Thursday, December 4, 2003

It's all about design #251 (but who's counting?) MBDC: Cradle to Cradle Design. MBDC is articulating and putting into practice a new design paradigm; what Time calls 'a unified philosophy that -- in demonstrable and practical ways -- is changing the design of the world.' Instead of designing cradle-to-grave products, dumped in landfills at the end of their 'life,' MBDC transforms industry by creating products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops. Maintaining materials in closed loops maximizes material value without damaging ecosystems. [xBlog: The visual thinking weblog | XPLANE] More and more people (including us) are playing in this conceptual sandbox -- because it just makes so much sense.  (As I wrote in 1991: "Nature's ecosystems have nearly four billion years experience developing efficient, adaptive, resilient, sustainable systems -- to identify and guide strategy, assessment, design and information services that build profit, competitive advantage and quality of life through exceptional environmental performance. Why reinvent the wheel, when the R & D -- for companies, communities, buildings and land use -- has already been done?") McDonough-Braungart does it with particularly great style. 2:55:16 PM    comment []  trackback []

Mother of invention Disappearing ink to boost paper recycling [New Scientist]: Toshiba's erasable ink can be used in ordinary laser jet printers and pens. A printed sheet is wiped clean by passing it through an erasing machine. The "decolourable" ink, which has been tinted blue to help distinguish it from ordinary, non-erasable, ink, has been named "e-blue". Downside, for the moment: pricey "erasing machine," and 2 hours to erase 200 pages. But both those downsides should be only temporary. 2:39:42 PM    comment []  trackback []