Please describe a domain or an area of opportunity that you’d like to use as the focus for the design of a PRODUCT that supports or promotes sustainable behaviors and practices for INDIVIDUALS in day-to-day use.
For this first design project, focus your thinking on:
- a PRODUCT -- something physical that can be manufactured, distributed, purchased, and potentially held in your hand or carried with you.
Please share your initial thoughts in a few paragraphs below…
The domain that I’d like to focus on is….
The domain that I want to focus on is sustainable materials. In other words, we can say everything is made of materials, and people are always exposed to all kinds of materials.
Around 10 years ago, the main way to deal with waste plastic bottles was still burning. As the booming of civil construction, the energy consumption can always be beyond renewable energy production. The following figure shows plastic waste generated during the past 60 years. In 2018, the US generated 14.53 million short tons of plastic waste. The concept behind this design is to capitalize on the plentiful supply of plastic waste to develop a novel construction material. Given that plastic is lightweight, strong, and durable, this approach allows for the establishment of a sustainable, closed-loop system for reutilizing waste materials effectively.
U.S. plastic packaging waste by product | Statista
Colin’s Comment: If you only had up to 5 words to name this domain, what would the name be? I am just trying to think of possible products myself in preparation for a discussion next class. Thanks.
Klay’s answer: Hey Colin! Great question! Since this material is made by wasted plastics, I would call it “Green Construction Plastic” or “GCP”.
Colin’s Comment: Catchy. Quite recently, I have also seen people interested in Lego from recycled materials. The connection between toys and sustainability is very fun & interesting to me. Over the course of Design Project 1, we will ask you to focus on a user (or a model user) who is closely connected to you. I think GCP is a very promising domain for this project.
This area is important/interesting to me because….
This area is important/interesting to me because as a civil engineer, regarding the figure below, the basic unit of a building is material. We can’t live without buildings or shelters. Bad construction materials may cause indoor air pollution or can be a pathogenic factor to people’s health. The point here is to take advantage of other abundant wastes like plastic, glass or proteins and transfer them into durable, lightweight, and low carbon footprint construction materials to improve people’s living quality.
Sustainable materials often have a lower environmental impact during their life cycle. For example, using recycled materials reduces the need for raw material extraction, which in turn reduces energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and resource depletion.
Every coin has two sides, while considering the sustainability of this material, there are also some other aspects we need to balance with traditional construction materials. Some questions may regard to fatigue, fire resistance or economic effects should all be taken into account.
Also, there are some great achievements regarding to this field. Like SF MOMA Museum, which looks very modern and attractive!
