Hardware Podcasts

#012 Season 2: Robert Irwin - Senior Industrial Designer, Founder of LearnIndustrialDesign.com, Principal Sustainability Consultant at irwindesigned

Designing in the Wild · 1 May 2024 · 26m · Episode 12

What this episode covers

Robert Irwin, Senior Industrial Designer and founder of LearnIndustrialDesign.com, discusses his two decades of experience in sustainable design, ranging from biomimetic lawn dart redesigns to net-zero homes with $12 annual utility bills. He critiques current Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) tools for focusing too narrowly on CO2, arguing that they ignore critical health impacts like polyester microfibers and biodiversity loss. Irwin challenges designers to treat environmental criteria as primary requirements alongside cost, form, and function, emphasizing that 80% of a product's environmental impact is determined before the design documentation phase.

Most relevant to

established companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Rocky Mountain Institute, Rethought, NREL, HGTV
Products
Tiny House Big Living
Materials
polyester, aluminum
Also
LearnIndustrialDesign.com, LEED

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