Concerns about rising energy costs and efficient use of resources; availability of, access to, and/or price volatility of critical materials; and the potential risks, opportunities and costs posed by industrial and consumer waste, are just a few of the reasons that manufacturers may want to begin thinking more seriously about sustainability. Sustainability truly isn't just for “treehuggers” anymore.

A common view among engineering, design and manufacturing executives alike is, “I believe sustainability is important, but how can our company justify supporting a more sustainable approach to product design and manufacturing?” (especially if my company isn't even involved in the development of a sustainable or “green” product line?) The short answer is, “because designing with sustainability in mind can yield many benefits – not just environmental ones.”

Unfortunately, a common misconception is that profitability must be sacrificed in order to achieve sustainability-related goals and objectives. Yet for a growing number of organizations, sustainability has served as the catalyst to drive both greater innovation and revenue.

This course helped me to understand how we can reduce rubbish by recycling materials in design and creative peace of art. Also I will try to use natural materials  for less energy and water use.

This is the Portuguese market giving a show of creativity and sustainability

https://www.pelcor.pt/pt/

Mario Cucinella Architects

http://www.evolo.us/architecture/sustainable-synergy-of-form-energy-and-tradition-arpt-headquarters/

Mackenzie Stroh

http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/10-awe-inspiring-sustainable-designs-for-a-living-world-showing-now-at-cooper-hewitt-slideshow.html

Design that takes Models from Nature & History

Geometry is present in the world of nature, at any scale. Almost every form found in our physical environment — waves, clouds, galaxies, cells, bird wings, leaves, seashells— follows geometrical configurations, either resembling the familiar shapes of our elementary school geometry or more complex fractals and recursions. The understanding of the geometric rules and forms underlying natural forms can hold lessons for the design of the man-made world, by capturing the structural efficiency of the form itself and leading to the proper choice of materials.

In found this book, Form Geometry Structure From Nature to Design, I explored many familiar forms found in nature. I tried to understand the geometry behind each form and recreated it as a digital model from the algorithmic rules the form is based on.

http://www.amazon.com/Form-Follows-Nature-Engineering-Architecture/dp/product-description/3709108551

Of the many shapes explored, I found the nautilus shell one of the most intriguing and valuable for design applications. The nautilus has a bone structure externalized in a shell, which is divided into chambers and delineated by septa. The nautilus grows and creates a new larger camera, where it moves its body and seals the previous smaller chamber with a septum. The shell shape is based on a logarithmic spiral, a geometrical configuration which remains unchanged at any scale of growth. Inspired by the nautilus for the design of a large span structure, I recreated a parametric associative model of the shell in Bentley Generative Components. The design model followed the nautilus morphological characteristics: the septa represent the main structural system connected by a secondary system of ribs.

Neri Oxman is an Israeli architect , a brilliant designer and also a researcher from MIT. Her group explores “how digital design and fabrication technologies mediate between matter and environment to radically transform the design and construction of objects, buildings, and systems. Oxmanís goal is to enhance the relationship between the built and the natural environments by employing design principles inspired by nature and implementing them in the invention of digital design technologies.”

With these in mind, Neri and her group has produced many projects that are amazingly cool. They all show Neri’s idea of enhancing the relation between “natural and man-made environment”.

Mineralization processes form many natural structures and introduce metals, such as gold, into a rock. The resulting rock composition is stiffer and stronger. By using the ratio of stiff to soft materials, Stalasso mimics these mineralization processes for design purposes. This leads to construction based on performance requirements. For example, a bed, a table or a building’s ceiling could be tailored to respond to different weights across its surface according to specific requirements and preferences.

Monocoque stands for a construction technique that supports structural load using an object’s external skin.
Contrary to the traditional design of building skins that distinguish between internal structural frameworks and non-bearing skin elements, this approach promotes heterogeneity and differentiation of material properties.

The project demonstrates the notion of a structural skin using a Voronoi pattern,the density of which corresponds to multi-scalar loading conditions. Its innovative 3D printing technology provides for the ability to print parts and assemblies made of multiple materials within a single build, as well as to create composite materials that present preset combinations of mechanical properties.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/

Design to Dematerialise & Develop Systems & Services

This strategy shows how systems and services provide access to the function or benefit of the product without the consumer having to own the product. It is a systematic way of thinking, where everything is connected like a complex web of relationships. It highlights the multi-functional development of on-line/local communities.

There are hundreds of maintenance and repair services that offer help restoring damage to garments like keepandshare which I looked at in a previous post, and thus a rising culture in sharing and collaborative consumption. Ebay is the father of this idea, allowing you to buy and sell without dealing with a middle man. There are also systems which offer free or cheap goods in either new or used conditions:

Free-Cycle.org - 'One man's trash is another man's treasure'
Free Cycle is a service where you can collect goods that many people are uninterested in or do not use anymore. Not only is it an entirely non-profit movement but it promotes waste reduction as instead of throwing out an item you dislike, you can forward it to someone who does. It supports the re-use theory as it is a way of recycling something you don't want that others might have a use for. In London where items are regularly dumped on the street, it is an ecological and environmentally friendly way to dispose of unwanted possessions. They may not be worth much but there will definitely be someone who can find a use for it.
I have to say over the past month of living in my new house my flatmate has acquired us goods ranging from chairs, to televisions to bags, beanbags and printers.

Boris Bikes

Boris bikes or Barclays Cycle Hire are a fantastic example of a service that everyone can use easily whenever and wherever they want. For the cost of a £1 you can hire out the BCH bikes for 24 hours and it is only £45 for the year. It is such a great method of transport that Boris johnson hopes will become as popular as black cabs or red buses around the streets of London. 

Design to Replace the Need to Consume

She describes how the way we use internet has evolved from simply sharing information (emails, wikipedia), to connecting to others (facebook, twitter), to collaborating. She also demonstrates how websites like Ebay, Landshare, Air BnB, Hey Neighbor, WhipCar and many more mark the transition from “me” to “we”.

These innovations do not only happen online, but network technologies like smart phones and social networks provide “the efficiency and the social glue” that enable people to collaborate in meaningful ways.

She has identified three approaches that are symptomatic of this trend, which she be interprets as a move from ownership to access, and the emergence of a generation that is not looking for stuff, but for experiences.

Product Service Systems come from the understanding that, when we buy an object, what we really want is its usage. If we apply this idea to car companies for instance, this means that rather than selling cars, they are selling mobility services. Hence the emergence of car sharing businesses like Zipcars, for example, whose tagline is “wheels when you want them”. Bike sharing schemes are also a great illustration of the convenience of such an idea: the bike is handy for as long as we need it and disappears when we do not need it anymore. If we consider that, in average, 90% or the objects we own are used less than once a month, we start to understand the potential of such systems to address sustainability issues.

Like any second-hand shop, websites like Ebay or Freecycle allow people to sell unwanted items. However, the fact that they are online gives a new dimension to the idea. Rachel Botsman refers to the internet as the “ultimate match making machine”, that connects an incredibly wide range of people with an incredibly diverse range of wants to an incredibly diverse range of offers. Redistribution markets also have interesting sustainability implications, as they help to maximize the usage of a product and extend its life-cycle.

Finally, Rachel Botsman argues that network technologies facilitate the emergence of collaborative lifestyles. Couchsurfing, which connects travelers who need somewhere to sleep and people who have a spare bed, is one of many examples of this. It goes beyond just convenience: more than offering somewhere to sleep, it is about sharing hospitality, creating friendships and experiencing meaningful ways of travelling. It is about building social capital and thus making the world a smaller planet.

These kind of online platforms work because they place emphasis on trust: contributors are rated and reviewed by other members of the online community. This is characteristic of a transition to an economy where we are “being defined, not by what we consume, but by what we contribute.”