History Of Ecodesign
A good paper to read is one of Pauline Madge written in 1993 called: Design, Ecology, Technology: A Histographical Review. Journal of Design History, Vol 6. N 3, pp. 149-166
Another that you might consider useful is: Richardson, J., Irwin, T., and Sherwin, C. (2005). Design &Sustainabilty: A scoping Report. June, Design Council publications, UK
And probably: Ryan, C. (2003). Learning for a Decade(or so) of Eco-Design Experience, Part I. Journal of Industrial Ecology, MIT press. Vol. 7, N. 2, pp. 10-12 Ryan, C. (2005). Learning for a Decade (or so) of Eco-Design Experience, Part II. Journal of Industrial Ecology, MIT press. Vol. 8, N. 4, pp. 3-5
To have a view on tools look at:Bhamra T. A. (2004). Ecodesign: the search for new strategies in product development. Proc. Instn Mech Engrs, part B: J. Engineering manufacture, Vol. 218, pp. 557-568
Eco Design is Entrepreneural Design
Van: Cameron Tonkinwise <cctw@edf.edu.au>
Datum: 21 augustus 2003 4:59:25 GMT+02:00
Aan: o2mailinglist@yahoogroups.com
Onderwerp: Antw.: [o2mailinglist] Vision vs. reality
I would like to affirm everything that Peter has said in his excellent post. Sustainable
Design is entrepreneurial design. Waiting for clients to ask for sustainable designs is
waiting for the crisis to click beyond the point of no return.
The EcoDesign Foundation developed apostgraduate degree program that aimed to teach sustainable designers how to entrepreneurially create opportunities for developing
sustainability. The program was kind of an MBA + Sustainable Design + Design Management.
It was to be hosted by a university in Sydney until a restructure and scarce resources prevented it from going ahead. We are in the process of putting the curriculum up on our web-
site as an 'open source' learning path. In the meantime, if you want the old pdf brochure,
email me off-list.
In essence the program taught four strategies:
1) return briefing - the art of talking conventional clients round to sustainable options.
In addition to rhetorical appeals to intergenerational quality, this involves primarily
being adept at 'whole-of-life costing' to combat reactions to increased capital costs. It
is also about discerning opportunities for 'functional innovation' - selling the use of
things in closed loops rather than the things themselves.
2) subterfuge - the art of making conventional designs have sustainable multiplier effects
without the client realising. The key here is recognising that sustainability is a quality
of how people relate to things, not a quality of things themselves. A design is only ever
usable by designing the way users interact with the design. This power can be used to
design 'behaviour steering technologies' (this term is Jaap Jelsma's: see www.ifz.tu-graz.ac.at/sumacad/sa00_jelsma.pdf)
3) DIY - the art of identifying 'leverage points' (Donella Meadows' term) in the economy where
new forms of business are possible that decouple wealth generation from materials consumption.
DIY means designing a new business, for yourself, perhaps in partnership with a client, but not for a client, since the latter do not exist.
4) Bipolarity - being a sustainable designer means always doing 2 things at the same time:
a) engaging in not-for-profit NGO-type general client education, raising the awareness of how
sustainable lifestyles can be designed by industries and consumers, and
b) working commercially with the increasing number of clients (as a result of your a) work) who start to ask explicitly for sustainability designing designs. Importantly, a) is not, and must not, only be positive; it should also be negative, developing strong critiques of existing designs and business directions (criticism is only possible from the not-for-profit sector.
We call this 'elimination design', identifying things currently in existence that cannot and
must not be 'greened', but rather, must be removed from the economy altogether.
Some of the strategies involved in 1) are discussed in the Design for Sustainability Guide
on our website:
http://www.edf.edu.au/DfSGuideWebsite/HomePage/Home.htm
The author of this guide is currently involved in further research discovering what ploys commercial designers committed to sustainability are using to talk clients round to sustainable options. Please feel free to contact us to offer any case studies you might have.
Cameron
"What is most thought-provoking in these most thought-provoking times is that we are still not yet thinking" Martin Heidegger
Dr Cameron Tonkinwise
Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Design Studies
Faculty of Design, Architecture, Building
University of Technology Sydney
Building 6, Room 620, ph (61 2) 9514 8924
cameron.tonkinwise@uts.edu.au
GPO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 Australia
Peter Nicholson wrote:
Where Are The Opportunities for Sustainable Designers...?
VISION CONFRONTS REALITY
A smart student colleague here in Chicago just posted an announcement to our local o2 email list for a upcoming conference in Milan titled: "Visions of Possible Worlds. Scenarios and Proposals for Sustainability." It got me thinking that one issue designers could start trying to address, is how to create opportunities to practice sustainable design? Having the vision and
knowledge about sustainable design is one thing, but finding a paying job that employs these resources, at least here in the U.S., is quite another.
TALENT GLUT
Twice last spring recent (product) design school grads emailed me facing this conundrum. I had little advice to give them. Go try and work for a large company, like Steelcase or Herman Miller, that takes these issuesseriously. There are few design firms practicing sustainable (product)
design in the U.S.. Those that are (and I can count them on one hand), aren't hiring.
There is in Chicago, and I imagine elsewhere, a small but significant glutof designers with sustainability interests and knowledge. They are either unemployed or employed at firms that don't care about sustainability issues.
Their clients don't ask for it, so they don't provide it. I fear that even given most design schools meager integration of sustainability principles into their curriculum, this over-abundance is only going to grow. Having knowledgeable designers, designers with vision is certainly part of the
struggle, but so is creating demand for them. As I see it, this is the immediate challenge ahead.
AN EXAMPLE
The Vice President for Community Relations (read Public Relations) of a large, international advertising firm here put it to me once this way "nothing is going to change here until our clients demand it. If our major clients demand it, the change will happen here overnight." She then gave an example of how two major clients requested the firm meet certain staff diversity requirements, to the point of making it a term of their contract.
Said firm now has two full-time people just to oversee this aspect of their hiring and practice. To my knowledge, they have no staff overseeing environmental or sustainability issues (yet!).
'SOLUTIONS?
"Designers Designing Demand?"
In my talks to groups and individuals, one of my regular phrases is "sustainability is inseparable from entrepreneurship." (Another is "sustainability will not happen without design.") Thus in the discussions we've been having regarding sustainable design education, I advocate for a broad, integrated and holistic approach. It's not enough to know only the language of design. If you want to practice sustainable design in this day and age, you're going to have to largely create your own road, and that requires a multi-lingual approach (i.e. the language of business, marketing, environmental studies, etc.). Until there is more demand and subsequent infrastructure in place, being just a sustainable designer will not result in a fulfilling career.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
So what is a designer to do? One of the programs we've been considering launching here is hosting a monthly meeting of designers interested in identifying barriers to implementing sustainable design and devising possible solutions. Then we'll see what we can do to implementing them, either through our NGO or for-profit corporation (it's a long story, but we
have established and operate both). I'd love to hear the thoughts and suggestions of others, either via the list or through personal email.
To rephrase a Flannery O'Connor short story title: The Life You Design, May Be Your Own. (originally: The Life You Save, May Be Your Own).
Regards,
Peter Nicholson
Executive Director
o2-Chicago/Foresight Design Initiative, Inc.
www.o2-USA.org/chicago
