By not offering fully livable alternatives to the status quo, innovative work remains piecemeal
A call for collaboration
I’m a writer and mother. My background includes communications, archival preservation, and fine art. After five years with the U.S. National Park Service museum program, I worked on outreach teams in the nonprofit sector, writing content for clean energy programs and climate technology incubation.
These experiences gave me insight into branches of environmentalism that operated with little overlap. In one role, I managed records on ecological stewardship. In another role, I communicated sustainability initiatives. Nonprofits marketed sustainable products and services designed for people, while land restoration happened elsewhere — in the wild places most people only visited.
What interests me most is getting to a point where ecological design becomes regenerative, blending into environmental restoration. Since having my child, this has taken on fresh urgency, as the climate crisis must feel urgent to many parents.
To articulate this interest, I started with creative writing, sketching a story that followed a fictional back-to-the-land movement. In this alternative version of history, I imagined a counterculture from the 1960s continuing to grow and improve as it reached the present day. The experimental movement benefitted from up-to-date science and medical knowledge. Its participants lived well without relying on resource-intensive agriculture, industrial manufacturing, destructive mining, or global trade.
I looked into how a modern-day culture could support itself without these conventions, assuming someone must have thought through the mechanics of what this could look like with functional or theoretical examples. I wanted to know what to call it and what to read next. But with this countercultural scenario as a lens, my attempts at piecing the research together led to incomplete methodologies and gaps in knowledge. I was not only disappointed but disturbed.
For anyone writing about climate disaster, there is no shortage of information and examples. I wasn’t interested in exploring dystopia. In my nerdy story, I wanted to play out what could work based on how provable methods click together. I wanted real solutions at stake.
Living materials and biomimetic designs exist, as do distributed manufacturing and peer production. I have yet to find examples of these integrated into circular, controlled-loop systems to generate comprehensive assets.
Likewise, looping systems exist to meet some needs, such as food production, water treatment, and energy generation. These systems are not comprehensive, leaving out necessities like mobility and long-distance communication. And while existing systems may appear self-contained within a given site, they rely on the shipment of high-impact materials like mined metals and petroleum-based plastics.
It seems obvious to connect these research trajectories. How can material innovation contribute to the development of controlled-loop livelihoods? Could a group in any location pick up a set of guidelines — like an open-access kit — to support themselves without compromise?
Many innovations are radical on their own. By not offering fully livable alternatives to the status quo, innovative work remains piecemeal.
Practices addressing material human needs should appear deceptively simple and loop with near-effortless efficiency. The challenge is getting to that efficiency and identifying the minimum needed to live well together.
Elegant systems are possible when they come from a place of design — by considering all constraints and essentials at once. However, systemic design can be daunting, and the critical nature of this challenge doesn’t make it less so. The work must be iterative, with contributing voices and ongoing feedback.
I need help with it. As a writer, I ask questions, document, and consider the larger picture. However, I’m not a subject-matter expert in any science or technique. Although this began as independent research, Make in Place calls for collaboration. The more input, the better.
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