The Council for Sustainability at SCAD

The Council on Sustainability participated in the City of Savannah’s Earth Day Festival on April 18. Festival attendees were invited to bring shirts to be silk screened with one (or more) Earth Day and recycling-related designs created by council member Cindy Hartness. Click on the images below to see screen printing in action! Photos by Charile Ribbens.

Are you interested in learning more about SCAD’s new Master of Arts degree in design for sustainability? Join faculty and staff to learn more about this exciting new graduate program. An interest meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 29 at 6 p.m. in Room 122 of the Gulfstream Center for Furniture and Industrial Design, 3116 Montgomery St.,

Applications are still being accepted for Fall 2009. For more information, contact Liz Koomler at 912-525-5923.

SCAD Career Services is presenting a workshop entitled “Socially Responsible (Green) Careers” on Friday, Jan. 30, from 2-3 p.m. in York Hall Room 115. From the workshop description:

“Is it possible to do good while doing business? American companies are catching on to this idea. In this workshop you will learn about social responsibility and employers who are committed to its implementation. Options in the non-profit sector will also be discussed. Free samples from green companies for the first 10 students to register.”

Students can register by calling (912) 525-4653 or e-mailing careers@scad.edu.

By Scott Boylston

It was encouraging to see so much attention lavished on sustainable design at the most recent AIGA Educating Designers Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. (http://socialstudiesconference.org/about).

Hosted by MICA (Maryland Institute, College of Art), the conference was entitled ‘Social Studies: Educating Designers in a Connected World,’ and featured categories such as Activism, Community Service, Social Media, and Crossing Cultures. But the main auditorium of the conference was dedicated to sessions on Sustainability, and large audiences gathered for each session. (more…)

By Ming Tang

After a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck central China last May, killing 69,000 people, injuring hundreds of thousands and leaving millions homeless, the government is planning an extensive reconstruction project that includes building more than 1.5 million temporary homes, which are expected to last two or three years. The central feature of our project is the development of a temporary shelter for the homeless people, a kinetic structure that exhibits characteristics of umbrella and folded fans, with the potential of arranging themselves into various contexts and dwelling requirements. We named it as Bamboo + Paper House, a self reconstructive structure for instant installations, which, according to the changing internal requirements and site topography, can produce potentially infinite scenarios.

The folded house is transported to site and modified by the social, economic and culture requirements of the user. Composed of paper fibers, water and cement, it can be used for a variety of construction applications. The light weight paper house can be pre-assembled in the factory, folded into a small package, loaded into a truck for transportation. Bamboo + Paper House has been featured on Web sites such as Tree Hugger, Arch Daily, Urban Promoter, and others.