Climate Change is one of the biggest themes of this century and that deserves not only attention but focus and effort from all of us in order to fight it. Climate Change is happening in full force and here is how design can help fight it.

Nowadays, architects and designers are making an effort into transforming their projects into more sustainable ones through the use of a more futuristic design that requires the use of high-tech innovation that it’s said to be a way to fight climate change.

Julie Watson, a landscape designer and was born in Australia, just release a book about how old technology can help combat climate change, titled ” Lo-TEK. Design by Radical Indiegnism”. In this book, Julia thrives and explains how technology used by indigenous communities, from over 20 countries, can help fight climate change and how they live balanced with nature.

This book is a piece of lots of research and interest in the relationship between indigenous communities and nature.

 “In my research for this course, I realized that many of the technologies we see as contemporary green infrastructures have ancient lineages”

Julia Watson

Watson questioned herself many times before starting the book on how many technologies are out there in the world “that have not been considered as technologies yet, and that question was what started the whole book.”

The now author describes this book as a design movement that explores design from Iraq to Tanzania, and “offers solutions for different climate changes, including forests, wetland, deserts, and mountains.”.

“The book retells an ancient mythology—that humankind can and must live symbiotically with nature—and provokes an emergent movement of design,”

Julia Watson

As far as the technology presented and explained in the book, we will talk about three examples today, starting in Bali.

Bali: Subak Rice

Bali, where Subak Rice terraces are one of the world’s sociological systems. This system has transformed the volcanic landscape into terrace surfaces for agriculture.

Persia: The Qanats

In Persia, the qanats redistribute water from mountain aquifers to farmer’s fields and low-lying cities.

Iraq: Garden of Eden

For the last example, we have the southern wetlands of Iraq, “Iraq’s Garden of Eden” where the Ma’dan people live on man-made floating islands.

Credits: Julie Watson and Architectural Digest.