basic concept of sustainability is living in a way that meets out current needs but does not compromise those of the future. There are no rules set that determine how this should be done. It is thought that sustainable living should be morally conscious, is this because of the environmental movement that it has been strung along to? We get so turned off by the image of the featherless chicken because it is seen as so “unnatural”. However, the reason that we have to become more focused around sustainability is because we have brought ourselves so far from the natural through the development of society. So why is it shocking for us to see a featherless chicken but not hundreds of miles of highway or skyscrapers? And I don’t believe we can state that it is because these developments have come straight from human hand because we altered the landscape dramatically in order to get to the point where concrete cities are normal.
    I also loved the example of the three expanding house plans from 1900, 1950 and 2000. It was an appropriate follow-up to the question of whether we are prepared to change our current lifestyle. This falls directly in line with what was discussed in class about our degree of comfort. We may need to step outside of this lifestyle we have grown accustomed to in order to open up to change. We get so stuck in the norm and hold on to the idea that we should be doing or living somewhere because its what we have done for years. How are we to change if we grasp onto the predictability of the future?

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