I have chosen log assignment 5 for my example of further reaching the goal of ethics because a major section of design and society we discussed Judith Helfand's journey across America to learn more about the hazards of vinyl siding. Throughout her journey many people discriminated and kept information from her simply because she is a woman.
Example-Log Assignment 5
In the book How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand, he talks about vernacular architecture. Vernacular architecture refers to the idea that architecture may be modified and advanced to increase standards of living. This highly relates to Judith Helfand’s campaign towards the uses of vinyl and PVC and how toxic these products are. Even thought people are aware of how hazardous vinyl and PVC are, they still use them on their houses as siding and commonly for piping. During Helfand’s campaign, her own parents still wanted to keep the vinyl siding on their home. There are many positive sides to using vinyl and PVC. For example, when siding a home with vinyl you will never have to worry about rotting, it is cheap, and is easy to put together. Rotting had been a serious issue for the Helfand’s before their vinyl siding which I believe is a big reason for their hesitation to take it off.
For many, vinyl and PVC is the cheap and easy way to go when building a home. Yet, during the production and destruction of these products they are extremely dangerous for the environment and human life. The film suggests that lower class families building homes cannot afford much more than vinyl for their homes. Helfand explores this idea by talking to the group from Habitat for Humanity when they were in the process of building homes entirely out of vinyl for a very low cost. Then when Helfand’s parents finally decided to remove the vinyl siding off their home they had to replace it with an imported cedar wood that Helfand said “cost a fortune to import”. In order to keep vinyl and PVC out of homes today we must come up with a cheap alternative product that will be efficient and productive in building nice architectural homes.
References
Blue Vinyl. Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold. Bullfrog films, 2002.
Brand, Stewart. How Buildings Learn. New York: Penguin Books,1994.
Ethics Example 2
For my second example I've inserted a link for my research paper. This was the biggest paper of the year. It was edited many times through peer editing and through Professor Tauber's voice recorded notes, and mandatory personal meetings with her. I chose this for my example because the paper is about the ethics of advertising. This forced me to do much research about what people's opinions and what is currently happening in the urban planning and advertising world today.
