The Greener & Cleaner hub at Bromley Shopping Center in the UK will house a Library of Things where residents can rent anything from electric drills to tents. It will have on-site workshops that will help the public learn how to repair goods and reduce food waste, host recycling points, and have a community refrigerator to distribute excess food.
In his pioneering work The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture, now counted among the classics of design literature, the Austrian-born and naturalized American designer and lecturer argues that his discipline must tackle ecological issues head-on by adopting a socially and ecologically responsible design approach to community products, tools and infrastructures.
The book invokes the advent of a new era of design, which knows how to put nature at the center of its activity, exploring a multitude of possible ways, from the choice of recycled and reusable materials to the elimination of superfluous packaging, up to a refusal of pure aesthetics and an end in itself to give way to ethics.
The new edition of the book in February 2022, signed by Thames & Hudson, follows the first publication, dating back to 1995.
The Green Imperative traces the modern history of design, parallel to the damages that we see the concrete manifestation of every day in the world and offers a wide range of clear advice and examples, as well as expressing a fierce and chilling criticism, showing both defects and the opportunities of this sector.
From this book emerges a new conception of design, an ethical and ecological approach that requires focusing on "quality, permanence and craftsmanship", questioning the "ultimate consequences of introducing a new product" and promoting a deeper understanding of nature as "Therapeutic force for the global environment".
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