The Design/Build Industry: Establishing a Circular Economy to Offset Municipal Solid Waste and C&D Waste Production.

Design tactics, material composition, and consumptive behavior are factors that negatively impact potential material reuse and contribute to waste generation in the Durable Goods and C&D Industries. This thesis exploration outlines a phased approach to implement Sustainable Materials Management to reduce material waste and benefit users, manufacturers, and the environment. ​

Redesigning the common refrigerator as a Collaborative Product Design group, the team established existing conditions, performed systems mapping, and created a baseline Life Cycle Assessment using the existing Bill of Materials before selecting the scope, boundary, and functional units of the intended redesigns. Life Cycle Assessments of proposed solutions to our collaborative design priorities were then created and compared to assess impact and select a winning option through the use of a decision matrix. This project was a case study to be used as a model for an ongoing systems redesign of a client-based product exploration in a comparable field.

Sustainable Design Consulting Firm - Business Plan

5Rs, Inc. is a proposed sustainability consulting firm that facilitates sustainability practices and implementation and promotes environmental and economic gains for all companies. As a sustainability consulting firm our methodology would be to serve as an ambassador to educate existing companies and teams on tactics to promote and incorporate sustainability within their daily business practices and future endeavors. 

This project focused on addressing material stewardship and exploring modular and interchangeable parts while employing sustainable packaging solutions and establishing customer incentives to increase participation in trans-formative systems. By creating a new mindset for furniture design that could address material waste and encourage users to participate in material return systems we can reduce waste and circumnavigate a traditional and flawed take-make-waste production model. 

In a combined effort with designer Angelina Malizia, my project team focused on addressing waste generated by the furniture industry as well as materials from the construction and demolition sectors. Our material focus was on addressing wood waste and byproducts of the treatment of wood for use in construction and production. As a team, we focused on exploring areas of waste generation, assessing material concerns for life safety, and implementing methods of establishing a passive decomposition process through the assistance of natural metabolizers and biotic factors. This project seeks to employ circular systems and biomimetic tactics to reduce waste and create a system of waste as food.

This project focused on taking a natural step to provide solutions to a sustainability issue within
our own homes. The Swiffer Sweeper Wet TM is a modern solution to the traditional but less hygienic mop
and bucket approach to cleaning, and while it provides convenience and an ergonomic approach to
cleaning it also faces its own design and sustainability challenges in its goal to provide a sterile single-use
cleaning cloth. My goal was to come up with creative solutions for how to make the Swiffer Sweeper
Wet TM work more sustainably within its existing system.

​This project was a passion project assignment of which I chose to learn how to use a sewing
machine and re-purpose old clothing into new and useful items to integrate the lessons I had learned
about Creative Leadership and meld them with my growing understanding of sustainable design as it
pertains to my own lifestyle and personal choices. I am working to achieve my goals of integrating what I
am learning in the program as it pertains to my career and design choices and apply those concepts to
my personal/home-life choices, disposal and purchasing habits, and my desire to not only be a verified
sustainable design professional but also a mindful individual and a good example of how making small
changes at home and in my personal life can have a ripple effect on our successful collective sustainable
future.

This project was the result of working for a client in the Green Shipping sector to provide info-graphics/deliverables to promote their efforts to disrupt the shipping industry through implementation of the clients’ sustainable shipping methodology and provide support for their research and integration efforts within the world-wide issue of sustainability while shipping goods on freighters.

​In a combined effort with designers Marc Chamberlain, Bianca Iacopelli, and Dawn Suiter, my project team focused on the Industry Facing portion of the project effort and provided a clear and concise info-graphic explaining to current industry players how this new system could be implemented to provide low carbon solutions in the maritime sector and how it could benefit their companies and the system and environment as a whole.

​This project focuses on the design-build industry as a system where system disruptions can be
corrected and sustainable methods and best practices should be considered and implemented to
improve the existing process. The goal of this project is to consider the long-term environmental effects
of spaces and places while increasing the quality and integrity of the build within our living system and
environment by focusing on three main system solutions to correct issues within the design-build industry.