Ecological design

Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products with special consideration for the environmental impacts of the product during its whole lifecycle. It was defined by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan as 'any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.' Ecological design is an integrative ecologically responsible design discipline. Ecological design or ecodesign is an approach to designing products with special consideration for the environmental impacts of the product during its whole lifecycle. It was defined by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan as 'any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes.' Ecological design is an integrative ecologically responsible design discipline. It helps connect scattered efforts in green architecture, sustainable agriculture, ecological engineering, ecological restoration and other fields. The “eco” prefix was used to ninety sciences including eco-city, eco-management, eco-technique, eco-tecture. It was first used by John Button in 1998. The inchoate developing nature of ecological design was referred to the “adding in “of environmental factor to the design process, but later it was focused on the details of eco-design practice such as product system or individual product or industry as a whole.By including life cycle models through energy and materials flow, ecological design was related to the new interdisciplinary subject of industrial ecology. Industrial ecology meant a conceptual tool emulating models derived from natural ecosystem and a frame work for conceptualizing environmental and technical issues. Living organisms exist in various systems of balanced symbiotic relationships. The ecological movement of the late twentieth-century is based on understanding that disruptions in these relationships has led to serious breakdown of natural ecosystems. In human history, technological means have resulted in growth of human populations through fire, implements and weapons. This dramatic increase in explosive population contributed the introduction of mechanical energies in machine production and there have been improvements in mechanized agriculture, manufactured chemical fertilizers and general health measures. Although the earlier invention inclined energy adjusting the ecological balance, population growth following the industrial revolution led to abnormal ecological change. Ecodesign is a growing responsibility and understanding of our ecological footprint on the planet. Green awareness, overpopulation, industrialization and an increased environmental population have led to the questioning of consumer values. It is imperative to search for new building solutions that are environmentally friendly and lead to a reduction in the consumption of materials and energy.