ECO-DESIGN – Design Competition for Sustainable Environment

Design is one of the strongest tools that makes ever improving manufacturing infrastructure in our country, produce more added value. Design can open new paths to create new brands, can create new markets by responding to a new demand and consequently can strengthen our production capacity. However, all these developments bring another responsibility to the designer. Every product manufactured can harm the environment directly or indirectly. The product, while responding to a certain need of the user, can at the same time harm the environment because of the resources it consumes, the energy it spends or the waste it produces. Especially products, responding to the price and fashion oriented expectations of manufacturers and users in the short term, may harm the environment in the long term. Eco-Design conceptual project competition invites designers and all who feel related to design to create design concepts sensitive to the environment. The competition is open to all sustainable solutions towards home and office life, public spaces, transportation vehicles or the environment we are living in and the products we are using in general. 

Eco-design is an approach of decreasing the negative effects of the product to the environment and creating a sustainable environment. Design process pursued with such an approach may consist of following strategies:

1. Using materials which effect the environment less: design towards use of non-toxic or recycled materials, reducing consumption of natural resources
2. Design towards re-use: design allowing re-use of products or their parts for another purpose, whose use life expired or which are unused
3. Creating service system: Instead of consumer goods owned personally, creating new sharing service systems for such products
4. Giving opportunities for maintenance: using changeable parts, providing maintenance and increasing life of the products
5. Energy effective product design: design solutions decreasing the use of energy by products