Assignment #2 Collective Intelligence – The Impact and Benefits of Nature

By: Jonathan Krywulak

Green Fix

In this article, Naomi Lubick suggests that although past research has made a compelling case for the healing affects of nature, the direct causes related to “nature’s curative powers” (2013, p. 42) has been difficult to determine due to the medial field largely overlooking it. Lubick references E.O. Wilson who suggested nature’s restorative benefits to human beings is the result of an evolutionary process between the natural world and the human mind.  This helps to explain our “innate preference for such scenery and provide(s) clues as to why such scenes might trigger restorative brain responses” (p. 42), even if those scenes are artificially constructed.  This can possibly explain why simulated natural environments help people recover faster (deceases in heart rate and stress) in hospitals or feel better in office settings.  Artificial images of nature have the ability to generate a response from the human brain that can result in a variety of psychological and physical health benefits. According to Lubick,  “faking nature will help us hone in on exactly how the real things might be promoting healing, but more importantly, it might help bring nature’s benefits to those of us trapped in places where nature cannot follow”  (p. 44).  As technology advances, it will be interesting to see how nature continues to be simulated in the not so natural world.

Biophilia: Does Visual Contact with Nature Impact on Health and Well-Being?

Bjorn Grinde and Grete Grindal Patil examine the influence plants and other aspects of the natural world have on the human mind.  They suggest that like all other species, humans “have been shaped by forces of evolution” (2009, p. 2333) and it was particularly early in history that humans and the natural world were closely united in order to survive.  It was during this time, according to Grinde and Patil, that plants became an integral part of the human environment, thus evolving alongside the human mind.  Based on this theoretical perspective it is thought that humans “have adapted to live in a green environment” (p. 2333), and any deviation away from the environment may result in unsettling affects such as disease or reduced life quality.  I found this part of the article most interesting as provides a possible reason as to why humans seem to be more calm, comfortable, and balanced (in mind, body, & spirit) when they see or are around nature.  By being close to plants, people are experiencing what they always been accustomed to since early history.  I think in many ways this serves to explain why people have an urge to be around nature and why often times their health and well-being benefit as a result of being around it.  As noted by Grinde and Patil’s, “nature appears to have qualities useful for stress relief, mental restoration, and improved mood simply by being consciously or unconsciously “pleasing to the eye” (p. 2336).  Interaction with plants both indoors and outdoors are encouraged as it serves to benefit the human body and mind.

The Human Relation with Nature and Technological Nature

In this article, Peter Kahn questions whether or not it matters for the physical and psychological wellbeing of humans that actual nature is being replaced by technological nature. He argues that it does matter and his analysis of the question raises the concern that as we move away from actual nature “the baseline across generations for what counts as a full measure of the human experience and of human flourishing” will be lowered.  This may substantially affect the human connection to the natural world and have a negative impact on the physical and psychological well-being of humans.  In his study using plasma HDTV’s to simulate nature, Kahn came to the conclusion that real nature is better than technological nature however technological nature is in many ways better than no nature at all. The general trend provided by research suggested that “interacting with technological nature provides some but not all the enjoyments and benefits of interacting with actual nature” (2009, p. 41).   I agree with this statement as I think technology can afford humans a lot of different opportunities to connect and experience the natural world. Various technological tools have the ability to create mood and provide imagery that people can resonate with, however, I feel that interacting with real nature can generate greater benefits as it relates to physical and psychological well-being.

References

My Delicious link:
 https://delicious.com/jkreek

Lubick, N. (2013). Green fix. New Scientist, 218(2921), 42-44. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0262407913615018

Grinde, B., & Patil, GG. (2009). Biophilia: Does visual contact with nature impact on health and well-being? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 6(9), p. 2332-2343. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/a/ualberta.ca/file/d/0B21EMxFJbDZ6bnVuVldDQ28xbWs/edit?pli=1

Kahn, P., Severson, R., & Ruckert, J. (2009). The human relation with nature and technological nature. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, p. 37–42. Retrieved from http://depts.washington.edu/hints/publications/Human_Relation_Technological_Nature.pdf

Assignment 2 – Collective Intelligence

Bringing Nature to Kids through Technology

For this assignment I decided to look at the idea of using technology to help children experience nature. All three of the articles/ videos that I examined encompass the themes of nature, technobiophilia, and transliteracy.

In his TED talk “A teacher growing green in the South Bronx”, teacher Stephen Ritz talks about how he and his students teamed with Green Living Technologies, a company that develops technology for green roofs and green walls, in order to build an indoor edible wall in their South Bronx classroom. Green Living’s technology allows plants to grown in an urban setting, both inside and outside. Ritz states that the edible wall allowed all of his students to participate in this farming exercise. He says, “I wanted to figure out how I could get this kind of success into something small, like this, and bring it into my classroom so that handicapped kids could do it, kids who didn't want to be outside could do it, and everyone could have access…And lo and behold, we gave birth to the first edible wall in New York City” (Ritz, Jan. 2012). The food the students grew was served to students and teachers in the school cafeteria. Students were also encouraged to graze directly off the wall whenever they wanted. They had access to fresh vegetables during school hours that they grew themselves.

Ritz’s students were so inspired by their green wall, that they went on to build and design more walls and roofs, and they got paid for their efforts. Ritz discusses one case, which seems to embody technobiophilia, where his students designed and installed a green wall on the John Hancock building in Boston. Ritz states that “And my kids, from the poorest congressional district in America, became the first to install a green wall, designed by a computer, with real-live learning tools, 21 stories up” (Ritz, Jan. 2012). Some of Ritz’s students have become licensed Green Living installers, and have gone onto work with contractors in their neighborhood who build affordable housing. Through this introduction to green technology, and what they have learned about growing food, Ritz’s students have been able to transform their neighborhood, their school, and their future.

In her Ted talk “Using tech to enable dreaming” Shilo Shiv Suleman also discusses how children can use technology to enhance their experience with nature. Suleman states that she felt that technology was killing imagination. She felt that cellphones and digital cameras had “stopped us from dreaming. They stopped us from being inspired. And so I jumped…into this world of technology, to see how I could use it to enable magic as opposed to kill it” (Suleman, Dec. 2011).

Suleman did this by designing an interactive iPad app called Khoya, which allows children to become immersed in a digital fantasy adventure story. She states that she realized that the iPad was the perfect storytelling device – a transmedia storytelling device – because it could connect readers all over the world, plus the device can tell the way it’s being held, and it has a GPS so it can tell where the reader lives. She states that digital storytelling allows for transliteracy because “It brings together image and text and animation and sound and touch. Storytelling is becoming more and more multi-sensorial” (Suleman, Dec. 2011). In terms of technobiophilia, as part of the interactive digital story, readers are asked to go outside and take pictures with their iPad of nature – like flowers or leaves - and upload the photos online, where they can share with other readers around the world. Suleman states that “now with mobile technology, we can actually take our children outside into the natural world with their technology.” (Suleman, Dec. 2011). She feels that we are moving towards a world where nature and technology are becoming closer, stating that “We're bringing our children and ourselves closer to the natural world and that magic and joy and childhood love that we had through the simple medium of a story” (Suleman, Dec. 2011).

In her article “Get Your Students Outside With Technology”, Patty McGinnis discusses how technology, students and nature can be a ‘winning combination’. McGinnis writes how the creation on an interpretive trail helped her students interact with nature while using technology to “create a product that would be beneficial to the community” (McGinnis, p.59, 2014). This exercise allowed her students to become transliterate because it “addressed many 21st-century learning skills while making learning relevant and providing students with an authentic audience for their work” (McGinnis, p.59, 2014). Students were tasked with creating numbered posts that contained a quick response (QR) code to be placed along a nature trail. A QR code contains an embedded URL, that when scanned with a smart phone takes the user to a student created Web site. Each student made their own QR codes and created their own Web sites which contained text information, photos and student created videos explaining different points of interest along the trail.

During this exercise, students were required to become familiar with different types of technology, along with their life-sciences course content. Students were placed into small working groups, and each group had to record their point of interest along the trail on Google Sites. McGinnis explains that “Students were made editors of the site, which enabled them to add information about their point of interest to their page” (McGinnis, p.60, 2014). Students were encouraged to use "text, images, podcasts and videos when discussing their points of interest” (McGinnis, p.59, 2014) on their sites, plus they learned how to place a marker on their point of interest on Google Maps. This exercise seems like a great example also of Dr. Sue Thomas’s definition of technobiophilia, because students were encouraged to “achieve a ‘tech-nature’ balance through practical experiments designed to enhance…digital lives indoors, outdoors, and online” (Thomas, July 2013).

My Delicious site is: https://delicious.com/nawoods

References:
McGinnis, P. (2014). GET YOUR STUDENTS OUTSIDE WITH TECHNOLOGY!. Science Scope, 37(7), 58-64.

Ritz, S. (2012). A teacher growing green in South Bronx. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_ritz_a_teacher_growing_green_in_the_south_bronx

Suleman, S. (2011). Using tech to enable dreaming. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming?quote=1330

Thomas, S. (2013). Technobiophilia: Nature and Cyberspace. Retrieved from http://suethomasnet.wordpress.com/technobiophilia/

Collective Intelligence Assignment #2: Cyberspace and Cybersecurity

With the tremendous growth of the internet and the proliferation of devices used for every aspect of our personal and business lives, we must conclude that cyberspace and along with it, cybersecurity, are here to stay. Cybersecurity has become a huge and very complicated issue.

The 1998 video “Caught in the Web: Staying Safe in Cybersafe”  (The Found Footage Festival, 1998) looks back on what seems to be a simpler time while educating parents, kids and teens about the dangers of online predators. Cyberspace safety issues regarding chat rooms, games, shopping, viruses, pornography, criminals and child predators have already been identified.

The 2014 CNBC News Report Video “Mistakes Businesses are still making in Cyberspace” (CNBC, 2014) indicates that businesses are complacent about cybersecurity and cyberspace safety of their intellectual property and customer data. Very large companies such has Target and Barclays have been hacked. This cybersecurity issue is not new; businesses simply have not allocated resources to move cybersecurity issues to priority levels.

The Government of Canada Get Cyber Safe (Government of Canada, 2014) website showcases thought leadership; it has an excellent framework of current resources to educate parents, teens, and small/medium businesses. We all know that the rapidly growing internet and cyberspace make the world smaller and very connected. Everyone is involved: everyone needs to be part of the solution: government, businesses and individuals. The biggest issue parents and teens now face is cyberbullying: hating online has caused teenage suicides. In addition this website links out to cyber-security risk pages for Mobile, Banking and Finance, Social Networking, Email, Online Gaming and Entertainment, VoIP, Downloading and File Sharing and Shopping Online. There is a Get Cyber Safe Blog and more current resources for downloading. This website showcases how the internet and cyberspace touches every aspect of our personal and business lives.

The message is clear; the world has changed. Parents, Teens, and businesses need to take ownership and work cooperatively with government agencies getting the message out and learning how to live safely in our very complex and rapidly evolving global, cyberspace world.

CNBC. (2014, February 18). Mistakes businesses are still making in cyberspace. (J. Schlesinger, Producer) Retrieved March 16, 2014, from CNBC : http://www.cnbc.com/id/101419109

Government of Canada. (2014). Get Cyber Safe. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from Get Cyber Safe: http://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx

The Found Footage Festival. (1998). Caught In The Web: Staying Safe In Cyberspace. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from The Found Footage Festival: http://www.foundfootagefest.com/2014/01/caught-in-the-web-staying-safe-in-cybersafe/

Collective intelligence Assignment #2 – Can social cataloguing aid library metadata creation?

By Nicole Basaraba

Social tagging, or folksonomy (a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy) coined by Thomas Vander Wal is a form of participatory literacy. It gained popularity in 2003 with the social bookmarking site “del.icio.is” (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010) and two of the largest websites employing social tagging and focusing on books are LibraryThing and Goodreads. Social tagging is a process where users add metadata often termed tags or keywords to content.

The three texts (book marked on my delicious account) I chose to examine are: 

1. a YouTube video which shows how social tagging works in LibraryThing,
2. a journal article that explores whether social tagging in LibraryThing is comparable or useful for expert-created subject headings for the Library of Congress, and
3. a blog that outlines why Goodreads – which relies more on non-textual metadata – rather than LibraryThing is the largest social book sharing website.  

These texts showed that social cataloguing, while uncontrolled, can help: Internet users personalize their workflow, contribute new terms to standardized library taxonomies, and help people form communities online.

Video: “What is social cataloguing?” – Tim Spalding

In this video Tim Spalding mocks his own ethos. He has Classics degree, but describes his creation of LibraryThing as “Library Science practiced without a degree”.

Spalding started LibraryThing in 2005 and now it is a company based in Portland, Maine with over 1.7 million users and 88 million books catalogued. It adds books from 690 libraries around the world and from Amazon.

Spalding defines social cataloguing as a situation where “personal cataloguing goes social”. His definition is vague, but he explains that LibraryThing’s main purpose is for personal cataloguing where users can add any tags they think describe the book’s topic and content. It displays information in an ‘Excel sheet’ type format with detailed information including book author, title, ISBN, book awards, and other categories. Spalding emphasizes that LibraryThing does not suggest tags so that users organically generate all the tags. With this system, users can search for books and view and interact with someone else’s library allowing members to grow into a community.

In addition to the community aspect, Spalding notes that the personal cataloguing reveals a lot about a person. The tag cloud shows users’ topical interests and the statistical metadata provides users with insight about themselves.

Journal Article: “User Tags versus Subject Headings: Can User-Supplied Data Improve Subject Access to Library Collections?” - Caimei Lu, Jung-ran Park, and Xiaohua Hu, Drexel University, USA

Lu, Park and Hu (2010) conducted a study comparing social tags created by users from the LibraryThing website with the Library of Congress subject headings determined by expert cataloguers. Since social cataloguing is unregulated, researchers are concerned with the quality of the tags.

Figure 1. Benefits and limitations of expert-created compared to socially-created metadata.

	Expert created metadata (Library of Congress subject headings)	Social cataloguing (LibraryThing tags)
Benefits	High quality Limited scope	Time efficient More consensus on subject scope Adaptable to new vocabulary
Limitations	Costly to produce	Uncontrolled/limitless

Experts apply controlled vocabularies to metadata to summarize resources after reading the books so this process is time consuming and costly. The language used for Library of Congress subject headings (LCSHs) is limited because it is often highly technical and specialized, which requires users to have knowledge on these terms in order to search for books (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010, p. 764).  

Social tagging doesn’t involve any metadata standards and users apply their own descriptors. Since this threshold is lowered, a large number of resources can be tagged in a short amount of time (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010, p. 764). Social tags can include new popularized vocabulary, non-dictionaries words, and words that have meaning only to the individual user.

For example, in del.icio.us we used the tags “NMN” and “For:JessL” for this assignment so that we could find each other’s content and links. However, these tags don’t really mean anything to anyone else who hasn’t taken the course before. A study by Kipp and Campbell found that more than 16% of del.icio.us tags were non-subject terms, which suggests that users want to attach personal resource management information to documents or books to make searching for them easier (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010, p. 772).

The key finding in Lu, Park and Hu’s study (2010) between the two cataloguing systems is that “overlapping terms only comprise a small portion (about 2.2%) of the entire tag vocabulary. That is, about 97.8% of [user-generated] tags cannot be found in LCSHs for the same collection of books” (p. 770). This demonstrates that uncontrolled tagging results in limitless categories.

Lu, Park and Hu (2010) came to three main conclusions:

• “user-generated tags may help bridge the gap between professional and public discourse by providing a source of terms not included in authorized terminologies and controlled vocabularies […]
• social taggers might help enhance the subject access to library collections by describing library resources with terms different than those used by experts […]
• users view classification as a holistic process closely tied to themselves and their work” (p. 776-777).

In other words, although social tagging is uncontrolled, it can help: contribute to expert-created metadata, improve online search ability for books, and add an element of personalization for individual users’ work. 

Blog: “Social cataloguing – a discussion on LibraryThing and Goodreads” – Simon Barron, Librarian

LibraryThing and Goodreads are the two most popular social cataloguing websites. Goodreads surpasses LibraryThing with approximately 17 million users and 550 million books (Barron, 2013), which raises the question as to whether Goodreads is superior to LibraryThing.

Simon Barron notes that Goodreads focuses more on the social networking aspect because it has a more visual interface than LibraryThing’s text-based user interface. Barron’s description of the two networks can be understood from a phenomenological perspective. Barron notes that design may be a major factor in Goodreads’ popularity:

“Goodreads tends more towards the use of terminology related to cataloguing print materials and to old paradigms of organisation: 'shelves', 'friends', 'community' are familiar and comforting words associated with cosy, physical libraries and lovely, welcoming bookshops. LibraryThing, by contrast, uses words that actually apply to digital materials and which, while more technically accurate, are less welcoming: 'collections', 'members', 'contacts', etc.” (para. 10).

While Goodreads is more popular, LibraryThing’s metadata provides more intelligent book recommendations for each user based on the books in their library rather than Goodreads, which relies on the user attributing star ratings (1-5).

Barron concludes that social cataloguing: allows users to organize books quickly and easily, removes the reliance on trained cataloguers, and makes cataloguing more subjective, democratized and social.

Conclusions

LibraryThing is advantageous for users because it: gives them a personalized digital library where they can easily search for books according to their own semantics, allows them to learn more about books they’ve read, and provides greater insight into their own interests. LibraryThing’s focus on organic user-developed tags creates categories or new taxonomies that could potentially be used by libraries to enhance search ability for books. For example, Spalding (in the second video) gives is the fiction genre “cyberpunk” – a category not recognized by the Library of Congress, which instead uses the “Science Fiction”.

Goodreads surpasses LibraryThing in terms of number of users and books because the website design allows it’s users to engage in more phenomenologically familiar and simplified book sharing and reviewing practices. However, LibraryThing’s social cataloguing is superior because the metadata provides better book recommendations and more detailed information on titles.

There is potential for libraries to incorporate social tagging into their cataloguing to improve search ability and user interaction. For example, the University of Pennsylvania created ‘Penntags’, a locally developed software for social bookmarking; the Ann Arbor District Library developed the ‘Social Online Public Access Catalog’; and Danbury Library was the first to incorporate LibraryThing widgets into its catalogue (Lu, Park & Hu, 2010).

New media technologies allow users to create their own ‘narratives’ as they can assign personalized tags and meaning to works they’ve read. They can do this quickly to a large volume of books and it allows them to improve personal search efficiencies. This online participation (literary smart mob) democratizes book taxonomy into a folksonomy and creates online communities and shared knowledge, which contributes to everyone’s digital literacies.

References

Barron, S. (2013, August 6). Social cataloguing: a discussion on LibraryThing and Goodreads. Undaimonia. Retrieved from http://undaimonia.blogspot.ca/2013/08/social-cataloguing-discussion-on.html

LibraryThing. Retrived from https://www.librarything.com

Lu, C., Park, J., and Hu, X. (2010). User tags versus expert-assigned subject terms: A comparison of LibraryThing tags and Library of Congress Subject Headings. Journal of Information Science, 36 (p. 763-779).

Spalding, T (Speaker). (2009, November 30). LibraryThingTim [Episode 1/6]. What is Social Cataloging? Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCU_UkUKZI8

Spalding, T (Speaker). (2009, December 1). LibraryThingTim [Episode 2/6]. What is Social Cataloging?. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt94e9mX320

Collective Intelligence Assignment #2: Biomimcry and Packaging in the Realm of New Media Narratives

Below are three sources, bookmarked on my delicious.com account, that relate to technobiophilia, biomimicry and new media narratives, as a whole. The theme running throughout the sources is using the principles of biomimicry in design to create more sustainable solutions that help us feel more connected to the world around us. Furthermore, packaging is a storytelling medium because it provides a platform to educate and entice the consumer about the contents within. Therefore, these sources are also about telling a story through packaging design and doing so in such a way that combines the natural world with hi-tech industries.  


Biomimicry’s Surprising Lessons From Nature’s Engineers TEDTalk by Janine Benyus

New Media Narratives’ technobiophilia guest lecture by Professor Sue Thomas was incredibly interesting to me for a number of reasons. I have been trying to piece together how I can look at packaging design (both graphic design and structural design) from a different angle in the context of increased sustainability, using natural materials and keeping concepts such as minimalism, simplification and function in the back of my mind. For the longest time, I have not been able to put my finger on how to combine all of these elements within the context of communications and technology. This has sparked my interest in the concept of bringing together “natural technologies” with hi-tech solutions to today’s products and problems. 

For all of these reasons, my first delicious.com bookmark is an insightful TEDTalk by biomimicry expert, Janine Benyus. This talk explores the  bigger picture of relating technology to the natural world and how we can use 3.8 billion years of Mother Nature’s R&D to solve man-made problems. I believe it links back to our course, specifically in the area of technobiophilia, because humans respond powerfully to the natural environment (even a simulated or virtual natural environment). This power has yet to be harnessed in the packaging industry. I believe that consumer behaviour theories, storytelling capabilities through packaging and sustainability measures could be amplified if examined through the lens of biomimcry. Packaging is a product designed to be thrown out, so how can we use what we know about communication in a hi-tech world to leverage the future of packaging to leave the world better than we left it for our children?


The Supermaterial That Could Make Plastic Obsolete Is… Mushrooms by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

This is a fascinating article about a design concept using the principles of biomimicry and innovation and it’s also an entrepreneurial success story. Two students began experimenting with fungus for use as a packaging material as part of a school project and then decided to take their idea to market. Their business now employs 60 workers to grow and manufacture the fungus (Mycelium) for consumer packaging applications, as well as for industrial applications, such as housing insulation. The most innovative aspect of this product is that it harnesses the power of natural fungus to solve the man-made problem of shipping fragile materials long distances. The growing fungus conforms to any mold shape, acting in a similar way that dense foam does, so it can be used in a variety of applications. This type of innovation demonstrates that harnessing millions of years of Mother Nature’s ideas can result in very practical and sustainable solutions where unnatural materials are currently being used. This also creates opportunities for businesses who use this packaging product to make it part of their brand story to consumers. This product will ultimately help reinforce a company’s commitment to sustainability and environmentally-friendly practices. It may even increase market share for adoptive companies because of the theories of technobiophilia that we, as humans, are drawn to natural experiences. Perhaps the next laptop you purchase will be protected from damage by fungus (and how often can you say that your packaging was made by a “fungi”!?).


On the use of Biomimicry as a Useful Tool for the Industrial Designer by Nina Louis Volstad and Casper Boks 

This article is so important because it emphasizes the importance of industrial designers becoming aware of and supplementing their designer’s toolkit with principles of biomimicry. The article continues to suggest that design inspired by biomimicry does not have to be a literal interpretation of a natural solution, but instead, these concepts can be used as one of many sources of inspiration. I love this type of “cross-pollination” of disciplines that facilitate greater innovation overall, which I think mirrors the themes our New Media Narratives course very well. By looking at the big picture, we may be able to find ways to better tell a story or better design a product that by approaching problem solving in a siloed environment. 

The authors of this article go on to suggest a practical solution to industrial designers not having access to this important information. They suggest the creation of a new tool called the biomimicry card deck: “This card deck format was found to be a ‘lightweight’, physical, and accessible tool, meant to employ biomimicry in a less intimidating, time-consuming or committing way than by using books or databases, and usable without any previous knowledge of biology or biomimicry” (Boks & Volstad, 2012, p.195). The cards tell different stories about specific principles of biomimicry and are presented in a medium that industrial designers can easily use. One of the mock-ups in the article depicts bees and a honeycomb on one side of the card and straightforward, hierarchical information regarding the “natural R&D” significance on the other side. This links back to the concepts surrounding technobiophilia, whereby the design of these cards may not only facilitate solution innovation, but the beautiful imagery on the cards could attract the industrial designers to want to use them. In Sue Thomas’ work, she articulates the innate attraction we have to the natural world. Industrial designers typically work in very hi-tech work spaces, using technology to more efficiently and accurately execute design work. By incorporating natural concepts and imagery into their work, this may help fulfill a longing to want to spend more time with nature, whether they realize it or not.

References

Benyus, J. (Presenter). (February 2005). Biomimicry’s surprising lessons from nature’s engineers. TEDTalk. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs

Campbell-Dollaghan, K. (2013, June 6). The supermaterial that could make plastic obsolete is...mushrooms? Retrieved from http://gizmodo.com/the-futuristic-material-that-will-replace-plastic-is-511544462 

Boks, C., & Volstad, N. L. (2012). On the use of biomimcry as a useful tool for the industrial designer. Sustainable Development, 20, 189-199. doi: 10.1002/sd.1535

Collective Intelligence Assignment #2: Biophilic Architectural Design Review and Analysis of Google’s Main Headquarters

By: Mandeep Jawanda

My username on delicious.com is @msjawand, webpage: Link to my Delicious account

Introduction

For this assignment I investigated and analyzed biophilic architectural design. In particular, I was interested in how office space design shapes and influences the behaviour of employees in their working environment. My research led me to Google (Inc.); I chose this organization because they have shown a strong propensity to be leaders and innovators of incorporating biophilic design. My primary focus for this assignment was to look at Google’s main headquarters, and how the organization incorporates biophilia into the design elements of this building. Nature through a holistic approach is a key element in the way Google facilitated the footprint of their building, with a strong emphasis placed on the well being of their employees. What was determined through my literature review and video research is that people are at the centre of how the office space is configured at Google, with almost an equal emphasis placed on bringing the open environment back into every facet of their facility.

First and Second Text Sources Combined

My first text source looked at two academic journals located through the University of Alberta databases. My findings from these articles can be found in the paragraphs below. I linked these journal articles in the online bookmark manager delicious.com through my SkyDrive. My second text source looked at two different YouTube videos in which they explore the Google headquarters main facility, with a particular emphasis placed on the design elements. These videos highlight and demonstrate the interactions they occur between the people at Google, and the way in which they operate in their working environment. Additionally, these videos bring a visual element to the theory presented in the journal articles.

Google’s unique approach to their office structure design can be attributed to many different factors, such as their unorthodox methods of conducting business. The organization in essence has taken a biological approach rather than a mechanical stance. This was iterated by Turner and Myerson (2000), “The materials, space plans, equipment, and environmental controls that make up the complex picture of workplace design need to be turned to the changing needs of the organization and the people who work in it,” (p.45).

Ergonomics can play a pivotal role in the architectural design of a building. The physical space of an organization is just as important as the type of management methodology that is being implemented by the organization. “The culture of the organization within which we work determines to a significant extent how effective, successful, and fulfilled we are in our professional lives,” (Turner & Myerson, 2000, p.45). The ecology of an organization can have a direct affect on the morale of the employees within the organization. However, many senior managers do not see the value or significance of their physical environment. Instead many top mangers focus their time and energy towards employee management only. “In many cases senior mangers seem content to leave office facilities departments to maintain standards of decoration and tidiness appropriate to the general corporate image, without seeming to be aware of the wider change-management issues related to the office environment,” (Turner & Myerson, 2000, p.45).

As per Turner and Myerson (2000), many organizations have continued to adopt a masculine style to their office space that is reminiscent of the industrial age. These organizations have continued to adopt an old methodology of scientific management. As a result maintaining control of the working environment is critical for their success, and thus the office space under this philosophy should not be comfortable. If the work setting becomes too informal then the employees may adopt a lackadaisical mindset to their business commitments. Google contradicts this belief my taking a holistic identity relating to corporate culture that can be seen directly in their unique office design, “Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters, presents something of a shock. The cool blond wood and carefully recessed lighting which have marked the power of industrial firms for decades have disappeared. In their place, plain white walls are posted with some two dozen unframed photographs of giant sculptures set out in a flat, white desert and of fireworks exploding over the head of a giant neon stick figure,” (Turner, 2009, p.74). This paradigm shift is a reflection of the changing social dynamics that are occurring throughout various organizations, as more attention is placed on the importance of the working environment.

Third Text Source

In terms of the future, what will biophilic design look like, what could be some of the elements we incorporate into our office spaces in the years to come? Furthermore, how will work-life balance function in these evolving organizational design dynamics? These are some of the basic fundamental questions that need to be answered in order to take the next step in the proliferation of the traditional office space design.

To provide greater insight into this issue, I present the class with a video found on Vimeo in which Philip Beesley presents his ideas on the future of design. Philip Beesley is an associate professor at the University of Waterloo within the Architecture department. His work is considered at the forefront of the quickly expanding responsive architecture that incorporates technology. His projects feature interactive kinetic systems that use a wide selection of sensors, actuator and microprocessors systems precisely placed within lightweight structures. These environments pursue dispersed emotional awareness within artificial and near-living systems. During the interview, Beesley explains how architecture of the future could be active in some ways.

Conclusion

Biophilic architectural designs are used throughout various industries and to varying capacities. Google is one organization that has adopted these principles into their organizational plan, and has shown tremendous success. The potential growth and impact that biophilic principles can have on industry practices and people cannot be understated, and with visionaries like Philip Beesley the future is bright.

References for Text Source 1

Turner, F. (2009). Burning man at google: A cultural infrastructure for new media production. New Media & Society, 11(1/2), 73-94.
Link to "Burning Man" Journal Article

Turner, G., & Myerson, J. (2000). By the book: new workspace, new culture. Journal For Quality & Participation, 23(5), 45.
Link to "By the Book" Journal Article

References for Text Source 2

This video was created by the Travel and Living Channel. It was aired on a television program called “Extreme Work Places.” The video was uploaded and posted to YouTube by CG RAMP on July 6, 2012.
Video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQO3xK9g_CE
Link to "Working at Google (Tour of Google)" YouTube Video

This video was created by Google Inc. The video was uploaded and published to YouTube by Google on June 4, 2013.
Video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9No-FiEInLA
Link to "Google interns' first week" YouTube Video

Reference for Text Source 3

Video Title: “Philip Beesley: Hylozoic Ground”
Location and Date of Interview: The Canadian Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy, August 27/28, 2010
Video Producers: G. Gilmore, H. Schmidt
Video retrieved from http://vimeo.com/14979991
Link to "Philip Beesley: Hylozoic Ground" Vimeo Video