About the Book
The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design considers the design, not only of artifacts, but of structures, systems, and interactions in the context of sustaining our shared planet. This revised edition introduces new and updated chapters, as well as a new section on pedagogy for sustainable design. With authors from around the world, design is positioned in context with recent crises such as global pandemics, racial reckoning, political unrest, and natural disasters. Just as design is an interdisciplinary field, the climate crisis is deeply tangled in racial justice, gender justice, global health, economics, trade, and more. Divided into six sections, it presents a holistic approach to understanding the many facets of sustainable design:
Part 1: Systems and Design
Part 2: Complexities of Sustainable Design
Part 3: Community Engaged Design for Local and Global Diversity
Part 4: Design for Sustainable Behaviors
Part 5: Design Futures
Part 6: Pedagogy in Design for Sustainability
Arguing that design needs to restore, regenerate, and rejuvenate our planet and people, this handbook will be invaluable to researchers, students, and practitioners across all subdisciplines of design, architecture, business, energy management, visual arts, and environmental studies, among others.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Sustainable Design is Not Sustainable Part 1: Systems and Design 2. The Political Economy of Design in a Hotter Time 3. Design for Sustainability: Reflections on a Dynamically Evolving Field 4. Systems Thinking for Design 5. Sustainable Design for Scale 6. Ecological Theory in Design: Participant Designers in an Age of Entanglement 7. Systems and Service Design and the Circular Economy 8. Surrendering to the Ocean: Practices of Mindfulness and Presence in Designing Part 2: Complexities of Sustainable Design 9. Gullible Consumers: The Contradictions of Sustainability 10. Fashion, the City, and the Spectacle: Expanding the Role of the Designer 11. Biomimicry: Nature Inspiring Design 12. Plastics in Transition: Searching for More Sustainable Plastics 13. Critical Jugaad: Sustainable Design Practices from the Global South 14. Data Clouds and the Environment 15.Life Cycle Thinking and Sustainable Design for Emerging Consumer Electronic Product Systems Part 3: Community-Engaged Design, Local and Global 16. Empathy, Values, and Situated Action: Sustaining People and Planet Through Human Centered Design 17. Global Perspectives for Sustainable Design 18. Design for Localization 19. Intercultural Collaborations in Sustainable Design Education 20. Confronting the Six Paradoxes of Humanitarian Design 21. Co-Designing for Development 22. Empowering Community Members Through Design 23. Practicing Empathy to Connect People and the Environment Part 4: Design for Sustainable Behaviors 24. An Introduction to Design for Sustainable Behaviour 25. How Design Influences Habits 26. The Temporal Fallacy: Design and Emotional Obsolescence 27. Discourse Design: The Art of Rhetoric and Science of Persuasion 28. Using Data Visualization to Shift Behaviors 29. Nature Based Design for Health and Well-Being Promoting Cities 30. Securing Sustainability: Culture and Emotions as Barriers to Environmental Change Part 5: Design Futures 31. The Structure of Structural Change: Making a Habit of Being Alienated as a Designer 32. Transition Design: Wicked Problem Resolution as a Strategy For Catalyzing Positive, Systems-Level Change 33. Letting Go in Sustainability Transitions: Designing Spaces for the Unavoidable Companion of Change 34. Shapes of Satisfaction: Rethinking Design and Designing for an Ecological Economy 35. Designing Speculations for Sustainable Futures 36. ReFuturing: New prompts for new ecological visions 37. A Systemic Approach and Typology for Identifying Natural Nonhuman Stakeholders When Designing for Sustainability 38. Investigative Mingas: An Approach to Designing Sustainable, Pluriversal Futures 39. Interspecies Design for Co-existence Part 6: Pedagogy in Design for Sustainability (DfS) 40. Teaching Design for Sustainability from Product Design to Design for Sustainability Transitions: A New Programme at Brunel University London 41. Building Competence in Design Strategies that Contribute to a Circular Economy: Strategies for Education 42. Mindsets of Possibility 43. Design Ecologies Exercise: The Innovation Landscape Matrix 44. BCI Sessions: Be, Contemplate, Imagine 45. Contextualizing Your Design Practice: Two Exercises for Design Students 46. Pedagogy of Hope for Sustainable Design 47. Sustainable Design Manifestos: Reflections, Reviews, and Calls to Actions
About the Author :
Rachel Beth Egenhoefer is a design educator, sustainability and systems researcher, strategy consultant, and critical maker who uses design as a tool for social change. Her work focuses on shifting the narrative from sustainable design to regenerative, intersectional, systems change for the masses. She encourages regenerative actions to restore, rejuvenate, and reenergize ourselves, our communities, and our planet. Egenhoefer is a full professor in design at the University of San Francisco. She works to bridge academic speak, the design industry, and climate science to create lasting change for the everyday.
Review :
"This updated edition of the Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design will invigorate and amplify the capacity for design to situate itself in non-traditional scenarios and respond in unexpected ways. The breadth of the chapters encourages the crossing of disciplinary and cultural boundaries and expands the concepts of interconnectedness and relationships. It is a valuable and timely addition to the ongoing debates and discussions, but also, and, as importantly, a call for ongoing resilience and further action."
Nan O’Sullivan, Tumuaki – Head of School, Te Kura Hoahoa – School of Design Innovation, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa – New Zealand
"This second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design continues to build upon Egenhoefer's inspiring first edition. What makes this and the first handbook unique is its more holistic view of sustainable design that integrates systems thinking, behavioral psychology, economics, and more. This is an important book not only for the design practitioner but also for the educator hoping to help educate the next generation of climate designers."
Eric Benson, Associate Professor and Chair of Design for Responsible Innovation at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, co-author of Design to Re-Nourish: Sustainable Graphic Design in Practice, host of Climify podcast
"Sustainable design is critical for our future; it should be required curriculum in all design schools. This book collects and synthesizes the thoughts of many leading sustainable design academics and practitioners, to explain a wide variety of concepts and their applications to several industries at different scales, from products to systems to communities."
Jeremy Faludi, Assistant Professor, TU Delft Sustainable Design Engineering, and Principal, Faludi Design
"This second edition provides us all – researchers, students, educators and innovators – with a full and rich landscape of ideas to consider. Most exciting is the confident and coherent inclusion of a broader vista which now enables us to understand more about how individual human emotions, group behaviors and community needs are key to systemic change. Empathy, mindfulness, mourning, releasing, satisfying, respecting, recognising; design is finally maturing into practice options that can connect and intersect with the potential to become much greater than the sum of their parts."
Rebecca Earley, Professor of Circular Design Futures at University of the Arts London, co-founder of World Circular Textiles Day, co-editor of Design Materials and Making for Social Change: From Materials We Explore to Materials We Wear
"The second edition of this handbook is a timely addition to the sustainable design discourse. With new and updated chapters, this comprehensive resource provides a critical guide to design's roles in addressing today's sustainability challenges, particularly the climate crisis. It's highly recommended for design practitioners, educators, and students who aspire to shape a just and safe future."
Raz Godelnik, Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design, and author of Rethinking Corporate Sustainability in the Era of Climate Crisis: A Strategic Design Approach
Praise for the first edition
"This is essential reading for those beginning to explore sustainable design. Rachel Beth Egenhoefer has taken a unique approach to illustrating both the breadth and depth of the field. The structure around five themes provides very different perspectives and enables the reader to understand how the approach of design and sustainability together can begin to make real change in the world."
Tracy Bhamra, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Sustainable Design, Loughborough University, UK
"We are only beginning to explore how design can create the conditions for net positive change throughout society. This handbook shows how design thinking is breaking out of its past boundaries to have a positive influence on all aspects of theory, practice and being."
Janis Birkeland, Professor, University of Melbourne, author of Design for Sustainability and Positive Development
"Sustainability does not have meaning independent from what needs to be sustained, and this need is an object of environmental, economic, political, and philosophical contestation. It follows that the concept, and its associated practices begs vigorous debate. This book makes a contribution to the substance of such a debate."
Tony Fry, The Studio at the Edge of the World and University of Tasmania
"The comprehensive and anticipatory nature of this book is profoundly informative and operationally useful in ways that previous books have not been. It is by being so comprehensive on the front end that we designers can mitigate the Law of Unintended Consequences that has so often plagued the practice of design. While this book is aimed at designers, it would also be useful for political leaders, policy makers and theoretical thinkers in any field. As a society, we are woefully silo-ed by profession, nationality and paradigm. This condition does not accrue to our collective benefit. Any approach that seeks to dismantle this myopic state of affairs will persevere. This book seeks to do just that."
Peter Dean, Co-Founder and Former Concentration Coordinator, Nature Culture Sustainability Studies Concentration, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
"The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design pushes design beyond artifacts, common definitions and methodologies. Instead, it advances the discourse to a more impactful, holistic and systemic level, incorporating a much-needed variety of voices, perspectives, and ideas that challenge the designer’s ever-changing role and responsibility in a complex, interconnected and uncertain world."
Mike Weikert, Director, Center for Social Design + Master of Arts in Social Design, Maryland Institute College of Art
"This compelling collection is an outstanding resource for people who see design as a tool that can be used to create a better civilization, whether they be practitioners, students, researchers, or enthusiasts. Egenhoefer reminds us of our responsibility to use our professional skills and opportunities to not just do good design, but to do good!"
David Berman, RGD, FGDC, Sustainability Chair, Icograda/ico-D, and author of Do Good Design
