commentEnvironmentally Responsible Design: Green and Sustainable Design for Interior Designers
It seems hard to believe that John Wiley & Sons can put out another definitive textbook regarding sustainable design without cannibalizing itself. But according to Environmentally Responsible Design editor Louise Jones, most printed matter devoted to sustainable design practices is targeted to readers responsible for building construction, not interiors.
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Jones’s anthology suggests that there’s a lot of catching up to do. A goodly part of this tome treads paths tamped down by many feet, such as the rationale for environmental responsibility, the history of the environmentalist movement, and the cradle-to-cradle paradigm. It takes 150 pages or so to find information that is directly applicable to the day-to-day practice of sustainable interior design. When it does appear, it’s pretty useful stuff—tips for maximizing energy efficiency in a lighting plan, for example, or for navigating the many stamps of green approval now vying for attention in the eco-design marketplace. Two case studies also provide tangible lessons from the field. So, if you’re an interior designer truly uninitiated in the ways of sustainable design, then start here. If you know a thing or two about the field—and your logging on to the Greensource website suggests that you do—you may benefit more from continuing to extrapolate rules from the rich array of books geared toward construction.
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