The Render Database

Rendering libraries and their range of styles, approaches, and aesthetics can help designers represent a vision of the world, but very infrequently do we see open-access databases which help us visualize transformative futures that policies like The Green New Deal call for. What might an open access, free, database for representational tools that help us image the Green New Deal look like? What categories, aesthetics, and file types would need to be included? What elements of this database should be universal, and which should be regionally specific? Beyond more diverse scale figures, can we put together a database which helps us imagine a different way of relating to the landscape, its resources, and one another?

Our answer to these questions can be found in the Ecologies of Repair Rendering Database. As a class we have collected and created a series of scale figures, sounds, textures, atmospheres, symbols, and species. You can sort through them and download selections here.

How to Use

The class has conceptualized the database as an image-production tool that can inspire and inform users, as well as generate connections between diverse sets of objects. Many of the submissions take on the invisible, through critical approaches, abstract qualities, or underrepresented life and earth.

The database will be continually added to, tagged, and categorized. In the meantime, we invite users to engage with and use our work-in-progress, set of interrelated parts.