Intersection of EBD and EED
Yesterday, I heard a fascinating presentation at the Clean Med conference in Chicago about the relationship between “eco-effective design” (EED) and evidence-based design (EBD).
Mardelle Shepley of Texas A&M and Mara Baum of Anshen+Allen Architects did a research study in which they found that the two are indeed compatible. The term “eco-effective design” is theirs, and I think it is a better description than “sustainable design” or “green design.”
They plan to publish their results in the HERD Journal, but essentially they asked experts to help identify design interventions for each EED and EBD, created a matrix, and then had people indicate where they thought there was a relationship.
Clear intersections occur in design interventions in the areas of nature, positive distractions, materials, and daylight. And there are many others. Look for more on this to come, but I think it is time that we began to talk more about the two as compatible approaches and start integrating it into our work.