Glasgow School of Art, Winter School

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Glasgow School of Art Winter School

BRIEF - Beyond Human

What does it mean to think through “well-being” as an affordance of affective capacity of landscape/place? ‘Beyond Human’ asks that your team explores those entanglements and connections that are brought about the more-than-human agencies that impact our everyday lives. You should not think of it as “designing for nature” but about being part of nature. Humans are a part of a larger natural ecosystem and, as designers, we must consider this holistically. In addition, looking at near-futures scenarios of wellbeing, technological, plant, and animal hybrids within a rural environment challenges our assumptions that only digital futures occur in cities, therefore, how can we strategically engage our relationship with the region? What does it mean to think through “well-being” as an affordance of affective capacity of landscape/place and what are the direct, indirect and symbolic experiences of nature (Kellert, 2002)?

The project was a tree days project and the main thing at the Glasgow School of Art Winter School. We were asked to design some kind of artifact and a brief explanatory video around our thoughts.

For the project we were assigned a word and a nearby place for the project, my group was given the word balance and the place Altyre Forest.

Our idea was to show despite that Altyre Forest is a human controlled environment, natural interrelations of species still manage to built their own way of existence. We wanted the artifact to be an enlightenment design, that visualized the symbiosis and coexistences in Altyre Forest by example of the lichen.

The artifact became in form of a book cut out of wood, with different patterns to symbolise the different lichen and the coexistence in Altyre Forest.