Design for Sustainability A Sourcebook of Integrated Ecological Solutions

This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate.

With radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces systems design thinking that cuts across academic and professional boundaries and the divide between social and physical sciences to move towards a transdiciplinary approach to environmental and social problem-solving. This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Design for Sustainability presents examples of integrated systems design based on ecological principles and concepts and drawn from the foremost designers in the fields of industrial design, materials, housing design, urban planning and transport, landscape and permaculture, and energy and resource management.

Part I: Designing Eco-solutions * Education for Eco-innovation * The Centrality of Design * Green Philosophy * Responsible Design * Part II: The Concepts of Growth and Waste * Limits to Growth and Design of Settlements * Redefining Progress * Designing Waste * Designing for Durability * Part III: Industrial, Urban and Construction Ecology * Industrial Ecology * Urban Ecology * Construction Ecology * Pollution Prevention by Design * Part IV: Design within Complex Social Systems * Complexity and the Urban Environment * Unified Human Community Ecology * The Bionic Method in Industrial Design * Green Theory in the Construction Fields * Part V: Permaculture and Landscape Design * Permaculture and Design Education * The Sustainable Landscape * Place, Community Values and Planning * Playgardens and Community Development * Part VI: Values Embodied in and Reinforced by Design * Urban Forms and the Dominant Paradigm * Models of Ecological Housing * Marketing-led Design * Gender and Product Semantics * Part VII: Design for Community Building and Health * ESD and 'Sense of Community' * Sustainability and Aboriginal Housing * Indoor Air Quality in Housing * Beyond the Chemical Barrier * Part VIII: Productivity, Land and Transport Efficiency * Greening the Workplace * Sustainable Personal Urban Transport * From Sub-urbanism to Eco-cities * Density, Environment and the City * Part IX: Design with Less Energy Materials and Waste * Living Technologies * Housing Wastewater Solutions * Autonomous Servicing * Timber Waste Minimisation by Design. Part X: Low-impact Housing Design and Materials * Earth Building * Strawbale Construction * Bamboo as a Building Resource * Hemp Architecture * Part XI: Construction and Environmental Regulation * Legislative Environmental Controls * Economic Instruments * Building Codes and Sustainability * Assessing Building Materials * Part XII: Planning and Project Assessment * Planning for Ecological Sustainability * Bioregional Planning * Environmental Management Tools * Limits of Environmental Impact Assessment * Glossary * Bibliography * Index

Janis Birkeland was an artist and architect before becoming an urban designer and city planner with the City of San Francisco. She later became an attorney, with a focus on environmental law and planning. Dr Birkeland is presently consulting in the area of urban and regional planning, and teaches in the Division of Science and Design at the University of Canberra.