Sustainability in design, sustainability through design

by Eduardo Mercer, Katya Ostamatiy and Jinesh Parekh

Solene le Goff and Christophe Gouache built a solar powered radio fully made of reforestation oak, a sturdy material that's fully renewable. 80% of the materials used are natural and most of the rest is recyclable. It's a great example of sustainability in design, though the use of a more renewable wood like bamboo would be more desireable.

Steve Haslip designed a clothing packaging system called HangerPak. It's made of recycled and recyclable paper, but instead of simply discarding it back into recycling, you can actually disassemble and re-assemble it in the form of a clothes hanger. It's a great example of both sustainability in and through design (and earned him a D&AD Student Award in 2007).

Last, but not least, Portland, OR has replaced all their downtown trash cans with new pairs of can, one for regular non-recyclable trash and another with two divisions - the upper part is for paper and the lower part for plastic and aluminum packaging. The recyclable garbage can has a folded newspaper-shaped slit for the paper division, inviting people to discard their reading materials there and the lower part has circular holes to admit cans and bottles through. Also, these cans have no locks, allowing poor citizens who live off foraging recyclables to access the paper and/or container divisions. This shaping and being shaped by sustainable behaviors are great examples of sustainability through design.