Green Design: Creative Sustainable Designs for the Twenty-First Century

by Marcus Fairs

In this timely book, author Marcus Fairs helps readers understand the shift of green design from marginal to mainstream by featuring products and buildings that address immediate concerns about global warming and environmental degradation. Through vast architectural projects to modest one-off pieces of salvaged furniture, the book shows how the design world is responding to the environmental challenges of this century. Author Fairs demonstrates key developments in sustainable design as seen in lighting, houseware, furniture, textiles, products, interiors, architecture, and transportation, including the innovative use of fuel-cell technologies and ultra-lightweight materials.

The book shows how the introduction of eco-friendly materials is changing the products around us and charts the rise of low-energy lighting sources and their impact on lighting design. Emerging trends in green design are also covered, from recycling (reusing existing objects to create new products) to ethical sourcing (ensuring products come from sustainable sources). By presenting existing green innovations as well as visionary projects, Green Design paints a bright future in which technology and ethics merge for the benefit of people and the planet.

Genres: Architecture

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kat Engh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living green is hard. It's expensive. It's sometimes inconvenient. And on top of that, the excuses are myriad. "I'd unplug all of my plugs at the end of the night to conserve energy, but some of my outlets are stuck behind heavy furniture, and at the end of the day, I am too tired to worry about it. I'd buy locally made clothing to help the environment, but I don't like or can't afford what's available. Being a frequent consumer of things helps the economy!" Sound familiar? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't guilty of any of these things at some point in time. Being green takes effort and money, and most of us don't have the time and the resources to make it happen fully all the time.

Books like Green Design help to through excuses like these, showing readers how designers all over the world are coming up with fun, fashionable, and in some cases, even highly affordable solutions to the challenges of trying to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. I highly recommend this book to architects, designers, and lovers of all things chic for inspiration and ideas on how we can improve the way we live.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring overview of what's happening in the world of green design (despite the incredibly ugly house on the front). Some of the projects that caught my eye: Paperskin (Plakbanterie) by Johan Bruninx in which he uses brown paper tape in tasteful patterns to cover cosmetic blemishes in old funiture and make it new again; Pano chair from Studio Lo which is a chair cut from a single piece of plywood with virtually no scrap; Grao by Pedrita which uses leftover tiles to create amazing computer generated mosaics; and the list goes on. Intriguing read.

[Deniz Altuntas · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's great that the writer gave insights about the materials, manufacturing processes, or any aspect of the featured designs to be considered as "green". It makes this book more than a collection of design ideas.