Category:Sustainability
What kind of solutions can we implement?
Origins
Victor Papanek was a Vienna born designer and educator widely admired for his advocacy of ecologically and socially responsible designs of products, tools and other objects. His ideas can be summed up as a union of designs that are people centered without neglecting the limits imposed by ecology. Design for a Real World: Human Ecology and Social change (1969). UCSC Library call number: TS171.4.P37 1984
The Green Imperative: Ecology and ethics in design and architecture. (1995). UCSC Library call number TS171.4 .P375 1995
This review on the provides a good background on Papanek’s Green Imperative (1995), including Papanek’s philosophies on scale and economy. The article helps people think through the political economy of going small scale, while generously presenting Papanek’s work. Recommended reading for students thinking about attachment to place.
E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful has also been enormously influential. UCSC HB171 .S384 1999 (we have multiple copies with different call#). online excerpt
Overviews
Paul MacCready, an aircraft designer and environmentalist, is a pioneer of human-powered flight, alternative energy for transportation, and environmentally responsible design. TEDtalk video
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins (Back Bay Books, 1999). Its simple message—we can save the planet and make money at the same time—laid the blueprint for the 21st-century sustainability movement. Download free chapters.
Appropriate Technology
Appropedia a wikipedia for Appropriate Technology, which is low cost often green design for people in developing countries.
Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith (video) details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for converting farm waste into cleaner-burning fuel.
In this five minute TEDTalk, William Kamkwamba, a 14 year old African discusses how he built windmill video
Tech Museum of Innovation gives awards for great uses of technology to solve problems
Nick Moon & Martin Fisher. Project: ApproTEC (Appropriate Technology for Enterprise Creation).
Nick Moon and Martin Fisher founded ApproTEC out of their belief that poor people don't need handouts, they need concrete opportunities to use their skills and initiative. ApproTEC provides these opportunities by specially designing and manufacturing tools that help people work more productively, allowing them to break the cycle of poverty. Full Video: The New Heroes (ucsc owns: DVD2816)
Green Design
Architecture
(TEDtalk video) Architect Norman Foster discusses his own work to show how computers can help architects design buildings that are green, beautiful and "basically pollution-free." This talks provides a history of green design, including Buckminster Fuller.
Building with recycled materials Michael Reynolds, Earthship Biotechture
Cameron Sinclair, after training as an architect, (then age 24) joined Kate Stohr to found Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps architects apply their skills to humanitarian efforts. Starting with just $700 and a simple web site in 1999, AFH has grown into an international hub for humanitarian design, offering innovative solutions to housing problems in all corners of the globe. TEDTalk video
Whether rebuilding earthquake-ravaged Bam in Iran, designing a soccer field doubling as an HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa, housing refugees on the Afghan border, or helping Katrina victims rebuild, Architecture for Humanity works by Sinclair's mantra: "Design like you give a damn." (Sinclair and Stohr cowrote a book by the same name, released in 2006.)
Cameron Sinclair is a regular contributor to the sustainability blog Worldchanging
Manufacturing
William McDonough (co-author of Cradle to Cradle) TEDTalk video ***. 2008 presentation (video) to the California Dept. of Fish and Game.
Terry Swack, Founder & CEO, Clean Culture. PARC talk on Sustainable Product Design
Janine Benyus (TEDtalk video) provides fascinating examples of biomimicry -- the way humans mimic nature in the products we build and the systems we implement. And because the champion adapters in the natural world are, by definition, those that can survive without destroying the environment.
Ross Lovegrove: The power and beauty of organic design TEDtalk video
Alex Steffen offers a fast-paced round-up of radical (but possible) answers to our planet's greatest challenges, ranging from green cities and buildings, to digital collaboration tools, to ingenious tools for the developing world. TEDtalk video. Worldchanging.com founder
Distribution
Adam Werbach audio interview. Once the youngest president in the history of the Sierra Club, San Francisco-based Adam Werbach has served as a sustainability consultant to Wal-Mart and recently sold his firm to global advertising giant Saatchi and Saatchi. He discusses his goal "to construct a consumer movement for sustainability" -- and about the risks of corporate "greenwashing."
Green Design Competitions
Buckminster Fuller Institute site with video
Xprize has video contest for wild green ideas, high mileage cars, and will soon have other prizes for green design and entrepreurship.
PETA is offering an XPrize for test tube meat. See pro's and cons.
Engineers Without Borders - USA (EWB-USA) is a non-profit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide in order to improve their quality of life. This partnership involves the implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students. Research Challenges
Articles in category "Sustainability"
The following 9 pages are in this category, out of 9 total.
