The certificate I received from the International Societies of Industrial Design after two weeks of designing solar projects
Ben, Maxine and I travelled to Mexico City in 1978 and they travelled around together while I participated in an Interdesign attended by industrial designers from all over the world. We collaborated in groups and separately on solar energy design solutions to common problems experienced by the agricultural population around Mexico, such as :
– how to dry the coffee bean harvest quickly but avoiding the disruption of rain storms,
– ultra low cost greenhouse survival additions to houses of farmworkers to provide heating and intensive growing conditions,
– simple, low-cost solutions to providing potable water to farming houses. etc.
It was a wonderful experience working intensively with designers of other cultures and languages and several of the solutions were quite applicable to low-energy living in rural Australia.