public(MIND)

I got an email from Ann today - she just finished her new book about Sustainability in Design.

The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability (Island Press 2007). It is a full-color
illustrated book that presents an accessible conceptual overview of the
three main landscapes for sustainability‹ecology, economy and culture‹and
how designers can navigate them. The audience for the book includes
industrial designers, architects, graphic designers and the like. You can
see sample spreads from the book at www.designers-atlas.net.

The book is provocative in both scope and tone and it acknowledges the
saint-sinner dilemma inherent in sustainable design practice. It also:
- challenges designers to look outside the marketplace to pursue sustainable
design
- examines design’s role in consumer-image culture
- suggests that materials are actually invisible to designers, and
- points out the synergies and tensions inherent among various approaches to
sustainable design.

The book is highly visual with photographs, graphs and charts, and it
includes definitions right in the text. Chapters call out relevance to
design in a set of traveler’s notes, and the book summarizes key concepts
in a collection of visual summary maps that serve as quick reference. The
book also has a free, open source teaching guide (available at
www.designers-atlas.net) which contains a series of briefs and exercises
that aim to get designers thinking in more social terms.