The Living Principles for Design

While I was checking out the AIGA website I came across The Living Principles for Design created by the AIGA Center for Sustainable Design (CFSD). These principles were created because there was a need for an aspirational and actionable framework for integrated sustainability within the context of design. It provides designers and their clients with a common understanding of the core factors of sustainability and enables them to take action.The AIGA website refers to The Living Principles for Design as the first quadruple bottom-line framework for design since it entails not only environmental protection, social equity, and economic health (a common triple-bottom-line framework) but cultural vitality as well. The inclusion of cultural vitality speaks to all aspects of sustainability and how communities form identity, preserve and cultivate traditions, and develop belief systems and values. In other words, cultural vitality serves as the intersection of all aspects of sustainability, where culture is influenced by a communities’ habits and values. The quadruple-bottom-line framework is addressed through the sub-categories Design’s Opportunity and Designer’s Roadmap. I thought that this quadruple-bottom-line framework for design should be considered for the sustainability design challenge, even though Professor Jones’ deliverables outline the triple-bottom-line framework.

Additionally, The Genealogy of The Living Principles is provided on the AIGA website. These principles are an accumulation of sustainability visions, principles, frameworks and tools, some of which were mentioned by Nathan Shedroff in his lecture outlining the central themes in his book Design is the Problem. I’m going to be keeping some of these tools on the backburner for the project and I thought that they may come in handy for you too! The Living Principles Framework and The Genealogy of The Living Principles can be downloaded here:

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/the-living-principles-for-design