Reintroducing Materials for Sustainable Design

Design Process and Educational Practice

Mette Bak-Andersen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000372762
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architettura
• Subtopic: Metodi e materiali in architettura

Reintroducing Materials for Sustainable Design provides instrumental theory and practical guidance to bring materials back into a central role in the design process and education.

To create designs that are sustainable and respond to current environmental, economic and cultural concerns, practitioners and educators require a clear framework for materials use in design and product manufacturing. While much has been written about sustainable design over the last two decades, outlining systems of sustainability and product criteria, to design for material circularity requires a detailed understanding of the physical matter that constitutes products. Designers must not just know of materials but know how to manipulate them and work with them creatively. This book responds to the gap by offering a way to acquire the material knowledge necessary to design physical objects for sustainability. It reinforces the key role and responsibility of designers and encourages designers to take back control over the ideation and manufacturing process. Finally, it discusses the educational practice involved and the potential implications for design education following implementation, addressing didactics, facilities and expertise.

This guide is a must-read for designers, educators and researchers engaged in sustainable product design and materials.

Leather made from cow stomach. When is a material culturally acceptable?

Courtesy: Copenhagen School of Design and Technology.

1 Sustainability and making

These days it is difficult to avoid being confronted with the negative environmental effects of our civilisation. Every day we are presented with gloomy reports in the media on all aspects ranging from global warming, micro-plastics and pollution to non-renewable resources running out. The changes that human life is causing to the planet are by now so comprehensive that scientists have named the geologic time in which we live the Anthropocene. It is debatable when this era began because it most likely started at different times in different places. Still, the global environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, which was caused by a combination of industrialisation and the acceleration of population growth, is generally considered a ‘clear step change in the human signal’ (Zalasiewicz, Crutzen & Steffen, 2012). Despite the fact that it can be difficult to see the direct effect of one(s) own life, we are all partners in crime when it comes to watching the effects of human civilisation and in particular the activity of making. As designers of the physical material world we are a central element in this story and consequently we need to decide what part we are going to play, while being fully aware of the consequences our decisions and actions might have.

An examination of current research on sustainable design reveals that there are a wealth of methods and guidelines. They vary in form and content, but usually they outline the criteria required for the final design to be sustainable (Ahmad, Wong, Tseng & Wong, 2018; De los Rios & Charnley, 2017; Dyllick & Rost, 2017; Vezzoli & Manzini, 2008). It is important to stress that the objective of this book project is neither to redefine sustainability nor to provide a singular ‘true’ definition or method, because sustainable development is always related to context. The objective is to address central aspects in the predominant design process that act as barriers to sustainability and subsequently to describe a way of designing that can enable the designer to acquire the type of material knowledge needed for practising sustainable design.

In this chapter I will address the definition of sustainability and the role of the designer within this definition and describe the knowledge required to work with sustainability.

1.1 Defining sustainability

‘Sustainability’ is a term that is used incessantly in multiple senses and in many different contexts, which makes it difficult to use without further explanation. Perhaps the diversity in meaning has to do with the word itself, because its etymology does not disclose what it is we have to ‘sustain’. Is it human life, the ecosystem, the economy or all three? And furthermore, how should this be done? There appears to be little consensus on these matters and consequently there is a wide disparity in the term’s definition. Already in 2007 it was estimated that there were more than 300 variations (Santillo, 2007). This ambiguity makes it necessary to dedicate some time to outlining how sustainability and sustainable design are understood within the context of this book in order to clarify the conceptual foundation.

Perhaps the most well-known definition is still the one offered by the Brundtland report, which states that sustainability is ‘a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland et al., 1987). The report was mainly focused on environmental aspects, but it is seen as the initial step towards defining sustainable development as a so-called triple bottom line, which apart from ecology also includes social aspects and the economy (Elkington, 1998). These aspects are more popularly known as People, Planet and Profit or the 3Ps. This framework provides a holistic view of sustainability and it has become widely accepted that sustainability comprises these three dimensions (Ahmad et al., 2018; De los Rios & Charnley, 2017; Dyllick & Rost, 2017; Sherwin, 2004; Stock & Seliger, 2016). In its foundation this approach is balanced because it recognises humans as part of ecological systems.

When considering the weaknesses of this framework, it is perhaps worth noting that the etymology of ‘economics’ and ‘ecology’ belong to the same field and share the same root: both fields deal, roughly speaking, with available resources, production, transformation, exchange, consumption and value (Findeli, 2008). Perhaps for this reason, it is not always entirely clear to what degree the beneficiary is indeed the environment. The 3Ps alone do not define to what extent or how the ecological and social aspects should be considered. These products or businesses might in some cases be ‘better’ categorised as ‘well-intentioned eco-responses’ (Reay, McCool & Withell, 2011), but frequently they should not be defined as truly sustainable (Dyllick & Muff, 2016; Reay et al., 2011; Santillo, 2007).

1.2 The shifting baseline syndrome

It would appear that humans have a tendency to accept the present situation as status quo. The people inhabiting Earth at the moment have no direct experience of what life was like before their time and, thus, cannot truly grasp the changes that have occurred, for better or for worse. A study of the way children in Houston experienced pollution concluded that ‘with each generation, the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation takes that amount as the norm’ (Kahn Jr & Friedman, 1995). Furthermore, it would seem that we also have a tendency to forget or at least grow accustomed to alterations very rapidly, e.g. accept that the fish we buy are getting smaller and smaller or that the water in the lake is no longer potable. This is called the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ (Pauly, 1995). Another example of this is the population levels of insects. Research shows that in some regions there are up to 80% fewer insects than 20 years ago (Hallmann et al., 2017) and though a few adults might have noticed a difference, for children born today the present number of insects has been normalised. Unfortunately, the same acceptance of what is normal appears to be related to lifestyle. In economically wealthy societies like Denmark we have to talk to the oldest citizens to find people who have experienced a life that was not based on abundance and a growth in material wealth.

In the light of the present environmental situation, there can be little doubt that the current status is untenable. Over a longer time perspective, it might only represent a very short period, but for the people living now, it is a lifestyle we take for granted. It is the norm. This represents a big challenge to sustainability. Because even though consumers might buy more sustainable products with a slightly lighter environmental impact, as long as success for a society is based upon growth in material goods and the world’s population continues to increase, the total amount of natural resources consumed will keep growing together with an increase in negative environmental impacts (Vezzoli & Manzini, 2008).

1.3 Circular economy: a system for environmental sustainability

The concrete challenges of sustainable development are at least as heterogeneous and complex as the diversity of human societies and natural ecosystems around the world (Robert, Parris & Leiserowitz, 2005). Consequently, sustainable development forces designers and other stakeholders to explore and work within complex systems and demands (Van Roon & Knight, 2003). This means that no single element of the problem can be solved in isolation: social improvements affect the environment and vice versa. An example of this is the high birth rates that follow poverty. Eliminating poverty would be a very important step against overpopulation and the environmental pressure that follows with it. Likewise ensuring that women receive an education would be another way to control birth rates, because women with higher education have fewer children (Schultz, 1994). Equally, the state of the environment also affects social aspects. Environmental degradation such as severe decline in biodiversity, climate change and imbalances in soil composition typically affect poor people more than others, because their livelihood depends on these aspects. Thus, the quality of the environment would benefit from poverty reduction (Heger, Zens & Bangalor, 2018). This is also why viewing human activities as separate from nature will ultimately be unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it is critical that decision-making is made within an ecological context and to do this we require a more defined system of sustainability.

In 2015 the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were adopted by all the United Nations’ state members (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). The separate goals are built on a holistic understanding of sustainability. However, like the 3Ps, they may permit stakeholders to take limited action within one of the goals and yet still classify the resulting products or businesses as sustainable. Naturally, it is preferable to make any change for the better, but it is insufficient when considering that we are in a situation where the side effects of our activities and the manufacturing of the human-made world have already caused a destabilisation in the Earth’s ecosystem within several interconnected parameters, such as biodiversity loss, climate change and severe distortion of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). Therefore, regardless of whether the product we have designed will improve access to clean drinking water (SDG 6), will promote sustainable economic growth and employment (SDG 8) or promote gender equality (SDG 5), we must in all cases relate to the environmental impact of the design.

Circular economy is a regenerative system that provides an alternative to the extractive industrial model of take, make and dispose that has been predominant for centuries. In a circular economy resource input and waste, emissions and energy leakage are minimised by slowing, closing and narrowing material and energy loops. It is based upon the ideas of ‘Industrial Ecology’ (Ayres & Kneese, 1969), ‘Performance Economy’ (Stahel, 2010; Stahel, 1997), the principles of material flow and recycling of resources divided into a technical and a biological sphere presented in the book Cradle to Cradle (McDonough & Braungart, 2002) and the concept of regeneration of natural systems outlined in the book Biomimicry (Baumeister, Tocke, Dwyer, Ritter & Benyus, 2014; Kennedy, Fecheyr-Lippens, Hsiung, Niewiarowski & Kolodziej, 2015). Circular economy is regenerative by design – both at the product level and on the systemic level. Hence, design must intervene on all levels from new business models to ways of designing out waste and pollution from a product’s lifecycle. It has a global perspective, addressing problems on a planetary scale that calls for a change of practice and the forms of collaboration between numerous stakeholders (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015) (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Circular economy.

Based on the principles from Cradle to cradle (McDonough & Braungart, 2002) this diagram shows a more developed system of circular economy, illustrating the continuous flow of technical and biological materials through the ‘value circle’. The first step being to preserve and enhance natural capital by controlling finite stocks and balancing renewable resource flows. The second is to optimise resource yields by circulating products, components and materials in use at the highest utility, at all times, in both technical and biological cycles. The third is to foster system effectiveness by revealing and designing out negative externalities.

Courtesy: Ellen MacArthur Foundation (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015).

To this day circular economy is one of the most complete systems for environmentally sustainable development that has been proposed, and perhaps therefore also the one that many governments and organisations are adopting (European Union, 2018; Giutini & Gaudette, 2003; Su, Heshmati, Geng & Yu, 2013). Still, circular economy in its present state should not be considered the final strategy for sustainability. The transition towards sustainability has to be an adaption-through-learning process and not least on a political level is it important to adapt and transform according to the feedback given by the environment (Vezzoli & Manzini, 2008).

Despite a general approval of circular economy in Europe, it is still far from being an integrated part of our daily practice. It is not necessary to look to research to document this, simply by taking a look around our shops, offices or most people’s homes, it is plain that very few objects are being designed for circularity. Even within science the principles of material circularity are relatively new (Reay et al., 2011). This is also reflected in the rather small amount of published research on circular economy, in comparison to research about sustainability in general for example (Geissdoerfer, Savaget, Bocken & Hultink, 2017). Furthermore, some researchers point out that the main beneficiaries in a circular economy appear to be the economic actors that imp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Introduction
• 1 Sustainability and making
• 2 Materials in design education
• 3 The material dialogue in craft
• 4 Reintroducing materials into a contemporary design process
• 5 Implications for design education
• 6 Sustainable design: Knowing how
• Index