This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Self-Assessment Test
Questions
1. What is the difference between a conventional design and a sustainable design?
2. What is a life-cycle analysis, and how can it be used to develop sustainable designs?
3. How does sustainability affect the optimization of a design?
Answers
1. A conventional design is based on maximizing the profits of the design process without regard to the sustainability of the project. A sustainable design project also maximizes profits from the project, but it does so while producing a design that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
2. A life-cycle analysis is a thorough analysis of a process or product with regard to the resources consumed and the pollution generated considering everything from the materials used to the produce the product to the manufacturing process to the end-of-life of the product. It is used in a sustainable design in order to consider all the sources of resource consumption and pollution generated for a particular design.
3. Sustainable designs require a more comprehensive optimization analysis and generally result in more expensive designs compared to conventional designs because conventional designs neglect many factors considered by a sustainable design.