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Concept and method of green design
Green Design is an international design trend that appeared in the late 1980s. Green design reflects people's reflection on the environmental and ecological damage caused by modern technology and culture, and also reflects the return of designers' moral and social responsibility.
In the long history of human design, industrial design has created a modern lifestyle and living environment for human beings, but it has also accelerated the consumption of resources and energy, and has caused great damage to the ecological balance of the earth. In particular, the excessive commercialization of industrial design has made design an important medium for encouraging people's uncontrolled consumption. "Planned commodity abolition" is an extreme manifestation of this phenomenon. No wonder people call "advertising design" and "industrial design" the chief culprit in advocating people's consumption, which has attracted many criticisms and censures. It is under this background that designers have to rethink the responsibilities and roles of industrial designers, and green design has emerged.
It can be seen from history that the American design theorist Victor Papanek has a direct influence on green design. As early as the late 1960s, he published a highly controversial monograph "Design for the real world" (Design for the real world). The book focuses on the most pressing issues of human needs facing designers, emphasizing the social and ethical values of designers. He believes that the biggest role of design is not to create commercial value, nor is it competition in packaging and style, but an element in the process of appropriate social change. He also emphasized that the design should be serious about the use of limited earth resources and serve to protect the earth's environment. For his point of view, not many people could understand. However, since the "energy crisis" broke out in the 1970s, his "Limited Resource Theory" has been generally recognized. Green design has also received more and more people's attention and recognition.
The concept of green design
Green Design is also called Ecological Design, Design for Environment, etc. Although the names are different, the connotations are the same. The basic idea is to incorporate environmental factors and pollution prevention measures into the product design at the design stage, take environmental performance as the design goal and starting point of the product, and strive to make the product environmentally friendly. The impact is minimal. For industrial design, the core of green design is "3R" (ie Reduce, Recycle, Reuse). Not only must the consumption of materials and energy be reduced, and the emission of harmful substances must be reduced, but also products and parts must be easily sorted and recycled and recycled or reused.
The reason why green design is called ecological design is that it must meet specific environmental protection requirements throughout the product life cycle. Product design that is harmless or minimal to human survival, high resource utilization, and lowest energy consumption. It is a design that focuses on the environmental attributes of the product.
The characteristics of green design:
1. Security. Design cannot endanger the personal safety of users and the normal ecological order, which is the premise of "green design". The use of materials should fully consider the safety of people.
2. Energy saving. Future designs should be based on reducing materials or using renewable materials, which is also a principle of "green design".
3. Ecological. "Green design" should strive to avoid environmental pollution and pollution caused by improper design and material selection errors. "Green design" should promote the use of materials that are easily degradable in the natural environment and materials that are easy to recycle.
The above points are the main characteristics of green design and the inevitable requirements of the development of the times for design. In modern product design, if you only focus on the functionality and aesthetics of the product and ignore energy conservation and environmental protection, then it cannot be called an excellent design. Therefore, designers should also incorporate "green awareness" into product design.
Green design method
1. Ecological design. Ecological design is to use the idea of ecology to give priority to the environmental attributes of the product during the product life cycle. In addition to considering the performance, quality and cost of the product, it is also necessary to consider the impact of product upgrading on the environment. The countries that produce the most waste in the world are some industrially developed countries. Designers in these countries have long begun to find solutions to product upgrades. "Modularity" is an important idea in western modern industrial design. The modular product design has the characteristics of low failure rate, and is easy to maintain and facilitate the upgrading of product functions and styles. For example, the convertible color-shell mobile phone launched by "Nokia" avoids the waste of resources and environmental pollution caused by the overall scrapping of the product.
2. Sustainable design. Sustainable design is a broader design method than the former. It involves more aspects, such as how to ensure the function of the product while reducing the burden on the entire planet; how to extend the service life of the product; how to recover and use recyclable materials and so on. In green design thinking, an important principle is reduction, recycling, and redevelopment. Reduction means reducing the use of resources or eliminating harmful substances in products; recycling means recycling waste products and recycling them; redevelopment means increasing the potential use value of products and turning ordinary products into "green products".
For products, "functional redevelopment" is a very important design idea. The data shows: in order to quickly occupy China's network hardware market. "Microsoft" is developing the use of TV sets as Internet tools. Coincidentally, according to reports: IBM has also introduced a plan to recycle EL computers in the near future. It is expected that with the continuous improvement of people's environmental awareness, the awareness of the redevelopment of the original product functions will also be further enhanced, thereby greatly improving the utilization rate of the product and delaying the scrap time of the product. The commercial value of product design is increasingly recognized and valued by many manufacturers. Designers are entrusted with important tasks in the R&D departments of many companies. All this gives designers the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to deal with environmental issues. And expand the scope of the “green design” it advocates from non-mainstream areas to mainstream areas.
