FEATURE
Shaping the World, By Design
By Julia Halprin Jackson
What if you could transform the planet using the soil beneath your feet?
Think about spaces people inhabit: homes, offices, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, parks, coffee shops. Architects and designers refer to any human-made space in which people live, work and recreate daily as the urban built environment. Architecture 2030, a nonprofit established to transform the built environment in response to climate change, discovered that the urban built environment constitutes 75% of annual greenhouse gas emissions — and buildings alone make up 39% of the problem.
Three interior designers from the San José State community are exploring how creativity and design can address this environmental impact. SJSU Design Professor Virginia San Fratello is 3D printing homes out of dirt, clay and other organic material. Studio O+A co-founder Verda Alexander, ’88 Art, is researching how interior designers can center sustainability in their design process; and interior designer and researcher Nic Kaspereen, ’20 Interior Design, is identifying materials and processes that decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
By educating and inspiring the next generation of designers on sustainable methodologies, Alexander, San Fratello and Kaspereen are helping cultivate the resilience required to design a sustainable world.
Architecture, design and the stories landscapes tell
When others saw ash falling from the sky, Virginia San Fratello saw the promise of new beginnings. In summer 2021, she noticed her car was gathering gray ash from California’s catastrophic El Dorado fires. Sensing a creative opportunity, she began collecting ashes to use with her 3D printer.
SJSU Design Professor Virginia San Fratello excavated earth for the Casa Covida in Colorado. Behind her, the 3D printer extrudes soil onto the house. Photo courtesy of Rael San Fratello
San Fratello teaches her students to 3D print using organic materials such as clay and charcoal. Photo: James Tensuan, ’15 Journalism
Virginia San Fratello, Chair of SJSU Design Department. Photo: James Tensuan, ’15 Journalism
“I started thinking about how we might literally rebuild from the ashes,” says San Fratello, chair of San José State’s Interior Design Department and principal of Emerging Objects, a “MAKE-tank” that dreams up imaginative design solutions using customized 3D printers. Though the project is still in its beginning stages, San Fratello hopes to collect enough ash to print and create one of her artistic, architectural creations.
San Fratello and her partner, UC Berkeley Architecture Professor Ronald Rael, have experimented with what they call “architectural printing” for the past several years.
The architects define themselves on the Emerging Objects website as a “studio that disrupts the conventions of architecture by tackling topics not typically of interest to architects. We start galleries in the middle of nowhere. We talk to homeless people. We stack straw bales. We play in the mud. We start corporations. We imagine a better order.”
This “better order” includes using a special 3D printer with a robot arm to create a number of different structures and pieces of art using sustainable materials: sawdust, coffee grounds, clay, chardonnay grape skins from Sonoma County wineries, salt from the San Francisco Bay, and even the ground beneath their feet.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced San Fratello and Rael to transition to teaching online, they took advantage of the opportunity to set up shop in southeastern Colorado’s San Luis Valley. The dry, open desert offered them the chance to experiment further with 3D printing clay, sand and mud, while also inspiring them to draw on indigenous traditions of the area such as adobe architecture and woven textiles.
“We think about how to use hyper-local materials to look at very traditional indigenous building practices, while merging that with robotics and being at the frontier of technology,” she says.
By using local natural resources, San Fratello points out that they are constructing buildings with the lowest possible carbon footprint. Earth, sand, mud and clay are easily accessible in the Colorado desert and require little to no investment.
San Fratello and Rael used their printer to extrude soil, which it printed in a circular fashion, mimicking the shape of adobe homes while creating three modular domes. The resulting structure, named Casa Covida, has three rooms: an entrance with a hearth, a room for sleeping and a room for eating.
“We can tackle this problem of climate change by radically talking about design with the planet and our future in mind.”
— Virginia San Fratello
Casa Covida has a bathing room as well. Photo: Elliot Ross
“We wanted to connect the building to its context and the place where it was built — the architectural and material heritage of that landscape,” she says. “We are trying to celebrate these traditions that have been ignored by science and engineering but have existed for thousands of years.”
Casa Covida is just one example of San Fratello’s commitment to sustainable design and architecture — and, San Fratello adds, further evidence that the industry needs to adapt creative problem-solving techniques to address issues like climate change.
“We can tackle this problem of climate change by radically talking about design with the planet and our future in mind,” she says. “I don’t think we have to sacrifice aesthetics or beauty. I think they will become better and more meaningful, and more contextual, if we actually start by tackling the problem.”
Watch San Fratello and Rael demonstrate how they 3D print structures using organic materials
Taking the climate disaster by storm
Interior designer and self-described “design activist” Verda Alexander, ’88 Art, is focused on cultivating and evolving what she calls “planet-centered design.” As the co-founder of interior design firm Studio O+A in San Francisco, which she established with fellow Spartan Primo Orpilla, ’88 Interior Design, she encourages designers, architects and builders alike to redefine their audience.
Eco Playbook cover. Photo: Studio O+A
Inside page titled “How Design Consumes Resources” Photo: Studio O+A
Verda Alexander, Founder and Artist-in-Residence of Studio O+A. Photo: Jenny Morgan
“We’re not just designing for our clients,” Alexander says. “Who are our stakeholders? It’s not just the board. It’s not just the employees. It’s the community, which includes the planet.”
During the pandemic, Alexander teamed up with Jon Strassner of the American Society of Interior Designers to produce “Break Some Dishes,” a podcast that explores how creativity and design can address environmental crises. They consult with sustainability experts, textile designers and even marine biologists to discuss the role that design can play in improving the world.
“Our industry is very wasteful,” she says. “We use materials that last many, many more years than a lot of our spaces do. We don’t put programs or plans in place to capture those materials or utilize perfectly good cabinetry, millwork or furniture.”
“That’s why I’ve been thinking about how to retool our industry to address climate change and look at how we are designing now, so we have a future.”
To better educate and prepare fellow designers, Alexander and her team at Studio O+A have created a downloadable “Toolkit for the Times.” The toolkit includes posters, sample floor plans, suggested furniture and interior design tools that incorporate social, behavioral and environmental approaches to working in a post-COVID world.
What many people may not realize, Alexander says, is that the pandemic foreshadows bigger problems that climate change threatens to introduce. While the origins of COVID-19 are still being studied, she hypothesizes that climate change played a role in how fast it spread across the globe. That’s why she is challenging fellow designers to use sustainable products and techniques — to see design as a solution, rather than a contributor, to climate problems.
“To me, the pandemic is a climate disaster,” she says. “It is a predictor of the future. It also really allows for introspection and forces us to think: What do we do in the face of catastrophe and disaster? How do we become more resilient?”
To help answer this question, Alexander and her team at O+A developed the “Eco Playbook: Design for a Future in Mind,” a resource guide for designers that will be available for download this fall.
“We’re not just designing for our clients...It’s the community, which includes the planet.”
— Verda Alexander
Blueprint for an Earth-friendly future
Nic Kaspereen (they/them), ’20 Interior Design, envisions a future where interior designers and architects could develop innovative ways to preserve and protect the planet.
Nic Kaspereen and Sharon Refvem’s research project is entitled “Designing for the Future: Interior Life Cycle Analysis. Photo: David Wakely
Kaspereen and Refvem proposed 30 strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of interior design. Photo: Marco Zecchin
Nic Kaspereen, Designer at Hawley Peterson Snyder. Photo: Mae Agbayani, HPS
Kaspereen was hired as an intern at Hawley Peterson Snyder (HPS) architecture firm while still completing their undergraduate degree. When their mentor, Sharon Refvem, tasked Kaspereen with a research project, they started exploring the carbon footprint of construction materials — how materials are selected, how much carbon is required to extract and use them, and the impact these materials make on the environment.
The young designer quickly realized that materials such as furniture and carpet are replaced much more frequently than buildings are constructed. This begged some bigger questions: What is the life cycle of interior design materials, and how could they capture it so that designers could use these tools to design a better environment for people and the planet?
When Kaspereen took this to their mentor, Refvem recommended they apply for a grant through the commercial furniture dealership One Workplace to fund further research. Together, Kaspereen and Refvem wrote a research abstract and pitched it to One Workplace, whose team was so moved by the proposal that they awarded the grant.
“We studied the life cycle of materials from extraction to installation by researching industry literature and interviewing top leading experts in the fields of architecture and design,” Kaspereen said, adding that according to Architecture 2030, 75% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions come from the urban built environment, and buildings alone account for 39% of the emissions. “So we’re effectively 39% of the problem.”
As part of their research, Kaspereen and Refvem proposed 30 strategies for addressing these issues. This includes everything from analyzing material options early in the design process and requesting or requiring environmental product declarations to educating clients about low-carbon choices and managing high-carbon-impact products, including furniture, ceilings and carpets.
In other words, Kaspereen is encouraging designers to evaluate where and how they get their materials — as well as how long they last.
Kaspereen’s proposal and presentation were so successful that they were hired full-time after completing their degree. Empowered by their newfound confidence, they were eager to find more ways to champion sustainable and environmentally conscious design. They attribute much of this confidence to their professors and mentors at HPS and at San José State.
“Before I came to SJSU, I really didn’t believe in myself,” Kaspereen says. “Not only did I learn new skills, but I got lifted up. I learned how to speak up. Professors like Virginia [San Fratello] helped me think outside the box and go for things that a younger me would never consider. It also gave me the confidence in my professional career to reshape how we design, look for solutions and make changes by rethinking how we approach our projects.”
“My time at SJSU and interning at HPS gave me the courage to apply for the grant and to pursue this research. When professors believe in you, it’s pretty amazing. I transformed in a huge way.”
What gives them hope for the future of our planet? Kaspereen is excited by the promise of new decision-making tools to improve design, not only for commercial and residential spaces, but for the community at large.
“Everything is tied together. If you go into projects with a conscious mindset, you can walk away feeling good about the work,” they say. “Conscious design means not only thinking about yourself or the user; you’re thinking about everything that impacts society, and, in turn, how society impacts the planet.”
Top photo: Elliot Ross/Casa Covida, an adobe home in Colorado, designed and built by SJSU Design Professor Virginia San Fratello and her partner, UC Berkeley Architecture Professor Ronald Rael.
“Conscious design means not only thinking about yourself or the user; you’re thinking about everything that impacts society, and, in turn, how society impacts the planet.”
— Nic Kaspereen
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