Book Description
Informed by recent research into the viability of a 'steady state' economy, this book sets an agenda for addressing the designer's paradox of sustainable consumption.
Author : Ann Thorpe
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 25,60 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1849713561
Informed by recent research into the viability of a 'steady state' economy, this book sets an agenda for addressing the designer's paradox of sustainable consumption.
Author : Ann Thorpe
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 47,9 MB
Release : 2012-06-14
Category : Design
ISBN : 1136315683
The mentality that consumerism and economic growth are cure-alls is one of the biggest obstacles to real sustainability, but any change seems impossible, unthinkable. Our contemporary paradox finds us relying for our well being on consumer-driven economic growth that we actually can’t afford — not in environmental, economic or social terms. Although architecture and design have long been seen as engines for consumerism and growth, increasing numbers of designers are concerned about the problems resulting from growth. But designers face a paradox of their own; in scenarios of sustainable consumption, where people consume or build significantly less, what will be left for designers to do? This book, informed by recent research into the viability of a "steady state" economy, sets an agenda for addressing the designer’s paradox of sustainable consumption. The agenda includes ways that architecture and design can help transition us towards a new kind of economy that prioritizes real wellbeing rather than economic growth. Packed with examples and illustrations, the book argues that taking action, or activism, is an important but so far underexplored way for architects and designers to confront consumerism. The first chapters explore how economic growth and consumerism shape and are shaped by the professions of architecture, product, and landscape design and how we can understand the problem of consumerism as four main challenges that designers are already addressing. The book maps out the main issues surrounding the development of metrics that designers and others can use to measure wellbeing, instead of simply measuring economic growth. The second half of the book looks at how design activism works and its connection to growth and consumerist issues. These chapters examine how activist practices are financed, highlight five specific methods that designers use in working for social change, and investigate the power of these methods. The book concludes with a consideration of what design’s role might be in a "post-growth" society.
Author : Ann Thorpe
Publisher : Island Press
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 31,32 MB
Release : 2007-06-20
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1610910605
Designing for sustainability is an innovation shaping both the design industry and design education today.Yet architects, product designers, and other key professionals in this new field have so far lacked a resource that addresses their sensibilities and concerns. The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability now explores the basic principles, concepts, and practice of sustainable design in a visually sophisticated and engaging style. The book tackles not only the ecological aspects of sustainable design-designers' choice of materials and manufacturing processes have a tremendous impact on the natural world-but also the economic and cultural elements involved. The Atlas is neither a how-to manual nor collection of recipes for sustainable design, but a compendium of fresh approaches to sustainability that designers can incorporate into daily thinking and practice. Illuminating many facets of this exciting field, the book offers ideas on how to harmonize human and natural systems, and then explores practical options for making the business of design more supportive of long-term sustainability. An examination of the ethical dimensions of sustainable development in our public and private lives is the theme present throughout. Like other kinds of atlases, The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability illustrates its subject, but it goes far beyond its visual appeal, stimulating design solutions for "development that cultivates environmental and social conditions that will support human well-being indefinitely."
Author : Alastair Fuad-Luke
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 27,22 MB
Release : 2013-06-17
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1136568476
Design academics and practitioners are facing a multiplicity of challenges in a dynamic, complex, world moving faster than the current design paradigm which is largely tied to the values and imperatives of commercial enterprise. Current education and practice need to evolve to ensure that the discipline of design meets sustainability drivers and equips students, teachers and professionals for the near-future. New approaches, methods and tools are urgently required as sustainability expands the context for design and what it means to be a 'designer'. Design activists, who comprise a diverse range of designers, teachers and other actors, are setting new ambitions for design. They seek to fundamentally challenge how, where and when design can catalyse positive impacts to address sustainability. They are also challenging who can utilise the power of the design process. To date, examination of contemporary and emergent design activism is poorly represented in the literature. This book will provide a rigorous exploration of design activism that will re-vitalise the design debate and provide a solid platform for students, teachers, design professionals and other disciplines interested in transformative (design) activism. Design Activism provides a comprehensive study of contemporary and emergent design activism. This activism has a dual aim - to make positive impacts towards more sustainable ways of living and working; and to challenge and reinvigorate design praxis,. It will collate, synthesise and analyse design activist approaches, processes, methods, tools and inspirational examples/outcomes from disparate sources and, in doing so, will create a specific canon of work to illuminate contemporary design discourse. Design Activism reveals the power of design for positive social and environmental change, design with a central activist role in the sustainability challenge. Inspired by past design activists and set against the context of global-local tensions, expressions of design activism are mapped. The nature of contemporary design activism is explored, from individual/collective action to the infrastructure that supports it generating powerful participatory design approaches, a diverse toolbox and inspirational outcomes. This is design as a political and social act, design to enable adaptive societal capacity for co-futuring.
Author : Derek Thomas
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 11,1 MB
Release : 2007-06-01
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 1136428674
This well illustrated text forms a critical appraisal of the place and direction of architecture and urban design in a new world order at the start of the 21st century. The book defines architectural and environmental goals for the New Age by analysing recent contemporary work for its responsiveness to important social and environmental issues and comparing it to successful precedents in architecture. It argues that this new sustainable approach to architecture should be recognised as a new development of mainstream architectural history. This practical guide illustrates current social and natural resource issues to aid architects in their approach to future design. Environmental economics is presented as a potential bridge over the divide between the expectations of the business sector and the concerns of environmental lobbies. Through examples and case studies, an accessible analysis of carefully researched data, drawn from primary sources over four continents, allows the author to outline the current urgency for architects and urban designers to respond with real commitment to current and future changing contexts. This book expresses a holistic vision and proposes a value system in response to the diagnosis. It includes: sound architectural and environmental ethics; end user involvement in the design process and technological advances aimed at sustainable resource use. Includes international case studies from Europe, North America, the Developing world including South Africa, South America and Central Asia.
Author : Ricardo de Ostos
Publisher :
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 42,37 MB
Release : 2014-03
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781907896477
Is the idea of an environment in architecture intrinsically reduced to 'environmental architecture', with its data gathering, percentages, and product lines, like solar panels and catalogues offering insulation solutions? For Ostos and Jackowski the answer is a resolute no, and instead they seek and endorse an alternative reading of 'environment' in which the brutal and lyrical are juxtaposed through a number of visually compelling narrative architectural explorations.
Author : Leslie Sklair
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 15,64 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 0190464186
The Icon Project argues that the transnational capitalist class mobilizes two forms of iconic architecture--unique icons recognized as works of art, notably designed by global starchitects (such as Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid); and typical icons copying elements of unique icons--to promote the same ideological message: the culture-ideology of consumerism.
Author : Bryan Bell
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,61 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781933045788
Questioning how design can improve daily lives, more than thirty essays by practicing architects and designers, urban and community planners, historians, landscape architects and environmental designers illuminate an emerging geography of architectural activism and suggest the many ways that design can address issues of social justice.
Author : Jeremy Till
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 27,75 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Architectural practice
ISBN : 0262012537
Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection.
Author : Ruth Baumeister
Publisher : 010 Publishers
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 34,82 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9064505667
For centuries, across nations, dialogue between the domestic and the foreign has affected and transformed architecture. Today these dialogues have become highly intensified. The Domestic and the Foreign in Architecture examines how these exchanges manifest themselves in contemporary architecture, in terms of its aesthetic potential and its practice, which, in turn, are impacted by broad economic, cultural and political issues. This book traces how diverse cultural encounters inevitably modify conventional categories, standards and codes of architecture, such as domestic identity, its political and economic representations and the negotiations with what is deemed foreign. Theoretical reflections by distinguished scholars are accompanied by interviews with some of the most influential architects practicing today, as well as stunning visual presentations by professional photographers.