Ecological Design: A New Critique Author(s): Pauline Madge Reviewed work(s): Source: Design Issues, Vol. 13, No. 2, A Critical Condition: Design and Its Criticism (Summer, 1997), pp. 44-54 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511730 . Accessed: 07/12/2011 09:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Design Issues. http://www.jstor.org

Ecological Design: A New Critique Pauline Madge Ecological design has come of age. It is now about a decade since the first wave of green design emerged as a significant new factor in product and graphic design. Though it is, by no means, fully devel- oped and accepted, and only just beginning to be implemented in design education, for example, there is a broad consensus that envi- ronmental issues can no longer be ignored by designers and critics. There has been a significant change in recent years, from the days when it was just a matter of getting the environment onto the agenda, and establishing the broad parameters of a green design practice-the inevitable process of reappraisal and differentiation as a movement begins to acquire a history and a polemics. Already, a second or third wave of ecodesign practice and criticism has emerged which is concerned with a more subtle analysis of mean- ing and methodology. As it has developed over the last decade, ecodesign has constantly borrowed ideas and terminology from ecology and envi- ronmentalism, though rarely is this explicitly acknowledged. It seems important, therefore, to evaluate the changing course of ecodesign since the mid-1980s within the framework of the broader development of ecological ideas. One notable feature is a change in terminology: the original term "green design" is rarely used today and, although it was the buzzword the late 1980s, it is already passe. Instead, ecologically or environmentally-sensitive or affirmative design, or more generally ecodesign, has become the most widely accepted term. In the last year or so, this has, in turn, given way to "sustainable design." These terms are fairly interchangeable, and perhaps the importance of such substitution of words should not be exaggerated, but they are one indication of shifting attitudes. The transition from "green" to "eco-" to "sustainable" in the design field represents a steady broadening of scope in theory and practice, and to a certain extent, an increasingly critical perspective on ecology and design. Here, use of terms seems to indicate an attempt to wrestle with the complexities and implications of an ecological approach to design-going beyond the rather simplistic notions of design and the environment in the previous decade. In this essay, which is part history and part analysis of ecode- sign criticism, I use these three terms as keywords to explore differ- ent facets of ecological design, and to contextualize them within particular phases of the environmental movement in the last decade. I have emphasized the more radical theories to emerge within both design and environmental thinking in order to demon- The author would like to thank Gui Bonsiepe, Tony Fry, Philip Goggin and especially, Harry Sutcliffe for their help on the preparation of this article. C Copyright 1997 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 44 Design Issues: Volume 13, Number 2 Summer 1997