Going green

Architectural Review, The, June, 2005 by Pelham Davey

THE ECO-DESIGN HANDBOOK

By Alastair Fuad-Luke. London: Thames & Hudson. 2005. [pounds sterling]16.95

The second edition of The Eco-Design Handbook is a source book containing a broad spectrum of over 570 environmentally favourable products. The book is primarily related to product design, with additional chapters on transport, buildings, energy production and materials. The introduction gives an overview of the environmental design movement, culminating in a well thought out manifesto highlighting considerations for eco-aware designers. The book's three main themes: objects for living, objects for working, and materials are broken down into easy accessible chapters such as furniture, lighting, electronics. Each product has a short description and a small chart listing the designer, the manufacturer, materials used and the environmental benefits of the design. Most have photographs.

For a design to be included in the book it has to have filled one or more environmental criteria, including recyclability, sustainable and reduced material use and low energy consumption. A few items have been added due to their health and safety or ergonomic properties, for instance, Mimid, a land mine detector.

There are some truly innovative environmental concepts. These include the Compostable Keyboard, designed for disassembly using moulded fibrous pulp from carrots, spinach and celery bound with cornstarch for the keys. An 80 per cent reduction in materials compared to conventional design is achieved in the SL-Torch by putting the housing that holds the bulb onto the top of a battery, making the battery into a handle. Shigeru Ban's cardboard furniture is a good example of elevating the aesthetic value of a humble recyclable material into a highly desirable form. Drive On is an ingenuous prototype that generates electricity by traffic passing over pads, just proud of the road surface, and pushing a piston that drives a mini generator.

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A few of the products have environmental qualities post-attributed to them, for instance. Cini Boeri and Tomu Katayanagi's Ghost chair. It is true that being manufactured from a single material increases ease of recycling, though there is little evidence to suggest that recyclability was a design consideration.

The book's easy accessibility and breadth of content will appeal to people working in many areas of design who are looking for either inspiration or eco-friendly specification.