Susteinable+Desing

media type="custom" key="5772211"

Sustainable Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan for the construction of an object, while “to design” (verb) refers to making this plan. No generally-accepted definition of “design” exists, and the term has different connotations in different fields. However, one can also design by directly constructing an object (definition from Wikipedia).

Designing is the action of creating a physical object for people, it’s very related with the word NEED for us, human beings. Starting a few years back, designing has added a new aspects in its process, such as the environmental fact. Our planet is dying, and us, as architects and urban planners got to include this in our plans in order to help Earth survive in this chaos we ourselves have done to our whole existence.

Sustainable design is the action of designing knowing the economical, environmental, social and cultural facts of the area we’re going to modify while inserting a building. For us, architects in special, it means that we are going to work in order to reduce the environmental impacts using alternative energy sources such as solar power, hot water and wind energy, recycling and reusing construction materials from other buildings and taking natural materials from the area, such as wood, stone, adobe, bamboo or any other material that can resist use and weather. This way, by building green roofs and creating new technology that can help us reduce the ecological impact in the area, we’re helping the world. With green roof we are purifying the air, and with solar panels or any other kind of panels we are obtaining energy instead of using electricity and we are reducing the costs in our monthly bill and getting a better quality of life.

Urban planners in the other hand, create sustainable spaces based in the need of more recreational areas where green is the principal actor, using plants that are usually in that place, incrementing the public transportation and inserting residential areas that you can transit without a car.

Finally, it is really important to say that taking care of our planet is taking care of ourselves, and we as architects and urban planners must help mankind to apply the ecological principles that are available to improve the sustainability of our environment.

media type="file" key="sustainable3.mp3"