Design, Heidegger, and the Earth: The Unsustainability of Sustainable Design

Humanity is racing to find designed solutions to ourenvironmental crisis. But what if designing itselfwas the cause of the crisis? This book argues thatdesign, including 'sustainable' design, is at the heart of our crisis of unsustainability. Onlywhen design's complicity in this crisis isunderstood, can sustainable human environments beconceived. Using the work of the controversialphilosopher Martin Heidegger, this book constructs aradically different understanding of the designprocess. With this understanding, design in modernityis shown to be the engine of consumption of theEarth. Ironically, the conviction that that we canfind designed solutions to our crisis ofunsustainability may be the real danger facing theEarth. For those interested in design and designtheory, this book offers a fundamentally differentaccount of the design process. For those interestedin Heideggerian thought, this book uses design to explore the 'positive role' of consciousnesshinted at, but rarely investigated, in Heidegger'swork. For those concerned about our crisis ofunsustainability, this book offers a new way toconceive the forces accelerating the crisis.