THE UNPLANNED TALK!

Hey people. I am back with something really interesting to share with you. It’s not something new. But it is just something that’s very important in giving direction to my project. 

So, I have an on-campus job in a cafe as a barista. From the past few days after speaking with professor Elaine Adams, I was trying to look for the right person to talk to who can help me move forward in my project. As mentioned in the previous blog about the Golden Circle, I had a very refreshing talk with her in which I learned a lot of insights. One of which was that the real pioneers of change today is the learning crowd i.e. the students and not the established professionals. So, further to that talk, I was trying to meet up with a lot of students to get to know their thoughts about sustainable design. But I couldn't figure out a thorough direction to start. 

Today something happened at my workplace just out of the blue. This colleague friend of mine who was covering the shift with me asked me about my profession. She is an interior design student doing her undergraduate in SCAD. She asked me what do I do actually? I said, “I am studying design for sustainability.” She asked, “that means you select materials, use solar power panels, etc.” And like always I gave my usual answer that “No. That is just one aspect of sustainability. We are learning to take care of all the three aspects which include social and economical too. We design systems, surroundings, experiences, conditions etc. that would help the world, cities, communities, and neighborhood sustain on their own.” Usually, this answer used to be sufficient for most people to say ‘ oh nice’ and the conversation used to end. But this time to my surprise, she said, “what does that mean? Why do you have to do all of that to just save the environment? How is it even related?” So now I had to explain it to her with an example. And while I was completely unprepared for this question, I had to find the simplest way to frame the interrelation of the three aspects of sustainability. I gave the examples of how social issues like crime, poverty, educations, etc. is affecting and getting affected by the economic factors like policies, opportunities, businesses, etc. And how in turn all of this comes down to affecting the planet by landfill, waste, chemicals, deforestation, climatic changes, etc. And how to take care of the planet we need to cater to all of the three simultaneously.

It was a long talk but a completely unplanned one. But out of this, I got to know what kind of audience will I be dealing with most times and what kind of language do I need to use to portray my understanding and thoughts. And also, usually, I am the one asking questions to seek answers. But it flipped to my surprise this time turning out to be an even better source of data collection. Hoping to put these insights to the right use. 

This project is turning out to be a very uncertain one. But, that is all for now. I will be back with more experiences and updates. 

See you!!