Ecological Design. Innovative Technologies, Materials, and Tools

Abstract

Designing the ecological transition means building a decision-making infrastructure capable of measuring, choosing, prototyping, and standardizing in line with Agenda 2030 and European programs, from the Green Deal to the New European Bauhaus. This volume shows how designers can act as directors of innovation, transforming principles into specifications and data into products, linking materials research, digital processes, and technical choices throughout the entire life cycle of materials. LCA and EPD are used as design lenses to guide the selection of materials; BIM / parametric workflows create continuity between hypothesis, simulation, and manufacturing; bio-based supply chains (with wood as an emblematic case), passive-dynamic PCM systems, and raw earth enhanced by nanotechnology open up low-impact / high-performance scenarios and real reuse. The volume is an invitation to practice radical curiosity, rigorous in its methods and responsible in its outcomes, so that design can be the place where innovation becomes shared knowledge, public decision-making, and quality of the inhabited space.