Designing physical objects for manufacture — materials, ergonomics and prototyping, bounded by what a factory can make.
9 topics · 21 curated works
No prior grounding assumed.
The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability
William McDonough & Michael Braungart · 1992
Sets out design principles built on the premise that waste is a design failure and not an inevitability, arguing that products and buildings should…
+2 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
R. Buckminster Fuller · 1969
Argues that the earth is a single, finite and poorly-understood vehicle whose designers never left an instruction manual, and that comprehensive,…
+10 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
Human Engineering Design Criteria for Military Systems, Equipment, and Facilities
U.S. Department of Defense · 1968
Codifies quantitative human-factors requirements -- reach, force, visibility, control layout -- into a mandatory design standard, arguing that…
+6 more at this level
12 of 21 works
William McDonough & Michael Braungart
Sets out design principles built on the premise that waste is a design failure and not an inevitability, arguing that products and buildings should be designed from the outset to be either fully biodegradable or fully recoverable.
Connell et al.
Argues that designing a single product or environment to be usable by the widest possible range of people, rather than adapting it for disability afterward, produces better design for everyone.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Karl T. Ulrich
Frames design as a general problem-solving activity shared by engineers, artists and entrepreneurs, and lays out a systematic process from need-finding through concept selection that applies across product, service and system design alike.
230 pageslink checked 17 Sept 2026R. Buckminster Fuller
Argues that the earth is a single, finite and poorly-understood vehicle whose designers never left an instruction manual, and that comprehensive, anticipatory design rather than politics is what will let humanity operate it successfully.
NIOSH
Sets out load limits and lifting-task equations derived from biomechanical and epidemiological research, arguing that redesigning the task to fit measured human capacity prevents injury more reliably than training workers to lift correctly.
UNEP
Argues that redesigning a product's function and use pattern, not just swapping materials, gives the largest lifecycle environmental gains, and sets out an eight-step method for applying that redesign in a resource-constrained business.
Owain Pedgley
Argues from studio fieldwork that a product's materials and manufacturing processes are chosen through negotiation among designers, engineers and clients rather than by the designer's technical judgement alone, and maps who actually holds that influence.
U.S. Department of Justice
Sets enforceable minimum dimensions and clearances for the built environment, arguing that accessibility must be a measured design requirement rather than a discretionary accommodation.
Lucia Rampino
Proposes a framework covering the whole product-design field in which innovation comes from three creative levers -- form, mode of use, and technology -- and argues that most design-driven innovation is incremental change to one of these rather than the radical typological shifts design writing usually celebrates.
Daniel A. McAdams & Vincent Kostovich
Proposes a way to represent a product's function so that a designer can systematically check it against the needs of users with different abilities, arguing that universal design has lacked the concrete method engineering design already has for ordinary requirements.
Bradley Camburn et al.
Surveys how physical and digital prototypes are actually built and used across product-design practice, and argues that prototyping strategy should be chosen deliberately against the specific question a prototype is meant to answer, rather than by habit.
Jea Hoo Na, Youngok Choi & David Harrison
Argues that design contributes to a manufacturing company's innovation at three distinct levels -- operational designing, strategic design management, and corporate-level design thinking -- and that treating these as one undifferentiated activity is why design's contribution is hard to manage or measure.