Why do we readily dispose of some things, whereas we keep and maintain others for years, despite their obvious wear and tear? Can a greater understanding of aesthetic value lead to a more strategic and sustainable approach to product design? Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage offers guidelines for ways to reduce, rethink, and reform consumption. Its focus on aesthetics adds a new dimension to the creation, as well as the consumption, of sustainable products. The chapters offer innovative ways of working with expressional durability in the design process. Aesthetic Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage is related to emotional durability in the sense that the focus is on the psychological and sensuous bond between subject and object. But the subject–object connection is based on more than emotions: aesthetically sustainable objects continuously add nourishment to human life. This book explores the difference between sentimental value and aesthetic value, and it offers suggestions for operational approaches that can be implemented in the design process to increase aesthetic sustainability. This book also offers a thorough presentation of aesthetics, focusing on the correlation between the philosophical approach to the aesthetic experience and the durable design experience. The book is of interest to students and scholars working in the fields of design, arts, the humanities and social sciences; additionally, it will speak to designers and other professionals with an interest in sustainability and aesthetic value.

Does going green change the face of design or only its content? The first book to outline principles for the aesthetics of sustainable design, The Shape of Green argues that beauty is inherent to sustainability, for how things look and feel is as important as how they’re made. In addition to examining what makes something attractive or emotionally pleasing, Hosey connects these questions with practical design challenges. Can the shape of a car make it more aerodynamic and more attractive at the same time? Could buildings be constructed of porous materials that simultaneously clean the air and soothe the skin? Can cities become verdant, productive landscapes instead of wastelands of concrete? Drawing from a wealth of scientific research, Hosey demonstrates that form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to buildings to cities. Fully embracing the principles of ecology could revolutionize every aspect of design, in substance and in style. Aesthetic attraction isn’t a superficial concern — it’s an environmental imperative. Beauty could save the planet.

This book deals with the aesthetic potentials of sustainable architecture and its practice. In contrast to the mechanistic model, the book attempts to open a new area of scholarship and debate on sustainability in the design and production of architecture. It traces and underscores how the consideration of environment and sustainability is directly connected to aesthetic propositions in architecture.

Environmental Aesthetics is a comprehensive introduction. It includes a history of aesthetics, discussing the psychology of human-environment relations, and artistic influences on the city and analysing the roles of policy and planning.

Forests are an important component in the visual appeal of landscapes. There is an increasing recognition of the importance of this subject among foresters and environmental scientists. Increasingly, forest resource managers must consider the aesthetic consequences of timber harvesting operations and management plans. This book is the first to address this subject area. It consists of 15 chapters and is divided into four parts. It brings together not only foresters and ecologists, but also landscape architects, psychologists and philosophers. It should therefore attract a wide readership. Contributors are leading research workers in their subjects, from Canada, the USA and UK.

Can aesthetics and ethics be integrated for the good of habitats, places, and spaces? How can the arts widen our perception of nature and deepen environmental ethics? Should the political meaning of a landscape be defined solely in terms of its economic and ecological values? Questions like these are explored from the angles of arts, environmental ethics, ecology, religious studies, theology, art history, and philosophy. The book prompts discussion about the aesthetic and spiritual dimension in the environmental humanities, and it offers transdisciplinary insights into the challenge of sustainability and ongoing changes in society and the environment. (Series: Studies in Religion and the Environment / Studien zur Religion und Umwelt - Vol. 7)

Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues.

Situating Sustainability reframes our understanding of sustainability through an emerging international terrain of concepts and case studies. These approaches include material practices, such as extraction and disaster recovery, and extend into the domains of human rights and education. This volume addresses the need in sustainability science to recognize the deep and diverse cultural histories that define environmental politics. It brings together scholars from cultural studies, anthropology, literature, law, behavioral science, urban studies, design, and development to argue that it is no longer possible to talk about sustainability in general without thinking through the contexts of research and action. These contributors are joined by artists whose public-facing work provides a mobile platform to conduct research at the edges of performance, knowledge production, and socio-ecological infrastructures. Situating Sustainability calls for a truly transdisciplinary research that is guided by the humanities and social sciences in collaboration with local actors informed by histories of place. Designed for students, scholars, and interested readers, the volume introduces the conceptual practices that inform the leading edge of engaged research in sustainability.