This blog is a conversation of and course assignment and for ME222: Design for Sustainability – a product design and mechanical engineering class at Stanford University. The sylllabus can be found here: Course Syllabus 2009
Signals from the noise
As designers, we study the things we encounter in the world with heightened curiosity. How was it made? Why is it successful? Where does it go? We take things we find interesting, study them closer, perhaps tear them apart and put them back together. This is how we get into unknown territory and find things out. It’s a process of pulling signals from the noise that informs our ever evolving point of view. And because sustainability is such a big, muddy word, we often have to rely on such curiosity to understand what it means to us personally.
Moving the domain of thought forward
Some contributors may know a lot about sustainability from books, experiences, stories. Others may think they know little. In reality we all know quite a bit, but we could learn more, and more quickly from each other. The challenge then is how to process what we know, make it accessible to others, and build on it. To succeed, it is just as important to communicate our point of view to others, including our future selves, as it is to create it in the first place. This blog is a way of sharing thoughts, discoveries, user insights, rants, and points of view about some dimension of sustainability. By doing so, we hope to move the domain of thought forward.
The Instructors
Karin Carter: bio and picture to come
Heather Fleming
CEO, Catapult Design
Heather is a co-founder and CEO of Catapult Design, a product and technology firm that serves developing world markets. Catapult Design’s clients are organizations working in impoverished communities with technology needs – including rural electrification, water purification and transport, food security, and health. Before starting Catapult, she worked more than five years as a product design consultant in Silicon Valley, designing products for a diverse range of clients. In 2005, she also co-founded and led a volunteer group focused on developing world design through Engineers Without Borders. Her team’s work has been featured in a variety of media and publications, including Newsweek, WIRED.com, ABC News, and PRI’s The World. Last year, Heather was named a 2008 Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow for her work with Engineers Without Borders and Catapult Design, a program aimed at high-potential young leaders with new approaches for transformational impact. Heather has a BS in Product Design from Stanford University.
Stephanie Carter, TA: Stanford- Graduate Design Program- 2010
Stephanie is fascinated with colors, affordable design, glass, moss, biomimetic design, smells, frogs and passion fruits. She earned a BA in Environmental Sciences and Art Theory & Practice from Northwestern University, focusing on photography and green building design. From there she worked for three years as an Urban Planner at Goody Clancy in Boston before deciding to move to the Peruvian Amazon. Despite swimming in rivers full of piranha, she emerged unscathed and now enjoys exploring her interests as a designer.
