Sustainable product design through wind-air themes: a case study of concepts of the Japan Design Foundation

摘要

This paper reviews the concepts focusing on the wind-air theme by the Japan Design Foundation in response to the lack of academic research from the perspective of industrial designers on natural resources of wind-air. The designers' perceptions of the wind-air theme are studied from social, cultural, and environmental perspectives. We review and summarise a possible way to use the natural resource of wind-air as well as man-made wind-air phenomena to achieve a sustainable design. According to the results, the design with cultural dimension of wind-air was characterised as design fields to investigate the environment sound produced by natural wind, the social dimension was characterised by a design concept that concerned safe design fields, and the environmental dimension were characterised as a new method of energy production using wind power. The research's significant findings lead to a recommended idea mapping of the wind-air theme, and its effectiveness was illustrated through a case study entitled 'Windballon - energy production system'.