Assignment DA427 Design for the Environment

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What I did:

One of my goals was to attend for this assignment in order to grow in this sub-competency area. In my opinion sustainability is an underestimated issue which will become more and more important nowadays, especially for designers. During this assignment we had to dismantle an old CRT monitor in order to come up with at least five environmental improvements concerning the design. Unless the monitor’s design was quite environmental friendly, my group and I came up with several improvements as you can read in our report. Some main improvements were the use of a single plastic recyclable material, clickable connections instead of using screws and using standards in monitor-design to improve upgradeability.

What I learned:

I learned from this assignment that small environmental improvements concerning the design of a single monitor can lead to huge improvements for mass-production and the environment. This is a very important issue which we as designers should not underestimate (because around 80% of the production costs are determined by designers). So when designing, I should not think about the user only; I should also think of the technical lifecycle, economical lifecycle and environmental footprint of the product. I am supposed to think of used (recyclable-) materials, a profitable production and recyclable parts. Even small improvements can have a big environmental effect. In this way the design will load the environment less and satisfy my personal sustainable vision. In the upcoming projects I will take this information in mind in order to design an environmental friendlier product.