“Sustainable design is not only about environmentalism, even if it is an important part of it. Sustainable design is also very much about timelessness, new materials that push the envelope, storytelling, sensorial experiences and cultural awareness.”
At some point we’re going to have to accept that sustainability actually involved limitations, cutbacks and sacrifices. Just like we had to “deal” when the first and second WW came around, we will have to be
– smarter
– do less of a number of things
– stop doing a lot of things
– apply new thinking and not see these things as bad, but just simply better
Definitions like the ones above only serve to make everyone think that we can just go about our daily business, that pumping out new products and services and “new materials”, will somehow make things better. And tying the whole thing up with creatively-soothing-methodology-driven words like “storytelling, sensorial experiences and cultural awareness” is just not good enough anymore.
Hello Alexandra,
I just discovered your blog via your discussion about Twitter blocks. This looks like a great resource, I look forward to reading it in the future.
if I could add my 2cents… ;)
The “definition” you found applies every bit to every other “kind” of design out there. The only difference in “sustainable design” is the emphasis in the list of parameters of the design brief, on sustainability (all and whatever that may encompass; environmetnal, economic, political, etc factors.)
Design is problem solving (need/desire fulfilling), simple as that. When the problem includes issues of sustainability, then…
Am I wrong?
Something a lot of people suggest is that there shouldn’t be a definition for sustainable design per se but that it should be part of _every_ type of design, that our preoccupation with greener more efficient practices should be “business as usual”. Of course that benchmark was set by Cradle to Cradle but outside of architecture, the lines become more and more blurred and sustainability is harder to imagine and more difficult to apply. Maybe what it needs is role models…