Design + Sustainability or Design (Sustainability)

Sustainability is still a complex issue even though it is a big trend right now. It is easy to say we want to design a green building. When it comes to actual design, it is hard to deal with the relationship between design and sustainability. From my perspective, sustainability should be included in the whole design process and it shouldn’t be treated separated from design.

Is sustainability something beyond normal design?

When we talk about sustainability, we always consider it as an add-on to the normal design, at least in the school. For example, we design a studio project according to the context, culture, and concept first, and then we research about sustainable strategies and integrate those strategies into the design. Is the result sustainable? I keep in doubt. In my view, sustainability should not be something add-on. We focus more on sustainability due to the climate change, which doesn't mean that it is something beyond normal design and only considered during the last part of design. It should be consistent through the whole design process. 

Is sustainability something new?

Back to the design, the common elements of a design are the context, people and natural factors such as light, wind, water. Do you think those elements are not related to sustainability at all? I don’t think so. Before the appearance of the actual word “sustainability”, people start to use the same strategies to make their everyday sustainable. For example, in the hot humid area, the houses are always more ventilated and sun-shaded. In the cold area, people usually add more insulation to keep warm in the winter. When I was a child, all the windows of my house were wood framing. In the extremely cold winter, my parents used tapes to cover the gaps in the interior, and plastics to insulate the whole openings outside. That proves that sustainability does exist in the human life even though people don’t aware of that. Why we separate sustainability from design?

Why we need the white roof project?

The white roof project is an urban intervention activity first in New York State. The core of the project is to encourage people to paint their roofs white because the white roof can reflect sunlight, reduce smog, keep rain cool and of course saving up to 30% electricity energy. They also organize volunteers to paint white roof for public buildings and even historical neighborhoods. Why we need the white roof project if all the buildings are designed in a green way from the beginning? The white roof does work but it might not look good on all building typologies, especially in the historical neighborhood. Designers should consider sustainability as part of design naturally, then no one needs to paint their roofs white. So, Design (Sustainability) instead of Design + Sustainability.