Design 21: Social Design Network

Green Design is a very broad term encompassing many aspects. It starts with smart choices of materials, such as renewable resources or low impact materials. To take it a step further, green design in about intelligent design. It is about designing for disassembly/ recycle-ability and allowing for alternative uses after the product has reached the end of its original purpose. Green design can also simply encourage sustainable behavior by either enforcing behavior or creating a new behavior.

"Green Design" brings with it various signifiers and meanings. In my experience the most effective green design is that which considers all facets of life that it can in the design decisions.

Green Design is designing, making decisions, for life now AND for future generations. The choices I make in my life, in my work, in my relationships all affect the quality of my shared life today, tomorrow and also for each individual that I share this grand space called Earth with - as well as all generations to come.

Green Design is life lived together, live choices made by each of us for us all, and most of all a healthy, full, and complete life that we can share together.

Personal Media Players are commonplace today. It is a fiercely competitive market that must reinvent itself for its very survival. A byproduct of this planned obsolescence are the out of date Personal Media Players, what to do with the old units? The energy and resources to produce these units and ship them around the world is substantial as well is the expense to the end user. Also of a concern are the many dangerous materials that go into these complicated electronic devices that may end up in a landfill. This entry provides a means to repurpose and/or add functionality to existing Personal Media Players. This is accomplished by a small video and still camera and commonplace electronics that encode video or still images to an existing standard digital format (mpg4 and jpg). This invention is attached to the Personal Media Player’s Docking connector. The device then uses the Personal Media Player as a monitor to view the content as it is being recorded onto the device and as a storage device for the digital files. Using the Personal Media Player as a storage device for the recorded media enables the user is to move the files off the unit for editing, uploading to the web and/or burning to DVD. The device also adds functionality by enabling the Personal Media Player to video conference by streaming the video and audio, wirelessly (either WIFI or 3G). Functionality is also added by upgrading the optics on the still camera lens. Today cameras are found in most new cell phones and technology is converging into hybrid cell phone/Personal Media Players. The problem is the cameras that are built in to these hybrid devices are very low resolution and of very poor quality. The camera in this device would be a much higher resolution, due to the large amount of storage on Personal Media Players, and higher quality optics, due to the relatively small increase in overall cost to the device. The device is called IEye™, which draws on a common parlance for small electronic devices. We feel the IEye™ will drive purchases of new Personal Media Players and further development of new players by reducing the prospect of what to do with the out of date Personal Media Players. We feel this product will make an impact by encouraging the documentation of everyday activities; including archiving and the sharing of that digital information. It will further impact the electronics industry by driving the next generation of personal media players by repurposing out of date electronics. A byproduct of this device is the enabling of computing, distance learning and audio/visual communication with simple, mass produced, portable consumer electronics. There is also in development an IEye Pro and an IEye Sport!.

Patents are applied for.

Green design is local, enduring, engaging and affordable.

Green Design Definition:

"Green is bigger than a thing, it's everything!"

If we look at Design as the introduction of a variable into an ecosystem, then we can define "Green Design" as the act of introducing a well-designed variable, into an ecosystem, that sustain-ably accounts for the resources used to create the variable, the resources used during the lifetime of the variable, and the resources needed to dispose or recycle the variable at the end of its life-cycle.

visit: Do It Yourself: Awareness

Green design is local, enduring, engaging and affordable.

Green design is designing in response and responsible design; it is part of a local solution to a global problem.

Green design is an attitude, a movement, a challenge, a necessity, and an inspiration. It is the zeitgeist of our time, and it is the duty of designers to help carry the torch.

Green design is the production, development, implementation, and sustainability of designs that at least do little damage to our planet, and at best give something back to it.

Green design is the use of thoroughly researched, environmentally painless, and globally recognized materials and processes. Being green is not as simple as being organic, because after too long, anything can be "organic".

Green design is about the awareness and knowledge of all stages of the process and all factors that one's design affects, with the ultimate goal being a limited to invisible mark on the planet, and a lasting positive change in the world.

Green Design is about coming back to earth and creating with our minds in the awareness that everything, living and non-living; people, plants, animals, water, rocks, sand, is connected and dependent on each other for sustainability. Our creations, our designs fulfil the basic needs of all elements involved in that design and reflect this oneness.

If design is about solving problems, then Green Design is about solving the problems that design makes.

Following decades of reckless industrialization at the cost of our planet as well as ignorance of the results thereof, to define "green design" must consist of two facets; design repentance and design pioneering. As a society of people who for so long held such a short-sighted approach toward design, our first task as "green designers" is to repent, that is to turn completely, from this mindset. Tomorrow's designers must veer off the beaten track trodden by those who went before them, and must pick a new path through the little undergrowth our planet has left. To turn from the recklessness of our past is not only to do right from this point onward, but also to right the wrongs of our past. In a dying world, all its inhabitants regardless of occupation or social standing must become conservationists in thought and in deed. This by all means includes the designer; he who is responsible for deciding whether production of the world's next biggest thing will harm or protect our only home. As design pioneers, "green designers" have the incredible opportunity to find as yet undiscovered solutions to a global crisis, which will be able to reverse the damage done and heal an ailing planet for those who are to come. "Green design" will set a precedent of environmentally beneficial approaches to the satisfaction of our consumption. WIth "green designers" at the helm, this world still has a chance to be steered into a bright and healthy future.

Emphasizing people and the environment during product development.

Understanding the intimate link between materials, production methods and ecological cycles.

Causing innovation that breeds empowerment and influence.

The future!

Taken from the jacket copy of the book GREEN DESIGN (Mark Batty Publisher, 2006). I edited the book and wrote a good deal of the text (although Jenn Shreve, Colin Berry, Maggie Hohle and Dominic Muren wrote for the book, too). We kicked around how to define "green design" for quite some time, and the definition above made us all very happy.

Green design is about helping mankind coexist better with the environment. There are two general methods for going about this:

-1 REDUCING THE NEGATIVE - reducing the physical impact of the design)

-2 INCREASING THE POSITIVE - design in a way that changes bad behaviors or creates new, good behaviors that reduce impact on the environment).

The “greenest design” would incorporate both methods. And when you evaluate a design, both factors should be weighed and be weighed according to the OVERALL IMPACT, which is can be very debatable. It seems like it is going to be a semi-slow road to improving our manufacturing ways, so at this point in time, the power I think really lies in designing a product/service that increases the positive effects, and also, making that product/service popular with consumers as well as popular with business. It truly is important to see the big picture.

(incomplete) * List of Ways to Design Greenly: *
-reduce resources used in creating the product

-think about the end of the product's life (disassembly, lifespan, etc.)

-make useful products that improve people's lives in some way, thus making the products valuable, indirectly helping people value materials and resources.
-help people make environmental decisions as painless as possible

-positively affect as many people as possible through smart business strategy

Green design is natural, 100% fresh design coming in great speed from the mind of a creative soul to cause a great influence on everything that it hits. It is strong but not harmful, imaginatively and ingeniously crafted turning ordinary into extra ordinary.

I agree its my dream to open an "green" agency that uses renewable sources from paper we use to the building and natural lighting. Its all a concept now but its great to see designers supporting this idea.

Green design is a silent platform in a world filled with noise; a platform for meditated thoughts and effortless actions.

It is our daily responsible choice that we make, knowing its effect on the resources on which all life depends.

It is a heartening symphony touching the creation process, not perfect in essence, but in its conscientious thought.

A green design is our individual response to the need of being part of the solution and not the problem.

I love what your design communicates easily through visual representation. great work.

Green Design is a means and process. It can enlighten the people’s thinking and develop their subconscious motive to protect the environment consciously. Therefore, Green Design is not a solution. It is the Enlightenment to plant our root. It is much more depending on mental thinking than a function and ecological production.

Green design is moving beyond form and function, and introducing the element of integration; integration with the environment to minimize long-term impact, integration with the individual so that selecting the design is an intuitive choice, and integration with society as a timeless design that feels as if has always been and will always be.

-brent Azboardman@yahoo.com