Principles

There are multiple versions of sustainable design principles that apply to different sorts of design frameworks (landscape design, product design, architecture, etc) Though they may all look different at first glance, deeper study will reveal their underlying adherence to the basic idea that sustainable design seeks to mimic the way ecological systems work. The goal of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to compare and recognize correlations across some of the different sustainable design principle sets that various people have developed and also to get a sense of how many different ways these same principles can be applied.

For this assignment, review some of the different versions of the principles for designing with the concept of sustainability in mind that are listed below. Feel free to seek out additional versions as well. Once you start recognizing some of the underlying concepts that are described in the different lists, choose some that most resonate with you and adapt them so that they apply to your daily life or career choice. For each principle in your list, give an example that is relevant to yourself. Your list should contain at least 5 principles.

My Sustainable Design Principles:

  1. Sustainable Design – Catch and store energy :Growing food at home is a great way to catch and store energy from our sun. Solar designs also offers opportunities for architects, engineers and designers to make further use of this abundant energy source.
  2. Sustainable Design – No waste policy : Provide a zero waste by reducing the amount we buy, by buying wisely, by reusing or recycling where possible, by composting, and by working with ethical companies who look at waste throughout the entire life-cycle of their products.
  3.  Mollison 1 – Work with nature rather than against it: allow the changes in nature to naturally happen, don’t force it
  4.  Permaculture Design – Obtain a yield : Living a sustainable lifestyle that sticks to permaculture principles can allow us to obtain all sorts of more intangible yields as well as the obvious tangible ones.
  5. Ecological Design – Using life friendly chemicals : being more conscious of the chemicals used, using water as a solvent.

Permaculture Principles
Mollison 1
Mollison 2
Holmgren
Morrow
Hemenway

Sustainable/ Ecological Design Principles
Systems Thinking
Regenerative Design
Hanover Principles

Natural Step
Biomimicry
Biophilic Design (see section 4: 14 patterns of biophilic design)
Passive House
Living Building
MacArthur Foundation Circular Economy
Cradle to Cradle
Circles of Sustainability
Principles of Appropriate Technology
Permaculture for Teachers