Green Design in Cornerstone Courses at KAIST: Theory and Practice

Environmental sustainability and eco-friendly design are becoming increasingly important in engineering today. This paper discusses green design in the KAIST Freshman Design Program. It is shown that students and faculty members tend to choose green design projects, even when not required. Students have successfully adapted general design processes and formal design theories to eco-friendly design projects by defining eco-friendly functional requirements, constraints, and selection criteria. The use of a more formal stakeholder analysis to address a wider range of environmental sustainability issues has promise. However, these benefits have not yet been reflected in freshman projects. Ultimately, ED100 may be a good model for incorporating green design in a general design course.