Design and Chemistry

It is estimated that over 90% of production materials do not end up in saleable products and 80% of products are discarded after a single use. This is causing us to rapidly consume the planet’s resources including metals, minerals, clean water and fossil fuels. Sustainable chemistry technologies are being used to reduce the impact of [...]

Reframing the ‘Design Solution’

During Monday’s educational session Greengaged welcomed sustainable design reader Dr Tracy Bhamra, from Loughborough University.
Bhamra began her presentation with an overview of her sustainable design teaching and expressed how she believes that “a sustainable design module needs to be something that everyone has to think about and not considered as a separate niche.”
At Loughborough [...]

A Design Challenge Like No Other

Early on Monday morning, Greengaged’s penultimate day kicked off with an informative discussion about the future of design education. Speakers included Tracy Bhamra (Loughborough University), Ian Capewell (Practical Action), and Emma Dewberry (Open University).
First to speak was Emma Dewberry, Senior Lecturer in Design for Sustainability at the Open University. After a brief introduction to her [...]

Night Tour: Re-thinking the City

Very late on Friday evening Greengaged took to the streets of London, for an exciting night tour entitled ‘Re-thinking the City”. Following an exhilarating appearance earlier last week, in the magical “Imagine 2058” workshop, London United’s interdisciplinary co-founder aladin led the tour and explains how over 100 people had applied!
The four chosen few however, had [...]

Greengaged Update

Well, it really has been an amazing first week here at Greengaged, with a whole host of leading voices taking the opportunity to discuss and challenge the role of design to positively effect our environment. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has attended so far and we look forward to [...]

Should We Believe the Hype?

On Friday evening, the Greengaged week closed with a vibrant debate on Greenwashing. Chaired by Lucy Siegle, The Observer, panelists were John Grant (author of The Green Marketing Manifesto, co-founder of St Luke’s and London United), Chris Sherwin (Forum for the Future), Richard George (Plane Stupid), Ed Gillespie (Futerra), Stewart Rassier (Saatchi & Saatchi S) [...]

Greengaged Visits Powerday

In the second part of the Greengaged event, “Wasted Talent”, the twenty-five piece group of designers, writers and academics arrived at Powerday waste recycling centre on Thursday morning. We were warmly met by Chris and John from Powerday, who after a brief introduction split us into two groups for an informal tour around the facility.
The [...]

Greengaged Exclusive:
Cradle to Cradle Revision!

In November 2008, Professor Michael Braungart will launch a new UK edition of ‘Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things’, the prolific and best-selling manifesto “calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.” Greengaged are excited to announce that the new edition will be published by Random House, and in [...]

The Need to ‘Design Out Waste’

Early thursday morning, on the sunlit banks of The Grand Union Canal, 25 people took residence on the Electric Barge to take a trip to Powerday waste recycling plant. Docked at Little Venice in Paddington, the electrically powered barge is a silently running and environmentally sound answer to canal travel.
After skipper Ian ironically removed the [...]

A World of Rubbish

“Its dirty, its dusty, it smells. Welcome to the world of rubbish!” In the most innovative excursion of the Greengaged week, here we all were on Thursday morning at Powerday waste recycling plant. What an eye opening reality for designers to witness. A full review of the trip coming shortly!
If you were on the trip [...]

Is it Legal to Recycle Design?

As a designer, not only can you use resources that are renewable you can also re-use other people’s material such as packaging or photographs. But, how can you avoid legal pitfalls, how far can you go when re-cycling designs and materials?
Earlier this week, in Greengaged’s answer to the British pub quiz, Sarah Johnson of [...]

Designer As Agent of Change

On Wednesday night at greengaged we welcomed Pio Barone Lumaga from LOFT Bookazine in Stockholm for an inspiring hands on session, exploring design, psychology, innovation and emotion.
Using a quick thought experiment, he encouraged participants to break down our existing thought patterns in order to unlock creative potential and allow for real change. Using examples from [...]

How Far Can We Go Green?

Designer and one of the founding editors of Wallpaper* magazine, turned sustainable educator, Toni Spencer, and former gardener turned management consultant turned environmental charity founder, Tim Macartney, got designers thinking about the risks they faced before going green in an emotional session of greengaged on Wednesday afternoon.
The idea of stepping out of our comfort zones [...]

Green Your Studio!

Sophie Thomas and Nat Hunter of Three Trees Don’t Make a Forest took to the Greengaged stage on Tuesday afternoon, to offer designers their insights, opinions and advice on how to make their studio’s greener. The workshop was engaging, and the advice realistic. Where to start? Make a list, calculate the carbon footprint and expenditure [...]

Best Practice:
Product Design

In the second series of best practice case studies on Product Design, Simon Terry of Anglepoise, Cressida Granger of DeWeNe and Tom Fishburne from Method Products each presented a fifteen minute presentation of their ethical design practices at greengaged on Tuesday 16th September.

Simon Terry of Anglepoise showed various products to illustrate the companies ecologically friendly [...]

Best Practice:
thomas.matthews

On Tuesday September 16th, day two of greengaged kicked off with a series of best practice case studies from leading design practitioners. The first series of events, focused on Communication and Graphic Design, began with a presentation from Sophie Thomas, director/co-founder of thomas.matthews.

Sophie introduced the work of thomas.matthews, explaining that with a touch of humour, [...]