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The Eco-Friendly design is also referred to as the eco-design or green design. This type of building design relies on maintaining the ecological balance and environmentally friendly factors. This type of design is also referred to as the Sustainable Design, defines principles to design physical buildings in order to maintain the ecological sustainability. These principles are becoming popular and are being adopted by the architectural
communities, landscape designers, interior design and many more. The eco-friendly design principles and methods to encourage their use are also as important as the introduction of the concept. This article will bring out the important aspects of eco-friendly design.
Aim: The main aim of the eco-friendly design is to preserve the non- renewable resources and maintain environmental conditions during the process of building new communities and cities.
Design Principles: The eco-friendly design proposes several design principles for the different fields. The most important principle is use of non-toxic recycled materials . This involves use of very little energy to produce such material and aids in environmental conservation. Also emphasis is on producing products that last longer time and are of high quality and durability. The second most important principle is to use material that can be recycled and regenerated. This enables a closed cycle of product reuse and less of fresh production. The third important principle involves design for public or common or sharing mode of commutation and transport. Railways, trams and buses are the best means to achieve this mode of reducing automobile pollution. The last principle relies on the fact of compostability of bio-degradable products and regeneration of energy or products.
Planning for eco-friendly Design
The landscape planners and city planners have to device plans that are long lived and use the basic design principles described above. They derive designs for planned expansion , public transportation and environment preservation. Smart Growth design helps in city planning with growth and expansion in the center and transportation services including encouraging of bicycle use. The other designs rely mainly on transportation and are called
Transit oriented design and discourage regular use of private vehicles.
Other factors like keeping all essential services in walk able distance is also considered very effective. These design factors help in causing minimal or no damage to the environment and maintaining the ecology and nature of the cities.
Energy generation: Energy is an essential requirement in the modern world. New methods and technology have been designed to generate energy from renewable resources thereby preserving the non renewable resources of the environment. Also these new technologies aim at causing lesser pollution to the environment and conserve the environment.
Encouraging sustainability: Also it has been found that encouraging optimum resource utilization like power, water and wood, environmental conservation is achieved to a great degree. There are many proposals from the government and private environmental conservation agencies about the methods and steps to encourage the designers and builders to adopt the design principles. Public awareness and support is also being given due consideration in achieving the desired success in protecting the environment.
