2021-2022

Jamie Kruse

Part-time Assistant Professor, Parsons School of Design

OBSERVING THE LONG LIVES is a series of observational practices that make vast scales of  planetary change sensible and meaningful at a human scale through an in-depth engagement  with the materials most commonly handled by DSNY. The observations focus attention upon the  geo-cosmo origins of NYC’s material stream (metal, plastic, compost, road salt and solid waste)  and the pivotal moments of exchange that occur when a New Yorker comes into contact with  these materials—and then chooses what will happen to them next. Their choices unleash  vibrant, shimmering consequences for our city’s and the planet’s biosphere and geologic  futures. Their choices also shape the daily lives of countless New Yorkers today in highly  unequal ways (storage/handling/proximity to waste).  

Observations focus on where and how NYC agencies handle specific materials (who, where,  how much) and to what effect upon the city, workers and citizens. Seemingly simply actions— the choices we all make tens of times a day about how to “throw things away”—design life in  NYC and do so with great consequence.

The project offers embodied experiences of daily urban life as being nested within planetary  scales and forces of materiality. Doing so, it aims to deepen collective abilities to experience  how our everyday lives are deeply interconnected with one another, with non-human beings,  and with the geologic. 

This project emphasizes the geologic effect of materials in urban centers as one core  component of social/environmental justice. What happens (pedagogically and practically, on the  ground) when we use a geo-cosmological frame to reconsider what we typically call “waste”?  What happens when we use such a frame to rethink actions that last for the brief moment it  takes to toss something into the trash—yet have power to transform commonplace, everyday  objects for deep futures and with vibrant geologic consequences? Aesthetic encounters with  these questions can be wonder-filled and empowering when we fully embody our choices and  their long-term consequences for our shared urban futures.

Daniel Michalik

Assistant Professor of Product and Industrial Design, Parsons School of Design

The Forest for the Trees is a project to research and map the traditions of the agroforestry system of the Portuguese cork forests and montados as a means towards establishing  healthier models for human acquisition of material from other forms of life. The bioregions of central and southern Portugal are characterized by cork oak trees (Quercus Suber L.). These regions are known for wild forests of cork trees, which serve as anchor species for a wide variety of interconnected biodiversity. For millennia, humans have interacted symbiotically with both the wild forests and the montados, a geographical model of managed forests currently slated for UNESCO World Heritage status, as land evolving from integration of nature and human activity. 

The cork regions are currently under threat from state support for eucalyptus plantations that feed the paper and furniture industries as well as land development for mining and tourism. However, the inherent resistance of cork trees to fire, their power to slow land desertification and their efficacy as CO2 sinks means that cork is a resource worth fighting to preserve. 

My intent was to research and collect data, stories and oral histories to create a comprehensive, systemic view of cork agriculture and industry. First, proposing that the system of growing, caring for and harvesting cork trees might provide a model for a different way of sourcing nature’s materials. Second, to record and communicate the many cycles of material reuse and added value that has effectively eliminated the concept of waste within the cork industry, making it an exciting material with applications to the constructed environment. Finally, to learn more about the history of humans using cork as a material for craft production, and how a material might provide a history and portrait of regional and regenerative material culture. 

As a means to provide a base for my work closer to Portugal, I am currently a Visiting Academic at Central Saint Martins in London, with the title of Visiting Researcher in Regenerative Design and Global Culture, working primarily in the MA Material Futures course. In addition to writing and metabolizing the cork research, I am active within the CSM community, sharing what I’ve learned with students, and contributing an essay for the 2022 MA Material Futures Graduation Catalog.

I have been nourished by the exposure to new cultures and critical perspectives on design, materials, and making. I look forward to integrating what I’ve learned in my collaborations with the Central Saint Martins community to my work at Parsons when I return. I will be teaching an elective course open to all Parsons students in Spring 2023 titled “The Thick Skin” that will dive deeply into cork as an ideal, healthy material for industrial design and architecture. This course will be underwritten by Amorim Cork, who will supply materials and (hopefully) travel for students to travel to the cork regions of Portugal. 

As I learn more about the ecologies within the cork regions and the ecology of a new academic space, my appreciation for values of interconnectedness and ecological thinking has increased. I hope this academic exchange will fortify global creative connections between institutions that will collaboratively, actively decarbonize the academic sphere. 

I have made four trips to the industrial and agricultural cork regions of Portugal. I have spent time in the facilities of Amorim, a global leader in cork production, including collaborating on a documentary about my research called “Cork Changed Me”. I have visited multiple agricultural sites and farms that are tied to the growth of cork trees, and gotten to know the families and farmers that have worked with cork trees on land that has supported them for generations. I have met with museum curators that look after historical artifacts made from cork, and heard the stories of how this material was integrated into the domestic and agrarian lives of the people of these regions. I have met with researchers and academics that work in regenerative agriculture and policies of land use, as well as artists, designers and craftspeople that work with cork and related forms of industrial and agricultural “waste”. 

What has emerged is a map of a material system dense with complexity, challenge and opportunity. Some of those that I’ve met in the cork land regions are straining under the threats they face. Historic drought, exacerbated by intensive water consumption from nearby eucalyptus plantations and development projects that siphon water from beneath their feet have left their cork forests withering and unsuited for harvest, lest they damage the trees. Some are converting their land to eco-tourism to offset economic losses brought about by these threats. Others are defiantly optimistic, investing in planting new cork trees, and looking to traditional ecological knowledge as a way to nurture young trees to maturity. These farmers see great promise in cork as a future material for resistance and resilience in the face of climate threat, and are working from a belief in reciprocity, knowing that investment in the health of cork forests now will yield complex and lasting benefits for the future. 

I am integrating the content from these experiences into a book draft on how cork, in its agricultural and industrial structure and connections to political and material history, serves as a case study in decarbonized ways of relating to natural materials. The central theme of my book focuses on how a single material represents an entangled ecology of life systems, culture and history. As humans engage with material through design, putting into place cycles of extraction, transformation and reuse / disposal, we also engage these fragile ecologies. In writing this book, my goal is to help readers discover hidden layers of connection behind our materials, and develop more caring and regenerative design actions we can take. 

I am collating the writing that has emerged from the research into an online journal with the same name as the project, as an open forum for other researchers and practitioners to contribute. This project is nascent and ongoing, but as a result of the support that TEDC has provided allowing me to travel to London and Portugal, I now have a deep trove of media, including photos, video, and interviews with stakeholders that will feed into the later deliverables.

Barent Roth

Assistant Professor of Product and Industrial Design, Parsons School of Design

Circular Economy Manufacturing (CEMfg) operates a proprietary solar-powered MicroFactory shipping container on Governors Island, NYC. Our off-grid operation rotationally molds consumer and urban infrastructure products from recycled plastic (such as laundry bottles) using a pioneering energy-efficient mold heating technology. CEMfg is currently producing multicolored souvenir globes for Governors Island visitors. We will progress to manufacture urban products such as traffic cones, bike lane bollards, waste receptacles, street furniture, and lifeguard floats for Governors Island and NYC. Manufacturing essential urban products within city limits will help reduce dependency on fossil fuels, advance zero-waste initiatives, create local jobs, and utilize ample plastic waste. 

This past year the funding Circular Economy Manufacturing received from The Tishman Environment and Design Center was used to bring on Maité (Maria) Ortiz and Ben Nunez as Research Assistants who aided in several fundamental tasks that enabled us to start producing products on Governors Island. This past Academic Year, we delivered the MicroFactory to Governors Island and successfully designed, built, and installed a solar support structure for the top of the shipping container MicroFactory. Following this, we fastened 5 rows of 5 panels to the roof support system. This 25 solar panel, 10 kW solar panel system was installed and wired with help from our New School research assistant and interns. The energy we are collecting on Governors Island is stored in a battery bank that provides power to the plastic shredder, rotational molding machine, lighting, and cooling fans. Once we had the power running to this equipment, we were able to start manufacturing our first product, a globe souvenir for Governors Island. 

Throughout the past few months, we have been working to establish proper rotation ratios, heat cycles, and material quantity required to produce the globe product. Everyday we are experimenting with different variables, and documenting the performance. Through our various experiments, we have found that we can produce two types of objects, watertight and porous. Globes made with solely recycled plastic flakes create a porous object with small gaps between the melted plastic flakes. We realized we could use this inherent quality to eventually make porous products such as planters, soap dishes, light fixtures, or even laundry baskets that smell like the laundry detergent bottles from which it came. To create watertight products we have been experimenting with using shredded plastic flakes in combination with recycled plastic powder. The flakes produce the speckle effect commonly seen in objects made from recycled plastic, and the powder fills in the small gaps in the surface, giving the product a smooth surface and better representing the mold details. 

We are documenting all globes we make before selling them to Governors Island visitors. We have also fulfilled several MicroFactory tour requests, where we walk visitors through the process of transforming single-use plastic into well-designed products. Especially considering the number of visitors we are receiving daily, over the past term we have made aesthetic repairs to the exterior of the MicroFactory shipping container including paint repairs. Additionally, informational posters have been designed, printed, and posted to label and help explain our manufacturing process. A station for visitors to charge their phones with solar energy was launched, and we have initiated the sale of the Governors Island Globe with a POS system and website page explaining where the sea levels will rise if we continue following a Linear Economy lifestyle. We are also currently making a stencil to paint our logo on the back of the MicroFactory shipping container so that we are visible from the Brooklyn Ferry and any boat in the Buttermilk Channel. 

With the initiation of globe production, we have learned several key things that have helped us develop future products and product molds. Concurrent with this year's accomplishments on Governors Island, we have been working to design both consumer products and products for cities. The products we are designing will not only be manufactured more sustainably than competing products, but they are also functionally superior and aesthetically enhanced. All our products go through a detailed design process, including ideation, market research, product prototyping, and user testing phases. Our ideas quickly evolve into products that work better, are visually appealing, and are significantly more sustainable than competing products. Certain objects can be designed so multiple products can be molded inside of a single mold. This past year our team has designed several objects including compost bins, plant pots, traffic cones, and rain barrels. We 3D printed and CNC machined several prototypes including a traffic cone model for Governors Island. Ultimately we will establish contracts with districts and cities to provide them with street products such as traffic barriers, bollards, waste receptacles, and street furniture. Instead of landfilling an object when it at some point breaks, we will collect, shred, and remold it into a new product all within our MicroFactory walls. This model can be expanded to cities around the country, making it possible for cities to manufacture essential products within their city limits. Clients and customers benefit because they are investing in more durable and innovative products that save them money in the long run and help save the environment. We are currently organizing a meeting with Governors Island administration to discuss other possible products we can create for the Island. 

Overall, this past year our company has made large strides. The MicroFactory was delivered to Governors Island, our solar panel array was installed, all equipment was wired, manufacturing with recycled plastic and solar power commenced, we have sold several globes, given multiple tours, been featured by NBC New York and Core 77, and meet with potential clients such as Target, Uncommon Goods, and Earthway Products. In fact, even this past week we gave a tour to the NYC EDC, and yesterday we presented to Dr. Alondra Nelsonthe Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. 

Now that we are operational, we are excited for all the possibilities and opportunities ahead!

2020-2021

Leonardo Figueroa Helland & Abigail Perez Aguilera

Developing a Community-centered Curriculum on Land-Based Education for Indigenous Knowledge and the Decolonization of Sustainability Management

In this Research-Practice Partnership we have been collaborating with the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust (NEFOC-LT) to co-design a curriculum that centers the leadership development and knowledge exchange of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian farming and land steward communities in the Northeast. The first stage, supported by the TEDC faculty grant, centered on the development of a curriculum co-design methodology. This also includes complementary research focused on revitalizing regional Indigenous land care systems in the Northeast (e.g., Haudenosaunee and Lenape forest garden systems); a blueprint land site for this as well as the supporting research has been in development. The knowledge sharing spaces (pedagogical, research and practical) which are being built upon this co-design methodology hope to help nurture and strengthen a bioregional network of BIPOC and QTBIPOC land-based education, stewardship and food projects. The vision is to make scholarly work useful to the NEFOC-LT network in helping weave, strengthen and scale out a bioregional network of land-based liberation initiatives (including a bioregional foodshed) based on mutual aid, Indigenous knowledges, agroecological food sovereignty, biocultural diversity, decolonization/land rematriation and environmental/climate justice. Concomitantly, the vision is to help transform university education from the land up so that it can serve BIPOC/QTBIPOC liberation and land-based self-determination.

Beau Rhee

Dream Garden in the Anthropocene

During the grant period, Beau Bree Rhee worked on her earthwork/land art project in several different dimensions. In March, she spent most of her time on observation and research of the site, which resulted in diagrams and maps in ink & natural pigment on paper. Through several site visits with friends and research assistants in April and May, she sited an area for a 3 meter x 3 meter garden. The area is open enough to get adequate sunlight for the garden and has a beautiful view overlooking the forest. The area was cleared with the help of friends and colleagues in the Spring. Rhee researched different methods of forest gardening appropriate to the site as well soil nourishment & amendment methods to regenerate the soil. The soil/forest is relatively healthy but has a significant percentage of dead ghost trees due to climate change in recent years. In mid-Spring she planted a mix of buckwheat, crimson clover, cosmos and amaranth in 3 covered hoop gardens. Concurrently, she also began writing a text titled Land Text: Garden as Culture that contains their research and environmental, artistic and philosophical aims. The text also addresses the socio-economic, racial and political undercurrents that inform the project in the suburban context of the Eastern End of Long Island, NY.

2019-2020

Reclaiming Cultural Practices to Embody Climate Resilience

The project proposes to prototype an experiential learning module using innovative body-based creative methods to research traditional cultural practices and and reinterpret them for an urban context. In partnership with two activist community organizations who center diasporic narratives of Black, Indigenous and People of Color, the participants will grapple with their Ecological Heritage and embody strategies for resilient future-building in the context of the climate crisis. The project will culminate in an in-process performative sharing.

The Music of Climate Change Database

The Music of Climate Change Database creates direct connections between music, musicians and the current environmental crisis. As the first index of contemporary musical works informed by climate change and environmental justice, this database fills a critical gap and serves as a model and tool for leveraging the power of music and musicians in service of sustainability literacy and environmental justice.

“Whole Earth” Curriculum

This project will support the Milano School of Policy, Management and the Environment in its effort to integrate sustainability and climate change and climate justice into its curriculum and activities. While EPSM has a notable focus on environment and environmental justice, the other departments in Milano have allowed EPSM to carry the whole problem. Yet obviously, policy, management and the Center for New York City Affairs need to be engaged as well. This can be done in collaboration with the Tishman Environment and Design Center. The project proposed here will use teach-ins, workshops and popular education to help the School integrate climate issues in relation to justice, sustainability, diversity and systemic change into every part of our activities.

Next Life - Repurposing What We Make

The grantees will develop a protocol, and future elective course or module, for the reuse, redesign, and reinstallation of the annual Street Seats materials. In keeping with the goals of The New School and TEDC, the project aims to repurpose the materials typically purchased for the Design Build: Street Seats class and previously donated upon dismantling. The project will identify a variety of community spaces in which to execute a redesign/rebuild, in the context of a class or class module.

2018-2019

2018-2019 Faculty grant recipient Davida Smyth, a professor at Lang, wants to reduce the amount of plastic waste that is ubiquitous in science labs and utilized her Tishman Center faculty grant to change how things are done at the science lab in the University Center. Watch the video below to see what she did and how she plans to make teaching laboratories everywhere less wasteful.

Faculty Grant recipient Davida Smyth talks about how to make science labs sustainable

Bonus Video: cigarettes & e-cigarette waste

On April 27th, 2019 research participants and design facilitators gathered together at Bailey’s Cafe for its eighth and final workshop series: Redesigning Communities: Mending and Textile Waste. Bailey’s Café is a community space based in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn founded by Stefanie Siegel. Through community-based organizing and artistic expression, they build intergenerational connections and story sharing, exposing participants to new experiences, honoring the stories of those whose voices are seldom heard and helping to develop a sense of possibility, healing and renewal.

Zero Waste Project

2018-2019 Faculty Grant recipient Oliver Kellhammer's project asks for help with recycling waste foam from a very unlikely source: mealworms. We spoke with Oliver about his project, his art using the partially eaten foam and how he used the faculty grant funding to advance his practice in this space. See the video below for the full interview:

Faculty Grant recipient Oliver Kellhammer’s project on how mealworms can recycle styrofoam

Bonus Video: Mealworms in action

2017-2018

Student Mentoring

Rafi Youatt, Associate Professor of Politics; Chair of Environmental Studies
This grant was used to support mentoring between PhD students at the New School working on environmentally-related dissertation topics, and undergraduate seniors in the Environmental Studies (ES) program doing a senior capstone project. Each PhD student was a mentor for an individual ES student – at the end of the fall semester, when ES senior capstone proposals are formalized, mentors were paired with undergraduates based on shared interests. The undergraduates then met individually with the capstone students on a bi-weekly basis, and checked in online on a weekly basis. At those meetings, students brought recent written work, progress, discussed any problems they were having, and incorporated mentors’ feedback into their final proposals.
Read the Full Report

Preparing for Disaster and Disrupting Climate Injustice

We are shocked daily with unprecedented experiences of extreme weather and its devastating impacts. People, other animals, plants — literally all life — as well as the places, institutions, and communities we built to protect ourselves from the Elements and each other are being uprooted. Lives shattered. The Earth destroyed. The already vulnerable are hit hardest. In response to this unprecedented global upheaval of our world, Michelle dePass, then Director of The Tishman Environment & Design Center and Robert Kirkbride, Dean of the School of Constructed Environments, called on students and faculty: now is the time to act in the climate-changed world where we all already live. Not tomorrow but NOW!
Read the Full Report

2016-2017

The Tar Sands Song Book

The Tar Sands Song Book is a collection of new open-form compositions and an interdisciplinary performance project that make the impact of tar sands development visible and audible from multiple perspectives.

Drones for Refugees

Drones for Refugees is a drones monitoring system ensuring the safe arrival of refugees. Since 2015 the EU has received more than 1.2 million refugees mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Over the past 2 years an estimated 8,000 people have lost their lives trying to cross into Europe. Drones for Refugees aims to support their safe arrival.

Beyond the Polar Bears

Alternative Visuals for existing social media platforms that communicate to new audiences about climate change. Collaborates with 350.org to provide visual ideas with which to connect the public and college audiences with engaging digital storytelling artworks that help communicate key climate messages.
Beyond Polar Bears

Mobilizing Maps for Sustainable Communities

Mobilizing Maps for Sustainable Communities seeks to build a robust open source mapping resource for local community members in their opposition to further expansion of natural gas infrastructure.

Testing our Waters

Testing our Waters refines, designs and develops 2­3 low-cost trawls pulling a floating device with a net on the water’s surface to gather data about plastic pollution in the Earth’s oceans.

Urban Food Security in Context: the Lived Experience of Hunger at The New School

“Urban Food Security in Context: the Lived Experience of Hunger at The New School” focuses on issues of food security at different levels: the students’ awareness of the needs of their food insecure peers, the functioning of food banks from a strategic and service design point of view, the systems and social hierarchies that affect food insecurity, and the impact of food policy on urban environments.

Addressing Environmental Health Risks through Community Action Research and Local Knowledge

“Addressing Environmental Health Risks through Community Action Research and Local Knowledge: Pilot Study in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn” seeks to understand how climate variability, extremes and changes interact with social dynamics to impact the health of residents in New York City, particularly communities of color and socioeconomically poor populations.
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2015-2016

Mitigation and Adaptation Policies against Climate Risk

“Mitigation and Adaptation Policies against Climate Risk” researches and develop a better way to address the trade-off of implementing climate stability at the expense of economic growth.

Understanding Climate Change and Urban Health using a Syndemic Modeling Approach

“Understanding Climate Change and Urban Health using a Syndemic Modeling Approach” examines the effects of climate change on health vulnerability and resilience in urban areas.

Connect the Dots

“Connect the Dots” aims to connect fragmented green spaces to form an ecological network in New York City.

Designing Endurance

“Designing Endurance” focues on garment repair and alterations through a series of shirts that have future repairability and alterability built into them.

Climate Justice in Action: Communities Working Toward Just Transitions

School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy.
“Climate Justice in Action: Communities Working Toward Just Transitions” explores poverty alleviation and climate resiliency through composing case studies to address climate crisis from a climate justice perspective.
READ THE REPORT HERE

Street Seats Program

“Street Seats Program” works with the Department of Transportation to reclaim portions of New York City’s streets to serve as public space.