Green Design

Green design is design that is environmentally conscious and has the goal of sustainability. It can refer to the design of consumer goods and products, technologies, the built environment, or even systems and methods of doing things. Other terms used include ecodesign and sustainable design. Green design embraces the economic, social, and environmental impacts of producing and consuming a product with a view to minimizing its environmental impacts and nonrenewable resource use, and helping people live in harmony with nature.

In architecture, the goal of green design is to construct buildings with a reduced environmental impact, through careful selection of materials and a switch to natural and recycled building materials. The energy demands of the building may be reduced by adopting passive processes for heating and cooling, using solar-driven processes to heat interior spaces, using effective shading to prevent the building from overheating, while devices such [Page 293]as Trombe walls may be used to create cool drafts when the building is too hot.

The Toyota Prius is a full hybrid electric car, introduced in Japan in 1997 and worldwide in 2001. Pictured here is an early model of the car in the Toyota Museum in Japan

Source: Gnsin/Wikipedia

The environmental benefits of green design should be self-evident. These impacts are visible on a local level (i.e., the product doesn't pollute at the point of use, or the factory that produces the product doesn't have a negative impact on its local environment) and on a larger global scale. Well-designed green products help the human race as a whole transition into a more sustainable future, and do not exacerbate global-scale problems, such as climate change and ozone depletion.

In addition to the environmental improvements gained as a result of employing green design, businesses can also benefit economically by reducing costs as a result of more efficient processes. They can improve their efficiency, and reach out to the rapidly growing segment of the market that purchases environmentally responsible products. According to the Hartman Group, 75 percent of U.S. consumers prefer greener alternative products. In this way, it is often possible to achieve many synergistic “win-wins” through green design.

Many traditional products and technologies achieved a much better integration with the natural world than modern technologies do. Tools, transportation, and buildings evolved to fit the local conditions. For example, mud huts in the French Cameroon had a hemispherical shape that was the most efficient shape for keeping the insides cool. The vertical ribs holding the huts up also guided rainwater away, and could be used as scaffolding during construction, as well as for later repairs.

Design methods changed with the changing requirements of industrializing nations. The traditional evolution of forms was no longer developing quickly enough to keep up with the constant demand for new products in rapidly expanding economies. The design process was removed from the site of manufacture to the drawing board, where scale drawings were made. The designer now had a few hours on a drawing board to achieve what had once taken centuries of adaptation.

At the same time, economic considerations became all important. In some cases, economic considerations also serve environmental goals. For example, the minimization of materials used means resources are saved. However, they may be saved at the expense of the length of the operating life of a product.

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