Sustainable+Design





My Essay:

Sustainable Design: As we know, Design involves art, and functionality, but also there is another term that is closely related to this concept, Design must be sustainable, but what does it mean? Just consider Ecological, Economic and Social impact of a design and you probably will get a sustainable design. This concept is relatively new because the basics were already there, but we are living in an era of strong changes in which solutions must match the three key points already mentioned. Professions such as Civil engineering, Architecture, Landscape architecture, urban design and Planning would be promoters of sustainable design. In our case, Urban Planning is directly involved with land management which has a deeper impact in ecological terms. But there must be integration from all scales (from the single person and its routine, to the professional in charge of management in a territory) to get an improvement in the relationship between human and environment. New environmentalist tendencies guide some of the professions in the design industry. There are for example some principles for Green Building in Architecture, as well in Urban Planning with what is called New Urbanism, and some other initiatives to achieve harmony with our context, our planet. But there are some other policies with particular interests that make things harder for sustainability to arise. At the end, solutions in current times are limited to economics senses, and it is one of the biggest mistakes of humanity. We should remember that the capability of natural and cultural systems being continued over time, is the key.

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Examples: =Sustainable design for a carbon neutral urban park= Po Kong Village is the site of Hong Kong’s first carbon neutral urban park, which covers 94,600 sq m. It will include sports pitches, a covered spectator stand with 1,000 seats, cycling areas, play areas, jogging trail, gardens, a covered performance area and car parking.

=Sustainable Home by the Institut for Sustainable Design=

**Wolcott, other WSU faculty and students created the zero-energy Solar Decathlon home in 2005. It is one of the projects that led to the new Institute for Sustainable Design.**