Ecological Design: A New Critique [1997]
Pauline Madge
Abstract
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. In the midto late ’80s, the predominate form of green design represented a light green, technocentric, or shallow ecological approach, but it is possible to identify darker green or deeper ecological design, too. The adoption of the term “ecological” to refer to anything vaguely to do with the environment dates back to the beginning of the environmental movement in the late 1960s and ’70s. Industrial ecology is meant as a conceptual tool emulating models derived from natural ecosystems, aimed at developing fundamentally new approaches to the industrial system reorganization. During the last few decades, design criticism has followed design practice and has been dominated by a nonecological approach, tending to view consumerism as having positive economic and social value.