MCAD SD faculty member, Krista Leraas, arranged for MCAD’s sustainable design program to sponsor ecological economist, Dr. Nate Hagens, as a guest speaker held at the MCAD Auditorium on July 10, 2014. Nate is a well-known speaker on the big picture issues facing human society. Until recently he was lead editor of The Oil Drum, one →
We are pleased to announce that sustainability strategist and Life Cycle Analysis guru, Leyla Acaroglu, who hails from Melbourne, Australia, will be co-teaching Collaborative Product Design at MCAD this fall along with Jeremy Faludi. Leyla has a stellar history as a sustainability leader and has been involved in numerous creative and bleeding-edge sustainability projects through →
Net zero. Carbon neutral. Zero impact. Sustainable. These buzzwords and concepts have come to represent the highest levels of innovation within our built and designed environments. Or have they? It turns out that they have not, that a new wave of development is pioneering beyond them into the restorative, net positive space. Restorative development leapfrogs →
A master’s program in sustainable design? Taught completely online? Led by a biologist? Requiring a course in leadership? What are they thinking? For those comfortable with traditional design programs, these sorts of questions must come to mind when looking at MCAD’s one-of-a-kind MA in Sustainable Design program. When the director of MCAD’s MA in Sustainable →
As consumers, when it comes to sustainability, we are surrounded by bad news: Global warming, water scarcity, air pollution, loss of biodiversity, human rights abuses, carbon emissions, poor working condition… The list goes on and on. Fortunately, technology increasingly allows us to track and trace the back-stories of everyday products related to these sustainability topics →
Did you know we have a fabulous MA in SD instructor who lives in Brussels (but hails from Iowa) who is a former Fulbright scholar and renowned background story teller of sustainable products and companies? We do. Her name is Arlene Birt and you need to know more about her and her inspiring work. Check →
A big congratulations to our 2013-14 graduates. We couldn’t be more proud of you and your work. Elke Erschfeld’s thesis was titled, “The Life of Life Events: Using leverage points, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), and infographics to influence sustainable consumer behavior.” Sarah Dehlinger-Stanke’s thesis was titled, “Connecting to Nature in Interior Dementia Care Environments.” Mirna →
Designs can be patterned after nature and Bucky Fuller embraced this idea. “To [Buckminster] Fuller, a great technology had already been at work for millions of years — Nature. To look at the way “she” designs the universe was to unlock the most useful direction one could take in designing the artifacts that would make →
During the 2012–13 Biomimicry Student Design Challenge (BSDC) competition, I discovered that solving humanity’s biggest design challenges requires new skills applied within a comprehensive framework that integrates sustainability. I gained a deeper understanding of the Buckminster Fuller Institute‘s tenet of what Fuller described as “comprehensive anticipatory design scientists.” (Fuller, 1999) Learning from nature Biomimicry, the →
Practicing sustainability-focused design, like any art form, is a skill that requires craft and sensitivity. As designers, we are tasked to skillfully create consumable goods, services and systems that inevitably make an impact on many levels, many of which are not well understood or even measurable. By learning and then practicing various approaches, I have →