Critical Debates in Design | Task 8.1: Sustainable Design

Sustainable design is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

The intention of sustainable design is to eliminate negative environmental impact completely through skillful, sensitive design. I, as a designer, want to make my practice as sustainable as possible because it seems to me that is the only sensible way to operate due the current world state.

Sustainable design is mostly a general reaction to global environmental crises, the rapid growth of economic activity and human population, depletion of natural resources, damage to ecosystems, and loss of biodiversity.

Green design, as it is also known, currently seems to be a trend that brands use to “green wash” their image. Beware of that as many claim to have made their products eco-friendly when they just have made their packaging look like it using recycled cardboard and green ink. Sustainable design doesn't have to look rough or as if collected from the trash. Sustainability doesn't have to be obvious. I think the final aim is to create sustainable products without making a fuzz of it as it had to be the norm. In the meantime there is a long, hard way to go informing and persuading clients, general public and fellow designers. It is important that any designer maker or any kind of producer gets involve to try to make thinks more sustainable without being frivolous about it.

Humanity has messed up with the resources and natural systems of the world now the least we can do is to slow down and switch our economic global hyper fast system to something more local and bespoken. Nowadays, people seem obsessed with having more and more new stuff that they happily dispose of before it is even broken, worn out or finished. It doesn't make us happier and we are wasting and mistreating nature. We put money on top priority and don't realize that we cannot survive without nature but nature can survive without us. Human being is suppose to be an intelligent animal so lets behave like it.