Diseño Eficiente y Sostenible no siempre tiene porqué estar asociado a Tecnología costosa. Recupero este artículo de hace unos años aparecido en el New York Times bajo el título «Diseños que resuelven problemas al mundo pobre» y que muestran cómo el ahorro de energía, en esencia es facilidad de trabajo y supervivencia.
Efficient and Sustainable Design hasn’t to be always be associated with expensive technology. We recover this article published a few years ago in the New York Times titled «Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor» that shows us how the efficient energy essentially solves work and survival.
Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt has many items to show a grasp of the depths of world poverty and ingenious ways to attack it. They include a 20-gallon rolling drum for transporting water, above.
“A billion customers in the world,” Dr. Paul Polak told a crowd of inventors recently, “are waiting for a $2 pair of eyeglasses, a $10 solar lantern and a $100 house.”
A pot-in-pot cooler that relies on the evaporation of water from wet sand to cool the inner pot. Un recipiente-refrigerador que se basa para enfriar la olla interior en la evaporación del agua de la arena húmeda
The Lifestraw drinking filter, which kills bacteria as water is sucked through it. El filtro para beber Lifestraw, que mata a las bacterias del agua según se absorve a través de él.
One computer for every child. Un ordenador para cada niño
A portable light mat. Una alfombra de luz portátil.The world’s cleverest designers, said Dr. Polak, a former psychiatrist who now runs an organization helping poor farmers become entrepreneurs, cater to the globe’s richest 10 percent, creating items like wine labels, couture and Maseratis.“We need a revolution to reverse that silly ratio,” he said.
To that end, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, which is housed in Andrew Carnegie’s 64-room mansion on Fifth Avenue and offers a $250 red chrome piggy bank in its gift shop, is honoring inventors dedicated to “the other 90 percent,” particularly the billions of people living on less than $2 a day.
Their creations, on display in the museum garden until Sept. 23, have a sort of forehead-thumping “Why didn’t someone think of that before?” quality.
For example, one of the simplest and yet most elegant designs tackles a job that millions of women and girls spend many hours doing each year — fetching water. Balancing heavy jerry cans on the head may lead to elegant posture, but it is backbreaking work and sometimes causes crippling injuries. The Q-Drum, a circular jerry can, holds 20 gallons, and it rolls smoothly enough for a child to tow it on a rope.
Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.
“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.
Pumping water can help a farmer grow grain in the dry season, when it fetches triple the normal price. Dr. Fisher described customers who had skipped meals for weeks to buy a pump and then earned $1,000 the next year selling vegetables.
“Most of the world’s poor are subsistence farmers, so they need a business model that lets them make money in three to six months, which is one growing season,” he said. KickStart accepts grants to support its advertising and find networks of sellers supplied with spare parts, for example. His prospective customers, Dr. Fisher explained, “don’t do market research.”
“Many of them have never left their villages,” he said
Los diseñadores más inteligentes del mundo, dijo el Dr. Polak, un ex psiquiatra que ahora dirige una organización que ayuda a los agricultores pobres a que de conviertan en empresarios, atienden al 10% más rico del planeta, mediante la creación de elementos como las etiquetas de vinos, de alta costura y Maserati.
«Necesitamos una revolución para invertir la relación del porcentaje», dijo.
Para ello, el Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, que se localiza en la mansión de 64 habitaciones de Andrew Carnegie en la Quinta Avenida y ofrece huchas a 250 $ en su tienda de regalos, está homenajeando a los inventores que se dedicadan a «el otro 90 por ciento», en particular los miles de millones de personas que viven con menos de 2 dólares al día.
Sus creaciones, expuestas en el jardín del museo hasta el 23 de septiembre, tienen una especie de característica del tipo darse golpes en la frente y exclamar «¿Por qué nadie pensó en eso antes?» .
Así, uno de los más sencillos y, sin embargo más elegantes diseños aborda un trabajo que millones de mujeres y niñas pasan muchas horas haciendo cada año: ir a buscar agua. El equilibrio de pesadas jarras en la cabeza puede conducir a una postura elegante, pero es un trabajo arduo y en ocasiones provoca lesiones incapacitadoras. El Q-Drum, un bidón circular, tiene 20 galones, y que rueda sin problemas lo suficiente para que un niño pueda remolcarlo con una cuerda.
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con S de sostenibilidad / with sustainability's S 