So I love documentaries. I love watching them on youtube and I love watching them on netflix. My boyfriend and I watched 2 documentaries in the past 24 hours that have really made me think a lot about the society we live in and the things we interact with.
I am thinking this way in order to get me in “Anthropologist Mode.” This sort of thinking will help me academically and make me sound like a know-it-all in class. Perfect.
Either way these two movies were great and I highly recommend them. The first was Objectified
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This documentary was about the design of products to make our lives easier and create cultural design. Really interesting. But the last couple of quotes of the documentary really stuck with me.
This designer was like, “No designer ever wants to think about this, but the majority of our designs are going to end up taking space in a landfill. And because of that we have to change the way we create products to make them more sustainable and have longevity.” People have to want to keep that chair you designed for 20 years…not 4.
Now that is not a direct quote, but the gist of what I got. Another designer said also that a lot of products have a shelf life of 11 months. Like phones. And if that is how long they are going to be useful, we should make them out of cardboard and biodegradable plastic.
So true. My beautiful Galaxy SIII should be made out of biodegradable plastic because in about 2 to 3 years I am going to want a new one!
The second documentary was called Urbanized. Pretty convinced these two movies either had the same guy making the movie posters, produced by the same people, or directed by the same people. I have no patience to verify this myself via wikipedia or imdb.
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Urbanizeddddd
This one was all about how cities need to be designed in a way where they are sustainable for the society and environment. From city slums to Manhattan, people are constantly designing space to make it better manageable. Really amazing what some cities are doing in order to help their citizens and the environment out. This one city in South America is making pedestrians and cyclists a bigger priority than cars because they want to get people out of their cars and on their bikes to relieve traffic congestion and pollution. The first solution was getting rid of parking in a lot of areas. Nobody has the right to park. And even in Sweden this is totally true. I would hate to have a car here because you have to pay to park EVERYWHERE and finding parking is incredibly difficult. With a bike, I can probably cut across the city faster than a car and park it wherever I want. This city in South America (don’t remember the name, don’t want to wikipedia it) also created an incredible bus system that didn’t have the “poor people” stigma that buses can have through design and advertising.
In Santiago, Chile they are creating cheap housing in order to get people out of slums and into neighborhoods in the same area. By creating a home that has basic amenities they can get people into bigger spaces and allow them to design the interior they want. Concrete floors, no tile, no water heater. Just basic, and as they make more money they can customize their house. Get them out of the slums and into houses. Really such a well thought out idea to create housing that in 20 years will be probably the coolest place to live in Santiago.
But it made me think a lot about how culture is so greatly affected by urban design.
In South Africa they created this project to make certain parts of the city safer by creating a well-lit and well-built walkway with safety towers always manned by people along the way so that people can travel around the area easily and feel safe while doing it. That changes a culture immensely. So much time is not spent being scared. They also created more parks and playgrounds for children. I think the statistic was like 40% reduction in homicides since they did this. That is INSANE.
Changes everything.
Really makes you think about how the city you live in can be made even better. In a way that can help improve the environment instead of degrade it.
Cailtin
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
