Design and the Environment
When I think of design and the environment I think of sustainable or green design. These types of design are both important because they work on trying to do design in a way that is not only more environmentally friendly, but they are more friendly and healthy for the user. In the lecture about design and the environment we talked a lot about materials and ways to design that are more environmentally friendly and why. I think that environmentally friendly design is very inportant to every field of design because it improves products and the way they are used by the consumers.
Understanding indoor air quality
This article from the American Society for Interior Designers (ASID) was about indoor air quality. Indoor air quality is crucial to the health of the inhabitants of the space. It can be affected by many things like building materials, fabric types, furniture materials, and painting materials. It also talks about the many types of pollutants that these can give off and why they are harmful. As well as talking about the places these pollutants can come from, it gives alternatives to use rather than the normal materials. It has a lot of important information on making an indoor environment more healthy for everyone that uses the space.
The Designers Accord
This article from business week is about a woman named Valerie Casey who is an employee of IDEO. It explains how she, along with Tim Brown (the CEO of IDEO), and Paul Hawken, came up an organization called the Designers Accord. The Designers Accord is a group of people that focus on green design. They are setting out to change the practice of design all over the world. Companies will be able to sign up to be in the Designers Accord if they want to fully commit to doing sustainable design. The Designers Accord is trying to make it so sustainable design is practiced in every single place design is done.
Sustainable Design saves more than the environment
This article by the Washington Post is about the things other than the environment that can be saved by practicing sustainable design. It talks about LEED (Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design) and the ways they are trying to improve their practices of green design. It also talks about the ways that they are trying to change their design to accommodate new more sustainable materials. In order to use less material and so they are able to use safer materials they are trying to make more compact designs.
Green labeling program by the USDA
This article is about new labeling standards for products that contain renewable resources. If a product contains at least 25% of renewable resources it will be labeled USDA-certified biobased. This new development by the USDA is very important for design engineers who now have a guideline for validity of products. It will also help consumers who are trying to use more green materials.
Contradictions of Sustainable design
This video on youtube is an interview of editors of metropolis magazine, treehugger.com , and core77.com which are all design publications. In this interview they talk about the many contradictions of sustainable design. They talk about many issues such as reducing consumption, and what materials really are more sustainable. They also talk a lot about how important it is to promote sustainability.
No comments:
Post a Comment