Sustainable Product Design

As we become only too aware of the damage man has caused to the planet, more of us want to furnish and decorate our homes with products that do not harm the environment. But being sensitive to the environment does not mean you have to sacrifice good design. More and more designers are creating products that are both beautiful and ethical. 1000 New Eco Designs is a showcase of contemporary product design and interior products that are ecologically sound. Informative and visually inspirational, the book acts as a handbook, guiding readers through the complex issues involved in creating and choosing eco-friendly designs for the home.

Alpha Motors, a subsidiary of a large U.S. automaker, sought a life-cycle analysis (LCA) tool that could help product designers take account of environmental issues when making materials choices. The primary teaching objective of this case is to give students a basic understanding of LCA and the issues involved when integrating life-cycle tools into the product design process.

IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation. There isn't a business in America that doesn't want to be more creative in its thinking, products, and processes. At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit. IDEO doesn't buy into the myth of the lone genius working away in isolation, waiting for great ideas to strike. Kelley believes everyone can be creative, and the goal at his firm is to tap into that wellspring of creativity in order to make innovation a way of life. How does it do that? IDEO fosters an atmosphere conducive to freely expressing ideas, breaking the rules, and freeing people to design their own work environments. IDEO's focus on teamwork generates countless breakthroughs, fueled by the constant give-and-take among people ready to share ideas and reap the benefits of the group process. IDEO has created an intense, quick-turnaround, brainstorm-and-build process dubbed "the Deep Dive."

Biomimicry is a revolutionary new science that analyzes nature's best ideas -- spider silk and prairie grass, seashells and brain cells -- and adapts them for human use. Science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus takes us into the lab and out in the field with the maverick researchers who are applying nature's ingenious solutions to the problem of human survival: stirring vats of proteins to unleash their signaling power in computers; analyzing how spiders manufacture a waterproof fiber five times stronger than steel; studying how electrons in a leaf cell convert sunlight to fuel in trillionths of a second; discovering miracle drugs by observing what animals eat -- and much more. The products of biomimicry are things we can all use -- medicines, "smart" computers, super-strong materials, profitable and earth-friendly business.

Blessed unrest tells the story of a worldwide movement that is largely unseen by politicians or the media. Hawken, an environmentalist and author, has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person causes, these organizations collectively comprise the largest movement on earth. This is a movement that has no name, leader, or location but is in every city, town, and culture. It is organizing from the bottom up and is emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people's needs worldwide.

Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products. She shows that for the sake of convenience, efficiency, and short-term safety, we have created synthetic chemicals that fundamentally change, at a molecular level, the way our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders. Yet it’s hard to imagine life without the creature comforts current materials provide—and Grossman argues we do not have to. A scientific revolution is introducing products that are “benign by design,” developing manufacturing processes that consider health impacts at every stage, and is creating new compounds that mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

Consumer Product Innovation and Sustainable Design follows the innovation and evolution of consumer products from vacuum cleaners to mobile phones from their original inventions to the present day. It discusses how environmental concerns and legislation have influenced their design and the profound effects these products have had on society and culture. This book also uses the lessons from the successes and failures of examples of these consumer products to draw out practical guidelines for designers, engineers, marketers and managers on how to become more effective at product development, innovation and designing for environmental sustainability.

Consumer Product Innovation and Sustainable Design follows the innovation and evolution of consumer products from vacuum cleaners to mobile phones from their original inventions to the present day. It discusses how environmental concerns and legislation have influenced their design and the profound effects these products have had on society and culture. This book also uses the lessons from the successes and failures of examples of these consumer products to draw out practical guidelines for designers, engineers, marketers and managers on how to become more effective at product development, innovation and designing for environmental sustainability.  

Architect McDonough and chemist Braungart use this little book with its curved corners and strangely smooth paper to embody and represent one of two kinds of engineering which they advocate: development of materials that can be perpetually reused in technology (the authors claim the material can be continually remade into other books and recycled). The other heralded mode of engineering promises the elimination of anthropogenic waste which is not biodegradable into food. In sum, the two maker-thinkers promote the manufacture of objects that usefully die by means of processes and objects that usefully never die. One of the more memorable phrases, "less bad is no good," relates to their envisioned industrial re-revolution, one in which reduction, reuse, and recycling pale in comparison to upcycling, where products nourish or help nourish the planet. No index and few bibliographic notes. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Popular environmental writer McKibben shows how global warming and other environmental problems are related to the concepts and practices of consumer and corporate capitalism, and suggests how to move beyond the bind.

Countering conventional user-centered theories of innovation, Verganti (management and design, Politecnio di Milano, Italy) presents the need for and processes of design-driven innovation for creating products "that customers do not expect but that they will eventually love." Apple Computer's iPod vision is cited as one that involved redefining the meaning as well as the technologies of listening to music. The book includes a table of companies, industries, and markets discussed in the book, and comments on this strategy's implications for education and design policies.

Designing for sustainability is an innovation shaping both the design industry and design education today.Yet architects, product designers, and other key professionals in this new field have so far lacked a resource that addresses their sensibilities and concerns. The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability now explores the basic principles, concepts, and practice of sustainable design in a visually sophisticated and engaging style. The book tackles not only the ecological aspects of sustainable design-designers' choice of materials and manufacturing processes have a tremendous impact on the natural world-but also the economic and cultural elements involved. The Atlas is neither a how-to manual nor collection of recipes for sustainable design, but a compendium of fresh approaches to sustainability that designers can incorporate into daily thinking and practice. Illuminating many facets of this exciting field, the book offers ideas on how to harmonize human and natural systems, and then explores practical options for making the business of design more supportive of long-term sustainability. An examination of the ethical dimensions of sustainable development in our public and private lives is the theme present throughout. Like other kinds of atlases, The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability illustrates its subject, but it goes far beyond its visual appeal, stimulating design solutions for "development that cultivates environmental and social conditions that will support human well-being indefinitely."

Based on successful green strategies practiced at dozens of major corporations, Design for Environment, Second Edition, offers a business rationale for developing sustainable products and processes, as well as a comprehensive toolkit for practicing Design for Environment (DFE) in the context of product life-cycle management. Insights on how DFE can be seamlessly integrated into existing business practices are also included. This unique resource reveals how environmental innovation creates business value and helps companies to meet global energy and environmental challenges. Features in-depth case studies of DFE applications by industry leaders such as: Alcoa * American Electric Power * Caterpillar * Coca-Cola * ConAgra Foods * Dow Chemical Company * DuPont * Eli Lilly * Ford Motor Company * General Motors * Hewlett-Packard * Intel * JCPenney * Johnson & Johnson * Kimberly-Clark * McDonald's * Owens Corning * Patagonia * 3M Company * Xerox.

This volume is a technical and operative contribution to the United Nations "Decade on Education for Sustainable Development" (2005-2014), aiding the development of a new generation of designers, responsible and able in the task of designing environmentally sustainable products. The book provides a comprehensive framework and a practical tool to support the design process. This is an important text for those interested in the product development processes.

The tools of design research, writes Brenda Laurel, will allow designers "to claim and direct the power of their profession." Often neglected in the various curricula of design schools, the new models of design research described in this book help designers to investigate people, form, and process in ways that can make their work more potent and more delightful. "At the very least," Peter Lunenfeld writes in the preface, "design research saves us from reinventing the wheel. At its best, a lively research methodology can reinvigorate the passion that so often fades after designers join the profession."The goal of the book is to introduce designers to the many research tools that can be used to inform design as well as to ideas about how and when to deploy them effectively.

The first guide to the terminology of sustainable design. Written by an internationally renowned expert in the field, this illustrated dictionary provides over 1500 definitions and explanations of ecodesign terms.Providing a unique resource for the practitioner and student, this book leaves the reader free to 'dip' in and out of the book allowing for 'bite-sized' learning at their own convenience. It is an essential reference for all architects, engineers, planners and environmentalists involved in designing and planning projects and schemes in the built environment.

How did design help choose a president? Why are people buying houses they cannot afford? Why do U.S. car makers now struggle to compete? Why do we really have an environmental crisis? Design matters. Like never before. Disarming the weapons of mass deception. Designers create so much of what we see, what we use, and what we experience. In this time of unprecedented environmental, social, and economic crises, designers can choose what their young profession will be about: inventing deceptions that encourage more consumption-or helping repair the world. Do Good Designis a call to action: It alerts designers to the role they play in persuading global audiences to fulfill invented needs. The book outlines a more sustainable approach to both the practice and the consumption of design. All professionals will be inspired by the message of how one industry can feel better about itself by holding onto its principles. In this provocative and dramatically-illustrated book, David Berman offers a powerful and hopeful message for all designers. Today, everyone is a designer. And the future of civilization is our common design project.

Designs a comprehensive system that makes conversation profitable, productive, and possible ; a blueprint for a prosperous, sustainable future.

While steps have been made towards environmentally sustainable consumer product design, incorporating approaches such as design for recycling, biodegradeability, and disassembly, Chapman (three-dimensional design, U. of Brighton, UK) believes that there is a need for a coherent philosophical approach to sustainable design that addresses why people throw out products that still work. He attempts this here as he explores consumer psychology in an attempt to draw out lessons of design that will encourage consumer empathy and, hence, attachment with their products.

An argument for a design philosophy of better, not more. Never have we wanted, owned, and wasted so much "stuff." Our consumptive path through modern life leaves a wake of social and ecological destruction--sneakers worn only once, bicycles barely even ridden, and forgotten smartphones languishing in drawers. By what perverse alchemy do our newest, coolest things so readily transform into meaningless junk? In Meaningful Stuff, Jonathan Chapman investigates why we throw away things that still work, and shows how we can design products, services, and systems that last. Obsolescence is an economically driven design decision--a plan to hasten a product's functional or psychological undesirability. Many electronic devices, for example, are intentionally impossible to dismantle for repair or recycling, their brief use-career proceeding inexorably to a landfill. A sustainable design specialist who serves as a consultant to global businesses and governmental organizations, Chapman calls for the decoupling of economic activity from mindless material consumption and shows how to do it. Chapman shares his vision for an "experience heavy, material light" design sensibility. This vital and timely new design philosophy reveals how meaning emerges from designed encounters between people and things, explores ways to increase the quality and longevity of our relationships with objects and the systems behind them, and ultimately demonstrates why design can--and must--lead the transition to a sustainable future.

Mid-Course Correction is the personal story of Ray Anderson's realization that businesses need to embrace principles of sustainability, and of his efforts, often frustrating, to apply these principles within a billion dollar corporation that is still measured by the standard scorecards of the business world. While the path has proved to have many curves, Interface is demonstrating that the principles of sustainability and financial success can co-exist within a business, and can lead to a new prosperity that includes human dividends as well.

Recently there has been a plethora of work published on the topic of sustainability, much of which is purely theoretical or technical in its approach. More often than not these books fail to introduce readers to the larger challenge of what thinking sustainably might entail.This book brings together new and emerging perspectives on sustainability. Combining a series of well know authors in contemporary philosophy with established practitioners of sustainable design, this book develops a coherent theoretical framework for how a philosophy of sustainability might engage with the growing practice of sustainable design.

Whether buying a pair of jeans or applying to college, everyday decisions, big and small, have become increasingly complex due to the abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction--but choice overload can make you question your decisions before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for failures. This can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and stress. In this book, social scientist Schwartz explains at what point choice--the hallmark of individual freedom that we so cherish--becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. He offers practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

A collection of timely new scholarship, Repair: Sustainable Design Futures investigates repair as a contemporary expression of empowerment, agency, and resistance to our unmaking of the world and the environment. Repair is an act, metaphor, and foundation for opening up a dialogue about design's role in proposing radically different social, environmental, and economic futures. Thematically expansive and richly illustrated, with over 125 visuals, this volume features an international, interdisciplinary group of contributors from across the design spectrum whose voices and artwork speak to how we might address our broken social and physical worlds. Organized around reparative thinking and practices, the book includes 30 long and short chapters, photo essays, and interviews that focus on multiple responses to fractured systems, relationships, cities, architecture, objects, and more. Repair will encourage students, academics, researchers, and practitioners in art, design and architecture practice and theory, cultural studies, environment and sustainability, to discuss, engage, and rethink the act of repair and its impact on our society and environment.

The second edition of this handbook considers the design, not only of artifacts, but of structures, systems, and interactions in the context of sustaining our shared planet. Invaluable to researchers, students, and practitioners of design, architecture, business, energy management, visual arts, and environmental studies.

Tracks the life of the Stuff we use every day--where our cotton T-shirts, laptop computers, and aluminum cans come from, how they are produced, distributed, and consumed, and where they go when we throw them out.

Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things takes you to the places and people you touch every day-when you sip your coffee, tie your shoes, click your mouse, or step on the gas. Once you follow a day in the life of an average North American and see the secret lives of your food, your clothes, and your toys, your world will never look the same.

The Sustainable Design Book updates the reader on the latest products and developments in the field of "green" design. Around 300 of the most exciting new products are featured. Q&As with leading designers give insight into trends and key techniques used within the industry, while handy icons highlight each product's sustainability credentials at a glance. Beginning with a chapter on sustainable materials, the book goes on to cover furniture, lighting, home accessories, and personal accessories, giving readers a broad and current understanding of sustainable design from raw elements through to finished products. Web addresses of designers and retailers make each product easy to source. This combination of products, profiles and information will make The Sustainable Design Book an unbeatable resource for those aspiring to best practice within the field of sustainable design, as well as students of contemporary product design. Consumers looking for beautiful but environmentally conscious products and accessories will also find this an essential guide.

This latest book in Rob Thompson's series of reference guides for design students provides an understanding of the environmental impact of materials, manufacturing processes and product lifecycles, and a guide on how to select and use them in an intelligent way. Divided into three easily referenced parts Materials, Processes and Lifecycle the book is packed with practical information and in-depth analysis on 15 materials, 14 processes and six production lifecycles. Each material, process or production lifecycle features a full technical description, concise notes for the designer on its suitability, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and environmental impact, and fully illustrated, step-by-step case studies showing a product, component or material being manufactured by a leading international supplier.

'Sustainable Solutions' provides state-of-the-art analysis and case studies on why and how cutting-edge companies are developing new products and services to fit 'triple-bottom-line' expectations.

Architecture 2030; BUG; Biophilic Design; BIPV; Circular Economy; LEED; Passive Design; Solar Chimney; Systems Thinking; WELL; Xeriscaping. What does it all mean? The complex and evolving language used in the sustainable design community can be very challenging, particularly to those new to environmentally friendly and resource-efficient design strategies that are needed today. Definitions of over two hundred terms with further sources. Clearly cross-referenced with Sustainaspeak, Theoryspeak, and Archispeak terms. Illustrated throughout with sustainable award-winning buildings by e.g. Behnisch, Brooks + Scarpa, EHDD, KieranTimberlake, Lake|Flato, Leddy Mahtum Stacy, SmithGroup, Perkins+Will, ZGF, VMDO, and McDonough + Partners. Sustainaspeak: A Guide to Sustainable Design Terms provides a current guide to the sustainable design strategies, terms, and practices needed for the next generation of designers, architects, students, and community leaders to design a carbon-neutral world for future generations.

Reveals the strategies a major design firm uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity. The role of the devil's advocate allows individuals to raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility; nothing is more potent in stifling innovation. Drawing on nearly 20 years of experience, Kelley identifies ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers.