The Good Value Scale
April 28, 2008 | design, thoughts
Malcolm Wells is a prolific promoter of sustainable architecture and in particular earth-sheltered buildings. To identify environmental-friendly architecture and to determine in which direction he is heading with his work Wells uses a scaled called the “Wilderness Scale” which he developed in the late 60’s. If the score comes out plus, he is going forward; negative back…
The Wilderness Scale |
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| -100 | -75 | -50 | -25 | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 | |
| always | usually | sometimes | seldom | seldom | sometimes | usually | always | |
| destroys pure air | - | creates pure air | ||||||
| destroys pure water | - | creates pure water | ||||||
| wastes rainwater | - | stores rainwater | ||||||
| produces no food | - | produces its own food | ||||||
| destroys rich soil | - | creates rich soil | ||||||
| wastes solar energy | - | uses solar energy | ||||||
| stores no solar energy | - | stores solar energy | ||||||
| destroys silence | - | creates silence | ||||||
| dumps its wastes unused | - | consumes its own wastes | ||||||
| needs cleaning and repair | - | maintains itself | ||||||
| disregards nature’s cycles | - | matches nature’s cycles | ||||||
| destroys wildlife habitat | - | provides wildlife habitat | ||||||
| destroys human habitat | - | provides human habitat | ||||||
| intensifies local weather | - | moderates local weather | ||||||
| is ugly | - | is beautiful | ||||||
| :negative score | positive score: | |||||||
| total score: | ||||||||
The Wilderness Scale is niched toward architecture and rather subjective and unscientific (which Wells admits), but I like it, and when I read about it (in the Next Whole Earth Catalog) I felt that I would like to have a similar scale that I could apply to my work.
Since I do a bit of this and that I have tried to rework it into something that can be applied to any and all artifacts and services, be it buildings, electronic devices, transportation or art. I call the reworked scale the “Good Value Scale” and it’s even more unscientific, subjective and idealistic than Wells’s scale.
The Good Value Scale |
||||||||
| -100 | -75 | -50 | -25 | 0 | 25 | 50 | 75 | 100 |
| always | usually | sometimes | seldom | neither | seldom | sometimes | usually | always |
| wastes resources | - | preserves resources | ||||||
| consumes energy | - | produces energy | ||||||
| creates unhealth | - | creates health | ||||||
| creates confinement | - | creates freedom | ||||||
| creates unhappiness | - | creates happiness | ||||||
| creates passivity | - | encourages reflection / action | ||||||
| takes time | - | saves time | ||||||
| is ugly | - | is beautiful | ||||||
| :negative score | positive score: | |||||||
| total score: | ||||||||
I’m sure the scale could be improved significantly if it was given some more thought, and I’m very open for suggestions… The scale I’m looking for should ideally without to much effort be able to give an approximation of how “good” an artifact or service is, and be usable both with and without extensive knowledge of what is being rated.
Anyway, the Good Value Scale could be applied from an individuals perspective, from a societies perspective or from a wildlife perspective etc. The more aspects that are taken into account the more accurate the score will be. But you can shoot from the hip and it will still give you some sort of approximation of how much “good” value it has, and in any case it forces you to think a bit about what you are about to produce or consume…
If you take an holistic view on a modern artifact or service when rating it, considering its entire lifetime and everything it affects, it will most likely come out with a negative score. Some might argue that it is next to impossible to achieve positive scores without great sacrifices and that we might as well carry on with business as usual. I prefer to think that whether or not it is possible to achieve positive scores at all times it it does make sense to strive to design for less negative scores, use artifacts and services with as high scores as possible and make the most of the low scoring artifacts that already have been produced.
While I was looking at one of Sally Mans landscape photographs I realized that imperfections create interpretative spaces which promote involvement. They obscure what lays beneath them and force you to look a bit harder, giving whatever it is that you find a greater impact.