Walker, Stuart. 'Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice'. Rutledge. 1st September 2006.

Page. 34 to 35

'It is important to acknowledge that, in the case of sustainable development, while recognising that we recognise that many of our conventional approaches are unsustainable, we do not know what a sustainable approach might look like.'
'To be a designer is to be on uncertain ground.'
'The imposition of preconceptions on design project is not only very common, it is also rather unimaginative. When it occurs, we are simply drawing on our existing nations of how objects should be - irrespective of the requirements of the object of the context use.'
'This is not the case. It is critically important how things look - because 'how things look' is a reflection of ourselves, of who we are, of the things that we believe are important and the things we choose to ignore.'
'Transient trends, fashion and consumerism.'
'current practices are so damaging to the environment and are socially inequitable.'
For example, industrial design means the design of mass-produced products, often with an intentionally short life span, for the mass markets, whereas sustainable approaches tend to place far greater emphasis on smaller, local-scale initiatives and product endurance.'
'So in term industrial design is not very useful in discussions of sustainable development; the term 'product design', which is used interchangeably with industrial design, has many of the same problems.'

Page. 81

'Local production that employs local materials and produces products for local use allows reductions in transportation and packaging, facilitates recycling, reverse manufacture and cyclic use of materials and parts, local maintenance and repair.'

Page. 191

Focusing on sustainable concerns, the main design criteria were developed as followed:

The design should make minimal, if any, use of new resources, and could cause minimal detriment to the environment.
It should make use of readily available materials and components; these could include materials and component distinctive to a locality, locally available mass-produced components for general usage, and mass-produced elements grin former application.'
'Constituent parts should be modified as little as possible so that any future use is not compromised by their inclusion in this design.'
'It should be capable of being economically made, maintained, repaired, upgraded and 're-dispersed' or decommissioned, at the local level. This reduces the need for shipping and packaging and provides opportunities either for local employment or for users to create the object themselves, thereby offering the possibility for greater 'ownership' of their material environment.'

Context of Practice