A Design History of Technological Responses to Food Sustainability Challenges in the UK since 1970

这篇书面博士论文将提供以食品为中心的观点，探讨技术，进步和可持续性之间的关系。通过询问自1970年以来在英国食品可持续发展的环境问题的技术响应，本研究使用设计历史作为一个关键的框架，以检查选择的案例研究，每个代表了不同的方法来技术变革。将审查的例子包括替代技术运动中食品生产的作用，工业食品制造商设计肉类替代品（如Mycoprotein，称为Quorn），以及保存和保护“濒危”食品以维持小规模生产和作物生物多样性的方法。设计师维克托·帕帕内克（Victor Papanek，1923-1998）断言，设计是“人类塑造其工具和环境（进而塑造社会和自身）的最有力的工具”（1973）。根据这一定义，人类如何通过食品生产技术与环境互动并做出反应，本质上是一个设计过程，也是一种可以在生产、调解、物质性、技能和制作方面有效解决的实践。联合国粮农组织2014年发布的一份报告预测，“在未来35年，农业将面临前所未有的压力”，包括人口增长的需求，对关键资源（土地，水和能源）的竞争以及全球变暖。这项原创性研究将确定设计实践如何协调技术，食品和环境之间的关系，并通过提供对食品可持续性的新的多视角理解来促进知识，包括自然，文化和科学。此外，该项目将提供一个原始的历史视角，对当今世界面临的最大的环境挑战之一。

This written PhD thesis will provide food-centred perspective on the relationship between technology, progress and sustainability. By interrogating technological responses to environmental concerns for food sustainability in the UK since 1970, this research uses Design History as a critical framework to examine a selection of case studies that each represents a different approach to technological change. Examples that will be examined include the role of food production in the Alternative Technology Movement, the design of meat alternatives (such as Mycoprotein, known as Quorn) by industrial food manufacturers, and methods for preserving and protecting 'endangered' food products to perpetuate small-scale production and crop bio-diversity. The designer Victor Papanek (1923-1998) asserted that design is the 'most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension society and himself)' (1973). By this definition, how humans engage with - and respond to - their environment through food production technology is inherently a design process, and a practice that can be usefully addressed in terms of production, mediation, materiality, skills and making. A report published by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2014 predicts that 'over the coming 35 years, agriculture will face an unprecedented confluence of pressures' including the demands of an expanding population, competition for key resources (land, water and energy), and global warming. This original research will identify how design practices can negotiate the relationship between technology, food and the environment, and will contribute to knowledge by providing a new multi-perspectival understanding of food sustainability encompassing nature, culture and science. Moreover, this project will provide an original historical perspective on one of the greatest environmental challenges faced by the world today.