Diary
Are You Home Sick?
A glimpse into the world of sustainable building, produced with the Healthy Materials Lab
We spend most of our lives indoors, breathing air that can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside.
Research suggests that genetics account for only ten percent of disease, while ninety percent is linked to environmental exposure. This means that interior design is no longer just a matter of aesthetics but also an essential factor in determining the quality of our lives.
Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons School of Design empowers people with knowledge about building materials, helping to inform choices that can slow climate change, dramatically reduce toxic pollution and improve the health of communities. For Ursula, the lab has shared key findings that hold out the possibililty of radically retooling the spaces where we live and work, for a healthier and more sustainable future.
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Images courtesy Healthy Materials Lab, Parsons School of Design.
Ursula Issue 13 includes a special section about the environment, as considered by a diverse group of artists, writers and activists. The section takes readers to Puerto Rico, where Daniel Lind-Ramos’s work is rooted in the Caribbean mangrove ecosystem and the dangers threatening it; to Los Angeles, where Charles Gaines has long fused conceptual sculpture and information conveying the speed at which environmental damage is occurring; around the world to see the imagery of the international movement known as Solarpunk, which promotes the power of hopeful imagination in the face of increasing climate threats; and to New York’s Healthy Materials Lab, a design research lab at Parsons School of Design radically retooling the spaces in which we live and work. The section ends with a moving essay by the artist Ross Simonini, a longtime resident of Altadena, Calif., who lost his home and his neighborhood in the recent Los Angeles wildfires.