Sarah Rich – Founder, Longshot Magazine and Co-Founder, The Foodprint Project
I think we’re going to continue to see a lot of innovation in mobile technology and apps that improve our efficiency at home, provide data to make us more informed consumers, and make it possible to further dematerialize our lives without sacrificing much. I also think we’re going to see more and more fruitful design collaborations (and collaborations of all kinds) leveraged through Twitter and other social media.
These things help us at an individual level. What we still need are systems changes, from governments and corporations, that automatically orient individual actions toward sustainability. We need leadership at the highest levels to establish structures within which our everyday choices naturally lead to better outcomes. Otherwise the insane weather and snarled air travel that we’ve all just suffered through will continue and worsen.
So here’s to construction collaboration and real leadership in 2011!
Kira Gould – Director of Communications, William McDonough + Partners, and co-author of Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design
The inspiring author and educator David Orr once reminded me that optimism is part of the recipe for hope in hard times. I believe that 2011 will bring many surprising developments as well as some that are not surprising at all. I anticipate that one unsurprising (and disappointing) reality will have a silver lining: Congress will demonstrate continuing lack of leadership on climate issues, even those with obvious domestic green jobs benefits. That will be a call to action for designers, citizens, businesses, and others, who will find other ways to create green paths toward thriving economies and communities.
I’ve been watching designers pushing the boundaries in green- and putting sustainable ideas front and center to the public for the past decade that I’ve been reporting on environmental issues. Keep going guys!! It’s working
It’s so inspiring to see green design continuing to become more than just a ‘passing’ interest – especially in New York. Great Article and looking forward to helping NY become ‘greener’ in 2011!
Some great predictions! Really enjoyed the contributions – especially the ones from Sarah and Bridgette.
What a great group of voices. I would have to agree with Kira Gould that the thinking professionals in the environmental disciplines will have to take charge rather than counting on a short term thinking political class. If we create undeniably superior designs and systems then the political process will have no choice but to support it.
Inhabitat…always keeping my optimistic for the future of green design.
I completely agree with Bridgette’s prediction that 2011 will be the year of green renovations. We’re already starting to see this with the multiple passive house retrofits taking place in NYC!
Let’s hope that “green design” becomes redundant in 2011!
My own predictions for 2011 were recently posted on my blog, in a summary of the emerging Living Economy. I summarized a few of the game-changing frameworks, and linked to a number of useful documents. Everyone welcome in that discussion:)”The Shift Hits the Fan”, on erikvanlennep(dot) com. Really, this isn’t an egregious self-promotion. Really.