Designing For Sustainability

Pixels use electricity, and a lot of it. If the Internet were a country, it would be the sixth largest in terms of electricity use. That’s because today’s average web page has surpassed two megabytes in size, leading to slow load times, frustrated users, and a lot of wasted energy. With this practical guide, your web design team will learn how to apply sustainability principles for creating speedy, user-friendly, and energy-efficient digital products and services. Author Tim Frick introduces a web design framework that focuses on four key areas where these principles can make a difference: content strategy, performance optimization, design and user experience, and green hosting. You’ll discover how to provide users with a streamlined experience, while reducing the environmental impact of your products and services. Learn why 90% of the data that ever existed was created in the last year Use sustainability principles to innovate, reduce waste, and function more efficiently Explore green hosting, sustainable business practices, and lean/agile workflows Put the right things in front of users at precisely the moment they need them—and nothing more Increase site search engine visibility, streamline user experience, and make streaming video more efficient Use Action Items to explore concepts outlined in each chapter

This book discusses the most significant ways in which design has been applied to sustainability challenges using an evolutionary perspective. It puts forward an innovation framework that is capable of coherently integrating multiple design for sustainability (DfS) approaches developed so far. It is now widely understood that design can and must play a crucial role in the societal transformations towards sustainability. Design can in fact act as a catalyst to trigger and support innovation, and can help to shape the world at different levels: from materials to products, product–service systems, social organisations and socio-technical systems. This book offers a unique perspective on how DfS has evolved in the past decades across these innovation levels, and provides insights on its promising and necessary future development directions. For design scholars, this book will trigger and feed the academic debate on the evolution of DfS and its next research frontiers. For design educators, the book can be used as a supporting tool to design courses and programmes on DfS. For bachelor’s and master’s level design, engineering and management students, the book can be a general resource to provide an understanding of the historical evolution of DfS. For design practitioners and businesses, the book offers a rich set of practical examples, design methods and tools to apply the various DfS approaches in practice, and an innovation framework which can be used as a tool to support change in organisations that aim to integrate DfS in their strategy and processes.

A forward looking book on sustainable design that describes problems and then, by providing a different way to conceptualise design and development, leads on to examples of regenerative solutions. Its aim is to move the discussion away from doing less, but still detracting from our ecological capital, to positively contributing and adding to this capital. This book offers a hopeful response to the often frightening changes and challenges we face; arguing that we can actively create a positive and abundant future through mindful, contributive engagement that is rooted in a living systems based worldview. Concepts and practices such as Regenerative Development, Biophilic Design, Biomimicry, Permaculture and Positive Development are explored through interviews and case studies from the built environment to try and answer questions such as: ‘How can projects focus on creating a positive ecological footprint and contribute to community?’; How can we as practitioners restore and enrich the relationships in our projects?; and ‘How does design focus hope and create a positive legacy?’

Having designed more than 75 K-12 school projects, and with a long-standing commitment to sustainability and a passion for architecture, Alan Ford is perfectly positioned to present this illuminating collection of sustainable school projects from around the world. Designing the Sustainable School is a compendium of ideas illustrating how some very talented architects and committed facility planners are meeting the challenge of creating better schools for the 21st century. They are creating schools that are eco-friendly, embody high-performance design principles, are rich in architectural character, and enhance the health and well-being of students and teachers. The projects represent a wide range of design solutions, aesthetics, location, and scale, ranging in size from the Aga Khan Award-winning three-room schoolhouse in Burkina Faso by Diebedo Francis Kere, to the 2500-student, 260,000-square-foot high school in Santa Ana, California by LPA Architects. Each of the 45 featured projects is presented with an overview of the components of the high-performance "tool kit" employed by architects to achieve sustainable design goals. Collectively, these demonstrate the breadth of tools that today's architects can employ to build a sustainable future for our children.

As culture is becoming increasingly recognised as a crucial element of sustainable development, design competence has emerged as a useful tool in creating a meaningful life within a sustainable mental, cultural and physical environment. Design for a Sustainable Culture explores the relationship between sustainability, culture and the shaping of human surroundings by examining the significance and potential of design as a tool for the creation of sustainable development. Drawing on interdisciplinary case studies and investigations from Europe, North America and India, this book discusses theoretical, methodological and educational aspects of the role of design in relation to human well-being and provides a unique perspective on the interface between design, culture and sustainability. This book will appeal to researchers as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students in design and design literacy, crafts, architecture and environmental planning, but also scholars of sustainability from other disciplines who wish to understand the role and impact of design and culture in sustainable development.

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.

What is the relationship between design, sustainability, inner values and spirituality? How can we create designs that provide a convincing alternative to unsustainable interpretations of progress, growth, consumerism and commercialism? Building on the arguments first advanced in his widely acclaimed books Sustainable by Design and The Spirit of Design, Stuart Walker explains how we can achieve the systemic changes needed to address the challenges of sustainability. Challenging common assumptions about the nature of our contemporary material culture and its relationship to human flourishing, the author introduces approaches to design that draw inspiration from nature, summon the human imagination and create outcomes which are environmentally responsible and socially just, as well as meaningful and enriching at a personal level. Offering a unique and original contribution to this vital debate, Designing Sustainability is destined to become essential reading for students on courses in design and sustainability and for design practitioners looking for a deeper, more meaningful basis for their work.

This open access book introduces design for Sustainable Product-Service Systems (S.PSS) and for Sustainable Distributed Economies (S.DE). These are introduced as technical and operative tools for the development of a new generation of designers, responsible and capable of designing environmentally-sustainable products. The book provides a comprehensive theoretical framework but also a practical tool to support the design process. It overviews methodologies, tools and strategies for Sustainable PSS design applied to Distributed Economies (DE) and provides strategies and design guidelines. All of these are highlighted and expanded upon with international case studies.