The Green Imperative: Natural Design for the Real World

by Victor Papanek. Thames and Hudson, New York. 1995, softcover, 256 pages, $19.95

Victor Papanek, the best-selling author of Design for the Real World, died earlier this year, leaving a legacy of design advocacy and activism. In this, his seventh book, Papanek calls for a new awareness by architects and designers to take nature, climate and elements into consideration while creating designs for products and buildings. The author calls for direct participation from designers, architects, and consumers in exploring ways to live in harmony, instead of in conflict, with nature. Much of Papanek’s inspiration comes from those cultures he sees as more attuned to their natural surroundings such as the Balinese and the Inuit, and from traditionally marginalized and disadvantaged groups in our society, such as the elderly.

EBN readers will find the chapters discussing design for disassembly, product sharing, and vernacular architecture most relevant, but the book in its entirety is well worth the short time it takes to read. Despite Papanek’s treatise at the beginning of the book on environmental destruction, Natural Design for the Real World is not just another doom-andgloom book. Instead, the author points optimistically to present and future changes in society, among both professionals and consumers, that indicate movement toward a more ecological world view.

Papanek’s final book is a fitting tribute to his vision of environmentally and socially responsible architecture and design.