Sustainability Science

The Leo Burnett agency in Lisbon was commissioned to create a brochure for the EDP Group’s Access to Energy (A2E) campaign, which aims to bring electricity to communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Amazon.
This campaign also sought to show that many developed countries waste electricity, so the creative team challenged themselves by designing a brochure without using any energy.
Paper was made, pressed and dried, and the two colors of the brochure were printed manually on the paper. The last step was perhaps the easiest—folding these brochures by hand.

Even the process was documented without electricity—film cameras were used, and the amount of effort put in can be seen in the video at the link.

A retreat designed by Hanrahan Meyers Architects reinforces the Buddhist mantras of simplicity and nature in upstate New York at this beautiful, simple and green meditation center.

Located in the Hudson River Valley, New York, the 22,000 sf project was under construction when Chung Ohun Lee, of the organization's leaders, attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. She was so inspired by Obama's speech—in which he vowed to cut emissions by 8% over 40 years—that she asked the architects to switch from conventional building systems already ordered to such energy savers as geothermal heating and solar hot water.

While many of the building systems were changed after Lee's trip, the architecture itself needed few adjustments- wood framing (dimensional lumber and glulam beams) was used rather than steel, and interiors used locally harvested oak for flooring with furniture made of FSC-certified, formaldehyde-free apple plywood. LEED certification would have added $50,000 to the cost, so the client instead opted to spend the funds on green features. It helps, Hanrahan says, that "reducing their carbon footprint is part of their philosophy."

But the real lesson is that even the most advanced systems require the client's participation to achieve significant energy savings...

Light pollution refers to the various ways in which artificial light can negatively impact our natural environment. The four most common categories of light pollution are urban glow, glare, light clutter, and light trespass.

The Austrian Pavilion by Chris Precht of penda and Alex Daxböck won first runner-up in an international design competition for the Expo 2015 in Milan. Inspired by the strong presence of organic and locally grown foods in Austria, Precht and Daxböck took a creatively literal and communal approach to the 2015 Expo's universal theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life."

Visitors are the true designers of the pavilion as they plant seeds of fruits, vegetables, or herbs in the gaps of its timber exterior during the summer months of the Expo. Once the crops are fully grown, they'll be harvested and cooked into traditional Austrian dishes in the pavilion's restaurant. In essence, visitors get to eat their design.