The paper of attractive sustainable product design

The first reason why I want to write this paper about ‘attractive sustainable product design’ is because this is a subject that fascinates me a lot. As a student of Master Architecture I am convinced that design is not only the environment of buildings, urban landscapes and design furniture but also much more! If a designer starts a design project he grabs first of all his key elements, those are most of the time aspects of a social, economic and environmental kind. A good designer combines that into an attractive design, which invites the people to look, use and enjoy it. As a student of architecture, I didn’t choose to write something about the building environment, because an architect can be convinced about sustainable architecture and try to bring his knowledge on to his clients. But the time and their education on sustainable aspects of architecture is in most of the times to small, that the client don’t see the effort to pay a bit more to build in a sustainable way… For example people are convinced to use sustainable wood (FSC labelled wood) to construct their new house, until they see the difference in price. In a way the architect has to convince his clients of this, what results most of the time into a one-way communication. Not only the education of the clients on sustainable aspects could better, also the architects who graduated their studies a few decades ago, they have to improve their knowledge! But as long as some policies of government and the education of consumers don’t change, we have to do it in a faster way! A way that change the patron of consuming tomorrow. Because the choices we make, especially now, can directly or indirectly influence an enormous chain of events which, in turn, could have a negative or positive impact on our planet and on our lives. That’s my second reason why I wanted to write this paper on sustainable product design. Because we are living in a capitalistic world where materialism and consumption are the topics! I am really convinced that if we change those consumption products that daily a million of time are used, we take bigger steps into a sustainable world. The reason why I added ‘attractive’ on the tittle comes straight out of the existing sustainable products. The products that already where made or designed are frequently sustainable because the designers used ‘green’ materials. But where do you find those ‘eco products’? Not in the real world of consumers but combined in a glossy and heavy-paper-weight book, with beautiful pictures. Then you can’t name this sustainable product design, because nobody uses it! Those critical aspects, has to become a main element into sustainable product design! The structure of the paper comes out of three key elements that are most needed to turn the product designing into a sustainable way. First we have ‘Economic aspects on sustainable product design’ where the article explains which instruments of government can be used to create a higher sustainable economic by policies and also on eco-efficiency and product life cycle themes with their specific impact on the current economic system. Second is ‘Social aspects on sustainable product design’. In this chapter you will read about education and responsibility of consumers. The ethic debate between what want people want and what is needed. Third and last key element ‘Environmental aspect on sustainable product design’, where the chapter will explain the principle of Sustainable Product Design, Life cycle and local design from theoretical from a practical point of view.To feed this paper of good examples, strategies and theories I’ve read all journals of ‘The Surrey Institute of Art & Design University College, UK’. The university created every two months over several years a book where professors, doctors, directors and managers where invited to write an issue about sustainable product design (SPD). In addition to those journals I’ve also read some programs on ‘design for sustainability’ from the Delft University of Technology. For practical examples I used ‘ecological urbanism’ a manual of the Harvard University. I determined my selection of sources, because those universities are currently leading in the area of sustainable product design. For further information of used sources in this paper, I refer to the bibliography.

Jaar van publicatie:2012

Toegankelijkheid:Closed