Design Process and Sustainability. Method and Tools

The sustainable design approach has so far particularly referred to methods and tools of an analytical nature, such as Life Cycle Design and Life Cycle Assessment; these are characterized by the direct focus on product and/or service and defined by prevalence of a convergent thought. The project has to deal, by its nature, with complex issues defined as wicked problems that cannot be circumscribed and then linearly resolved; the design act is indeed characterized by being a complex dynamic and not definable in a rational way. The paper identifies methods and tools applied to the POR CreO-FP7 “High Chest” project developed with Whirlpool Europe S.r.l. The design process applied has been then re-created highlighting methods, tools and their areas of relation, which, in Complexity theory, are defined as edge of chaos: these are the areas where the different theories and disciplines do not repel but attract, changing from order to disorder, which consequently leads to organization through interrelationships.