‘Design for a Living World’ Opens This Week

The objects that furnish our homes and workplaces have been sliced, bent, molded and hewn from materials extracted from physical landscapes. Many of the substances we think of as “natural,” such as wood, bamboo and leather, originate as living organisms, while others are mined from the earth. “Truth to materials” has been a theme in the discourse of modern design for more than a century. This principle, which celebrates the innate textures and behaviors of materials, has guided generations of designers. Today, as designers and consumers explore the environmental ethics of manufactured things, they seek transparency about where goods come from and how they are made.

Design for a Living World is a landmark exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York that opens an important conversation between conservationists and designers about the potential and legacy of natural materials. Presented by The Nature Conservancy and co-curated by Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, the exhibition has commissioned 10 designers from the worlds of fashion, industrial and furniture design to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials from a specific place where the Conservancy works. The participating designers include Yves Béhar, Stephen Burks, Hella Jongerius, Maya Lin, Christien Meindertsma, Isaac Mizrahi, Ted Muehling, Kate Spade, Ezri Tarazi and Miller himself. The locations include endangered ecosystems in Australia, Micronesia, China, Mexico, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Alaska, Idaho and Maine. The resulting designs demonstrate that by choosing sustainable materials, designers can actively contribute to the advancement of a global conservation ethic.

In addition to co-curating and participating in the exhibition, Miller and his team at Pentagram designed the exhibition, catalogue and website. Design for a Living World opens this Thursday, May 14 and remains on view at Cooper-Hewitt through January 4, 2010 before traveling to other locations.

A closer look at the exhibition and a preview of five of its commissions after the jump.

Promotional animation that will be played in Times Square.

The Nature Conservancy is the world’s largest conservation organization. It has a broad mission to protect ecosystems and encourage sustainable practices in harvesting materials. The Conservancy owns and controls the destiny of significant parcels of land in the US and internationally, and has conservation projects administered by field officers all over the world.

In 2007 the Conservancy approached Miller and his wife Ellen Lupton, Cooper-Hewitt’s curator of contemporary design, to develop a design exhibition that looked at landscape, conservation, and sustainability. The new exhibition was inspired by a traveling exhibition the Conservancy produced in 2001 called In Response to Place, a project conceived by the photography critic and writer Andy Grundberg. Grundberg’s idea was to invite 12 photographers to travel to distinctive and threatened landscapes to photograph and document these places. The resulting book and exhibition were tremendously successful at bringing awareness to the ecological story behind the chosen sites. The exhibition traveled to different museums and galleries for 6 years and became an important platform for The Nature Conservancy to raise awareness of their work.

Miller and Lupton proposed several different conceptual paradigms for how one might approach an exhibition about design and sustainability, and quickly agreed upon the idea of approaching the topic through the lens of materials. The Nature Conservancy has active conservation efforts all across the globe, and Miller and Lupton knew there would be a range of interesting materials that would form a way into the broader conservation story. For designers, the project had to offer the provocation of interesting materials with which to experiment. While the landscape formed the subject matter for the photographers working on In Response to Place, the designers working on Design for a Living World would work with sustainably harvested materials as their raw material.

Collaborating with conservation scientists and the staff of The Nature Conservancy, the curators then had an interesting list of places and materials that could form the context for the design commissions. Each location, from the arid bush land of Australia to the lush tropical forests of Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Mexico, supports a distinctive ecosystem and provides crucial livelihoods to local communities. Each place is threatened by destructive forces, such as climate change, deforestation and over-development. In the exhibition, each place also becomes a source of design inspiration offering a vibrant context that informs the concept, shape and meaning of an object. Against the backdrop of this list the curators started to think about designers who suggested a connection to the sensibility of the materials and who they thought would be intrigued by the project.

At the outset it was decided that the length of the project did not allow that the designer’s responses would lead to finished products coming to the marketplace. Instead the curators wanted the design projects to foreground the story of how designers work with materials, and how the process of design can be inspired by local traditions and interesting materials. By setting a very broad agenda for the designers, the curators wanted the outcomes to point in very different directions. They also wanted to include a broad definition of design, one that included product design, furniture, textiles, fashion, jewelry and decorative arts.

A few of the designers worked with material that was shipped to them, but most of them actually traveled to the locations to get a better sense of the materials in their social and ecological context. Because The Nature Conservancy has field staff in each of these locations, they were able to provide the expertise of local knowledge, along with the intricate travel planning, and the ability translate between languages.

To document the project for the exhibition, its catalogue and website, the curators commissioned the award-winning photojournalist Ami Vitale travel to each of the locations. Over the course of an intense 9 month period Vitale traveled the globe, from China to Micronesia to Australia to Mexico, spending about 2 weeks in each site.

A preview of five of the commissioned projects follows.

Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico

The Maya Forest forms the heart of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Some 130 families live and work in Veinte de Noviembre, a forestry ejido, or farm. Men look after beehives or work in the forest harvesting trees or extracting chicle from the chicozapote tree (Manilkara zapota), while women weave hammocks, embroider huipil, a traditional Mayan dress, and tend the family gardens. Road construction, tourism development, agricultural expansion, land speculation, and forest fires are altering the Maya Forest. The Nature Conservancy is working with ejidos and local communities to improve the management of natural resources and implement sustainable—and more profitable—forestry practices.

Chicle latex flows from the chicozapote tree, which grows in the rainforests of Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, and Nicaragua. The Mayans have chewed chicle for thousands of years. In 1867, the exiled Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna approached Thomas Addams, an inventor in New York City, with the hopes of vulcanizing chicle into rubber. When Addams failed, he tried his hand at making chewing gum instead—and thus launched a modern industry. (Chiclets, anyone?) After synthetic, petroleum-based gum was invented in 1944–45, the global market for chicle rapidly declined. Today, small amounts of natural chicle are still used in gum, and there is a growing interest in organic, natural variants of the product.

Dutch designer Hella Jongerius is known for her unusual use of materials and her interest in mixing craft processes with industrial techniques. For her commission, Jongerius traveled to the Yucatán Peninsula with The Nature Conservancy to observe the harvesting and preparation of natural chicle by members of Veinte de Noviembre. Back in her studio, Jongerius explored melting, molding, stretching, winding, and shaping the material into stable objects. Chicle is extremely fragile, however, and for all its strange beauty, it is not well suited for industrial use. “The chicle was hard to understand,” says Jongerius. “I was working like an alchemist trying to find a better function than chewing on it.” In a series of ceramic vessels, she used chicle’s elastic and adhesive properties to create tactile surfaces and planes of connection between diverse materials.

La Amistad, Costa Rica

The cloud forests and cascading rivers of La Amistad International Park in Costa Rica remain one of the largest, most pristine area of tropical forest in Central America. Women of the indigenous Bribri community, which inhabits the park, have pooled their land and resources to form an organic-chocolate cooperative. Together, they handpick large yellow cacao pods, dry the beans in the sun or in a drying machine, and package them for export to Europe or for local use. Such community-based cooperatives create economic stability in one of the poorest areas of Costa Rica. The Nature Conservancy has helped seventeen community groups in La Amistad come together as a network known as Red Indígena de Turismo. Members receive training and resources to develop ecotourism as well as sustainable agricultural practices.

Industrial designer Yves Béhar visited Costa Rica to meet with the women’s organic cocoa and chocolate association supported by The Nature Conservancy. Most cocoa in the region is grown for export, but drinking cocoa prepared from hand-processed cocoa patties is also a vital indigenous custom. Béhar created a tool for scraping bits of cocoa off the patty; the cocoa shavings collect inside the hollow tool, and when the user turns the instrument over, the cocoa falls into a cup. The user then adds hot water or milk and stirs the beverage with the tool.

“We walked into what looked like a forest, but it was actually somebody’s farm. Palms, banana trees, and cacao trees were all mixed together, where they protect one another,” says Béhar. “We designed a product that celebrates the process of preparing cocoa. The design is simple and elegant but also primitive and ritualistic.”

Béhar’s design also includes a jute-cloth package for the cocoa patty. Instructions for using the tool and preparing the drink are printed on the bag. If produced, this project would broaden the potential market for a local product.

Hailey, Idaho

Sheep ranching has been a cornerstone of local economies in Idaho since the late 1800s. Sheep travel hundreds of miles every summer as herders on horseback guide them to higher pasture. Today, the area’s ranchlands help preserve large mammal migrations by connecting public lands. But these ranches and wild lands are at risk from the kind of unplanned development occurring across the Rocky Mountains. Lava Lake Ranch in Hailey, Idaho, is forging a new path in sheep ranching—one that seeks to preserve the fabric of this large, unfragmented landscape while using the land thoughtfully and carefully. The ranch devotes 100 percent of its profits to conservation and works with The Nature Conservancy to maintain an active science and research program.

Sheep can sustain themselves on the natural landscape, while cattle and pigs usually consume more harvested grains. Sheep eat not only grass but also woody materials and herbaceous plants that cattle reject; because of their diverse diets, sheep require less fossil fuel to raise than other animals. Moreover, they provide us with wool, a valuable, renewable material.

Christien Meindertsma, a young graduate of the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, works with farmers to build relationships with the living sheep and rabbits that provide materials for her work. The Nature Conservancy paired Meindertsma with lambs and sheep at the Lava Lake Ranch. Each unit in her modular rug is made from 3.5 pounds of wool, equal to the yield of a single sheep. The modules are hooked together with clasps into a larger “flock.”

Meindertsma makes her own felted wool yarn and knits it together with custom-made oversize needles. By greatly enlarging traditional sweater stitches, Meindertsma casts familiar textures in a new light, amplifying the qualities of the material. Identity cards or “passports” link each module to a creature from the flock.

“A lot of the value of a product lies in knowing where it comes from, how it grows, and in what amounts,” says Meindertsma.” This information tends to get lost when things are made all around the world and not in your own backyard.”

Guarayo Indigenous Lands, Bolivia

At the core of central Bolivia’s lowlands, the Amazonian rainforest gives way to thorny scrub forests. The indigenous Guarayo people have lived in the transitional Chiquitano Dry Forest since precolonial times. Today, the Guarayo produce a wide array of wood products, including violins, boats, and household furniture. However, the forest and their way of life are threatened by road construction, the expansion of agriculture, and illegal logging.

Today, Bolivia has a new legacy as one of the world leaders in Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified tropical forests. In 2003, The Nature Conservancy began working with the Bolivian government and the U.S. Agency for International Development to promote sustainable-forest-management principles. Over 100 different species of trees are sustainably harvested in Bolivia, bringing increased prosperity to local communities in a country where two-thirds of the population lives in poverty.

For his commission, Abbott Miller and designer Brian Raby traveled to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where manufacturers use hardwoods and traditional carpentry to produce high-quality furnishings for the domestic and export markets. A local trade school called Infocal has been using a sophisticated CNC (computer numerically controlled) router to make simple tables, chairs, and desks for schools and organizations. Miller and Raby sought to bridge Bolivia’s high-end, hardwood carpentry with Infocal’s more utilitarian approach. Their prototype, which exploits the beauty of Bolivian jatoba veneers, yields three chairs per sheet of plywood with minimal waste. The components could be shipped flat and dry-assembled with a rubber mallet. The design could be economically produced at Infocal.

“We were inspired by the astounding variety and beauty of Bolivian woods and by the ingenuity of the vernacular design and architecture in Santa Cruz,” says Miller. “The strong traditions of woodworking show through in the factories we visited as well as in the adaptation of CNC routing to the needs of making furniture.” Miller also designed the exhibition using FSC-certified wood.

Nushagak-Mulchatna Watershed, Alaska

Millions of salmon flood the rivers and streams of the Nushagak-Mulchatna watershed, in southwest Alaska, each summer. These wild salmon are at the heart of Alaska’s economy, culture, and wildlife, but the area is vulnerable to the same threats that have devastated salmon elsewhere. Increased recreational use and potential large-scale gold and copper mining threaten to alter river flows and undermine water quality. Climate change can diminish the ability of salmon to migrate, spawn, and rear. Working with various partners and Alaska Native villages, The Nature Conservancy uses land acquisitions and conservation easements to protect the watershed.

Fish processors discard enormous amounts of potentially valuable material each year as a byproduct of the food industry. Over the past decade, salmon skin has been rediscovered as a beautiful, useful, and economically viable product. Fish canneries and smoking plants can provide a reliable, affordable source of leather for use in shoes, belts, bags, furnishings, and even bikinis. Safer chemicals can be used to process salmon leather because fish scales are easier to remove from the skin than animal hair.

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi created a salmon-leather ensemble that consists of a short dress worn with a long jacket that trails on the floor like a mermaid tail. Mizrahi commissioned a Parisian artisan to turn pelts of salmon leather into paillettes, sequin-like disks that are sewn by hand to a layer of fabric. Rather than use dyed leather, Mizrahi embraced the material’s natural ivory color. The paillettes create an undulating surface that reflects light and dramatizes the motion of the clothing when worn. Open-back shoes, also made from salmon leather, complete the look. Mizrahi comments, “Who knew that salmon skin could be so resilient? I always think of salmon skin as something you peel off your food, but in fact, it is a beautiful substance.”

“Design is the most personal thing in the world, but at the same time, it is not personal at all,” says Mizrahi. “My approach in this project was to give equal weight to ecology and glamour.”

Project Team

Curators: Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton.
Exhibition Design: Abbott Miller, Jeremy Hoffman, Brian Raby and Kristen Spilman.
Book Design: Abbott Miller and Kristen Spilman.
Website Design: Abbott Miller and Kristen Spilman.
Location photography by Ami Vitale. Object photography by Jay Zukerkorn.

Coming up: A visit to the exhibition.