Design Competition

CALIFIA SKETCHBOOK

If a truly biophilic society created a city, what would this city look like? Would nature and our urban environments be one and every roof be green? Would buildings be built like trees and information flow through this living fabric without resistance? If our infrastructure were deeply biomimetic, how would we get our water, our energy, our food, our heat? Can built environments create habitats for lifeforms who need it? Can buildings be net positives to the grid, cities be organic food exporters, and architecture become not just carbon neutral but carbon negative? What would it feel like to live in this green city of tomorrow? What would most capture its slices of life? What are the true limits of how green our cities can be?

Submit your single page sketch of a slice of life in the green city of tomorrow from:

September 1 - December 1, 2007

The purpose of the Califia Sketchbook Design Competition is to express to a wide variety of people what life will be like in Califia, a proposed next generation eco-city in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. People from around the world are invited to enter a conceptual sketch revealing smarter greener ways of building, powering, maintaining, and inhabiting the urban fabric.

For the program click here

"China: From Red to Green"

Ecodesign

OKALA GUIDE & OTHER TOOLS FOR PRACTICING & BEGINNING DESIGNERS is an interesting file with good information.

Ecodesign provides an introduction to ecological and sustainable design for practicing and beginning designers. Okala means "life sustaining energy" in indigenous Hopi language. It envisions a future where we recognize the value of global ecology and work to insure its protection. The Okala guide revised in 2007 with emphasis on usability to practicing designers and design students.

This booklet gives more information on design + environment; a global guide to designing greener goods.

And this one is more specific on materials and their impact on the environment as well as production process.

There is also a booklet on environmental assessment tools which gives you all kind of examples.

Check out Okala's website to find much more information about design and the environment.

Cradle to Cradle

Instead of designing cradle-to-grave products, dumped in landfills at the end of their 'life,' MBDC transforms industry by creating products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops. Maintaining materials in closed loops maximizes material value without damaging ecosystems. Cradle to Cradle Design is a new strategy for business growth and prosperity that generates ecological, social, and economic value. It represents a fundamental conceptual shift away from the flawed system design of the Industrial Revolution, not just a damage management strategy. Mr. McDonough has been a leader in the sustainable development movement since its inception. He designed and built the first solar-heated house in Ireland in 1977 while still a student at Yale University and designed the first "green office" in the U.S. for the Environmental Defense Fund in 1985. He and German chemist Dr. Michael Braungart co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, 2002), which has now been published in German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean translations. I saw this documentary in May (in Dutch/English) it was that I first heard of McDonough and Braungart. I like their way of thinking and working. It's not about recycling but about downcycling...

Return to sender

When I was checking the internet to find some information about return to sender I came across the website of the Melbourne based Centre for Design sustainability/research/solutions. The Centre for Design is a team of multi disciplinary researchers and consultants with backgrounds in architecture, industrial design, interior design, environmental science, arts and cleaner production. The Centre for Design (CfD) is currently based in the portfolio of Design and Social Content in the school of Architecture and Design at RMIT’s city campus in Melbourne. RMIT is one of Australia's largest and most respected technical and design universities.
The website has a lot of information but I couldn't find any interesting information about sustainable product design... a lot of text;
The Sustainable Products and Packaging Program aims to reduce the environmental impacts of products and packaging through ecodesign, development of tools, educational curricula, research, consulting and training activities. Sustainable products and packaging addresses environmental issues from design to production to end of life stages.
This Program is currently developing two key life cycle management tools; ‘Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool (PIQET) ©’ and ‘Rapid Assessment Tool (RAT) ©’. PIQET© is an independent scientifically based decision support tool (prototype) for packaging which evaluates environmental impacts of packagingsystems throughout the life cycle. On the other hand, RAT© will assist product designers, engineers and manufacturers to incorporate environmental issues during the product development process. Both tools will be on-line web based tools; PIQET© is expected to be launched in mid-2007 and RAT© mid-2008.
We will check it out later...

The great Global Warming swindle...

Just saw a very interesting documentary about Global Warming on ABC tonight. I already had seen this documentary on Internet when the BBC had showed it on Channel 4 a few months ago. But this time it was on Australian television and came with a lot of background information about the film maker and the mis interpretation of several scientists. There is a discussion forum online after the program in which you can give your opinion or discuss items related to this issue. Unfortunately the life forum is now closed, that's a pity when you live in WA...