Environmental Design: Introduction to Environmental Design

What is Environmental Design?
Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. Classical prudent design may have always considered environmental factors; however, the environmental movement beginning in the 1940s has made the concept more explicit.

Environmental design can also refer to the applied arts and sciences dealing with creating the human-designed environment. These fields include architecture, geography, urban planning, landscape architecture, and interior design. Environmental design can also encompass interdisciplinary areas such as historical preservation and lighting design. In terms of a larger scope, environmental design has implications for the industrial design of products: innovative automobiles, wind-electricity generators, solar-electric equipment, and other kinds of equipment could serve as examples. Currently, the term has expanded to apply to ecological and sustainability issues.

Landscape architecture

Urban planning

Japanese interior design

Environmental design is often confused with ecodesign, also known as green design, but the two are not the same. Ecodesign is one aspect of environmental design, and addresses sustainability concerns, but environmental design is a much broader discipline that involves taking the surrounding environment into account when planning a design. Successful environmental design is a synergy between a building, landscape, or even a product and its surroundings, to the benefit of both.

Modern environmental design still uses many concepts passed down from the ancients, and new technology and ideas continuously evolve. Various energy crises over the years have led architects and city planners to plan buildings around the relative location of the sun and other natural formations like trees, mountains, and bodies of water in attempts to increase energy efficiency. Windows are oriented to allow maximum sunlight penetration in winter and minimum in summer to cut climate control costs. Large buildings in warm climates are built with stone floors to assist in cooling, and often have louvered windows that allow light to penetrate indirectly, keeping the heat outside.

Environmental design applies to outdoor design as well. Responsible landscape designers will only use plants native to the region to avoid the invasion of foreign species, and desert gardens are likely to be xeriscaped, using cactus in rock and pebble beds to eliminate the need for irrigation. Thorny hedges under windows deter break-ins, and large shade trees outside large windows reduce energy needs. Outdoor lighting can easily contain a small solar panel that will collect enough energy during daylight hours to power it all night long without the use of electricity.

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