Steven Heller, co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School if Visual Arts in New York, editor of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, and author of several art and design books, interviewed Project M founder John Bielenberg.

Heller, intrigued by Project M’s motto of “thinking wrong,” asked Bielenberg to explain. “Thinking wrong is really about challenging our conventions, processes and orthodoxies, especially during the idea-generation phase of design,” says Bielenberg. “At Project M we use a variety of exercises to short circuit our biases and connect things that wouldn’t normally be connected. It doesn’t mean that the final project looks or feels ‘wrong.’”

Full interview here.

Brian Scott, founder of Boon Design, said in his overview of Compostmodern 09 on Design Assembly that the conference served to “connect the dots between design practice and social responsibility.”

Scott said that “Saul Griffith, inventor extraordinaire and founder of Makani Power, was by far the most entertaining and yet most frightening presenter of the day.” Griffith encouraged designers to start doing some math, and gave an example from his own life: for a year, Griffith tracked his personal energy consumption in terms of watts, and scared the Compostmodern audience with his results. You can calculate your own energy consumption by logging on to Griffith’s website, Wattzon.com.

Scott’s full article, located here, contained a more detailed look at speakers Allan Chochinov, editor-in-chief of Core77, and Emily Pilloton, founder of Project H Design. His final comment was, “ultimately, as designers we need to strike the balance between sustaining our livelihoods and sustaining the planet, especially if we aim to help as may people in need as our planet demands.”

Get 15% off Nathan Shedroff’s book Design is the Problem, his webinar “Getting to the Point Quickly with Sustainable Design” and all other Rosenfeld Media products. Simply use code COMPOST when you buy.

This letter was sent to the Compostmodern team by Compostmodern 09 attendee Hilary Pittman:

Hi Gaby,

Just thought I would pass this along and feel free to share with others……This is what Compostmodern and various other events caused me to do—I sent the following email to a my local mayor Davis of Vallejo, et al. The subject of the email was “A New Vallejo.” I wanted to say thank you for having such a inspirational group of speakers that empowered me to act!

Sincerely,
Hilary Pittman
_____________________________________________________________________________

Hi Mayor Davis, Council, and Manager Tanner,

My name is Hilary Pittman and I’m a Vallejo resident. I’m emailing you this morning because I recently attended a sustainability conference in San Francisco called Compostmodern. It was at this conference that my passion for a sustainable future was once again ignited and now I’ve been called to act. Vallejo is a wonderful city that has tons of potential…Back in November I attended a planning meeting for the parking structure that is going to be built where the post office is on Georgia and Santa Clara. This was my first Vallejo City Hall meeting. I attended the meeting hoping to talk about community gardens, but instead talked about solar energy. I couldn’t believe that in the 21st century renewable, zero carbon energy was not part of the plan. Second, I didn’t understand why we were building a parking structure when there are plenty of parking spaces downtown. Third, right now downtown has a lack of businesses and traffic, so, why build a parking lot? Not to mention this is all part of a 3 phase building project that includes resdential and commerical space. So, why not include solar panels, wind power, gray water, etc? This is the type of building that attracts buyers. Here is a link to a place in Sonoma that can’t build fast enough and 3000 people are waiting to get ‘in’.

My issue goes beyond building sustainable structures for people with money. I envision every house and every building in Vallejo and the world with a solar panel(s). And, I think we should start with the low middle, working class and poor. By starting small and helping the people most in need we could create a snowball effect that rolls across the country. By allowing people to generate a fraction of their energy costs you are helping them off-set their finicial needs to other things like higher education or maybe starting their own business (which creates jobs). Also, building and installing solar panels creates a jobs. Thankfully, I just discovered that I’m not the only person that thinks this way. An organization in Oakland called Green For All has already proposed what I believe must happen in all cities and towns across America.

Mayor Davis, Council, and Manager Tanner I urge you to take the time to read and sign the petition so that Vallejo can set the example for the rest of the United States and the residents of Vallejo can be proud of where they live.

“Let’s do it now—together. There is no time to waste.” – Green For All

Sincerely,
Hilary Pittman

Inhabitat’s Piper Kujac posted a visual essay of Compostmodern 09, which she referred to as a “groundbreaking event” that “brought together design luminaries from around the world to address issues of ecology, business, and social responsibility.”

Kujac outlined each presentation given by the “eight uber-talented guest speakers” and included photographs from AIGA’s Mark Adams. Full articlehere.

Emily Pilloton, Founder of the nonprofit social design firm Project H, gave “one of the most compelling presentations” at Compostmodern 09 according to Kristin Palm of Metropolis magazine.

Before “deciding to direct her industrial design education toward the greater good” by founding Project H at 26, Pilloton was a designer of $1,800 chairs. Now, Pilloton is responsible for the redesign of the Hippo Roller for South Africa and the design and development of the tire-and-sandlot math Learning Landscape in Southern Uganda.

Full article here.

Treehugger, dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream, recorded and hosted several videos from Compostmodern 09, describing it as “a conference bringing together the best minds in sustainable design to inspire those in the working industry to switch up how they create the products, packaging, architecture and activism that form our world.”

Joel Makower Says We Have Just 5,000 More Days

Eames Demetrios Discusses Looking Beyond Sustainability

Michel Gelobter on Designing Our Way Out Of Global Warming

Saul Griffith Discusses Starting From the Global Warming Finish Line

Saul Griffith and Michel Gelobter Talk Politics and Engineering at Compostmodern

Emily Pilloton on When Sustainability Takes A Back Seat In Design

Pam Dorr Builds Sustainable Homes for $20k

Jonathan Bardelline, assistant editor at Greener World Media, published his review of Compostmodern 09 on GreenBiz.com (http://greenbiz.com/). He pointed out that, while Compostmodern 09 emcee and executive editor for Greener World Joel Makower said “we’re in the middle of a revolution most of us can’t see,” the presenters of Compostmodern 09 were able to “make that revolution visible, with messages challenging the roles of designers and plenty of real and proven examples that show sustainability can be integrated in all realms of design.”

Bardelline’s assessment included a summary of each speaker, featuring Project H Founder Emily Pilloton’s Hippo Water Roller as one of those proven examples. The Water Roller was designed for people in Africa who have to gather water and typically carry it on their heads, causing back strain and possible spine damage.

Full article here.

Sarah Rich posted an excellent summary of Saul Griffith’s presentation at Compostmodern 09 on Dwell’s blog. In response to Griffith’s t-shirt that read “Design won’t save the world. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen, you pretentious f**k” and his survey of our worldwide energy and emissions crisis, Rich said, “Saul Griffith knows how to deliver grim planetary outlooks with irreverent humor.”

Rich outlined Griffith’s lecture for those who could not attend this year’s Compostmodern conference:

1. Get used to numbers. It’s not possible to calculate the impact of a product or building you design without knowing some math.
2. The client is no longer the client, the planet is the client. Always. Designers must work with clients to understand that priorities revolve around doing what’s needed in order to reduce energy consumption and prevent further warming.
3. We need an heirloom culture, meaning that designers should be creating products that last so long they can be handed down from generation to generation.
4. We need to transform into a share economy, in which objects that we only use on occasion are co-owned or borrowed from a central source, reducing the number that need to be produced while benefiting from the service the object provides.

Full article here.

Kirsti Scott, Founder and Creative Director of Scott Design and author of Hot Design blog, said Compostmodern 09 “was a great opportunity to explore the range of design thinking necessary to create a socially and ecologically responsible society…. And, after an energizing day, I’m ready to fire up my passion and do something about it.” Full article here.