Simply for me the word stewardship means responsibility, nothing fancy or prophetic. It was engrained in me when I was in 8th grade a week before I was about to graduate middle school and move onto a bigger and better thing known as high school (what was I thinking). I received the St. Pope Puis X Stewardship Award at my Jr. High’s ‘Award Ceremony’. I can remember I was dumb founded when my name was called to receive it. My thoughts: ‘what did I do to get this? I’m pretty sure it was nothing that I tried to accomplish; I’ve just been doing what I normally do all year’. Turns out I unintentionally took on the most responsibility in the 8th grade class.
However, I don’t believe 8th grade was the only point in my life where I had a perspective of the value of stewardship. My parents raised my three older siblings and I to be responsible for all our actions, to weigh the consequences and to look at how they would affect not only ourselves, but also those around us and those that would come after us. Having six people, two dogs and a fish under one roof creates three things: high utility bills, outrageous grocery bills and for a mother who LOVES to shop, a lot of clothes. But it also taught me a lot about natural resources. I might have grown up in ‘it always is cloudy in Pennsylvania’, but I couldn’t have asked for a better part to live in; beautiful trees, tons of animals and a gorgeous lake all in my backyard. So how does having high bills and living in the middle of the woods teach me anything about stewardship? Well, energy is expensive so turn off the lights and open the blinds, energy is expensive so turn off the air conditioning and open the windows, energy is expensive so turn off the heat and put on a coat. Don’t look at hand-me-down clothes as used, look at them as vintage. Leftovers aren’t for the dog, they’re another meal that you don’t have to buy, don’t have to use energy to cook or water to clean up after…or as much as you did the first time around. That’s what I learned from my mom and dad at least.
As an interior designer in furthering and developing the idea of stewardship, I can take these little lessons from my childhood, blow them up into something much larger and incorporate them into all of my future designing. Preserving the worlds’ natural resources can be done with automatic light sensors or faucets. Positioning a building to conform to the landscape in a way natural water flow isn’t interrupted or is hit by the right sunlight at specific times of day can do wonders on lowering energy use. If a hospital is built in Arizona where it never rains, put solar panels to use as one of its energy sources or if it’s in Seattle where it always rains why not collect water on the roof for an h2o source. In healthcare facilities promoting and sustaining good health and curing illness are top ‘to-dos’. As a responsible designer it’s my job to specify materials that don’t contain harmful chemicals, are sustainable in a way that is beneficial not only to sick people, but also to our deteriorating environment. Chronic diseases such as obesity and asthma are becoming more common in industrialized nations because of chemicals, hormones and air quality. Studies have shown that people feel better when they’re in touch with nature, whether it be a vase of flowers on their desk or a breeze from outside, people who are sick aren’t any different than people who are healthy when it comes to nature. Why are so many healthcare facilities packing boxes with no holes? As responsible designers aren’t we suppose to listen to our client? The hospital committee might be the ones funding the project, but we have to remember we’re designing for the patient, so put as many windows in that box that health codes will allow!
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