Need to get students talking about the “social” aspects of sustainability? Try asking about definitions. In the Designers Atlas of Sustainability I wrote, “From our history of human activity, such as language, technology, beliefs, and values—what do we want to sustain over the long term? In some ways it’s easier to identify things we don’t…
Constant cost cutting can make things “cheap” in a bad way, but recently we’ve seen examples of making things cheap in a good way. Flat pack furniture might be one, possibly arguable, example where things are made cheaper in a good way. Another example is Professor Manu Prakash’s $0.50 microscope—the “Foldscope” that is printed on…
Lately I’ve been trying to think of ways to measure the uptake by design professions of sustainable design over time. I’m particularly interested in architecture and product design. Obviously there are no official statistics collected on this question, so I’m trying to think of proxies that might indicate the activities of designers in this area…