Research Guides: Sustainable Design: Get Started

Subject Specific Databases

Art and Architecture in Video
An online streaming film collection that includes documentaries and interviews illustrating the theory and practice of a variety of art forms and providing the context necessary for critical analysis. It addresses art history and theory as well as applied topics such as graphic design.
Art Bibliographies Modern (1974-present)
Covers all art forms, including fine art, digital art, crafts, design and photography. Features full abstracts and indexing from art journals published from the 1970s onwards.
Artstor
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Features images from some of the world's leading museums, photo archives, scholars, and artists. It is a comprehensive image resource available for educational and scholarly use, with many rare and important collections available nowhere else.
JSTOR
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Academic journals, books, and primary sources in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
Oxford Art Online
The foremost scholarly art encyclopedia, covering both Western and non-Western art.
Material Connexion
The Material Connexion online database provides almost 10,000 material profiles that include images and information including properties, processing, and sustainability. A short and simple database tutorial for guidance is available on how to search materials based on a list of helpful criteria, saving your materials for a project and more.

Transmaterial
Free online materials database.
Mintel | Sample Sustainability Search
Market Intelligence reports, analytics and trends delivering all the data you need and telling you what it means.

GreenFILE
GreenFILE is multidisciplinary by nature and draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Subjects covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, recycling, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides health information to prevent harmful exposures and diseases related to toxic substances.
Powerhouse Museum Sustainable Design Database
The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia has over 130 years of design examples. This database shows some items in its collection that meet the criteria for design for the environment.

The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design
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Considers that beauty is inherent to sustainability; for how things look and feel is as important as how they're made. Drawing from a wealth of scientific research, the author demonstrates that form and image can enhance conservation, comfort, and community at every scale of design, from products to buildings to cities.
Women in Green Voices of Sustainable Design
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Studies show that women are more likely to support environmental causes through voting, activism, and consumer choices. Informal conversations with architects, designers, consultants, policymakers, educators, and students.are explored.
Design for Sustainable Change : How Design and Designers Can Drive the Sustainability Agenda
Discusses the ways in which design thinking is evolving and being applied to a much wider spectrum of social and environmental issues,
Recycle Your Trash (STREAMING VIDEO, 26 minutes)
Go behind the scenes at a local recycling facility. Learn how our garbage is extracted, produced, distributed, consumed and disposed of. (Global Footprints on the Environment )

Inhabitat
Showcasing design innovation, architecture and big ideas pushing the planet toward a brighter and more sustainable future.
Buckminster Fuller Institute
Our programs combine unique insight into global trends and local needs with a comprehensive approach to design. We encourage participants to conceive and apply transformative strategies based on a crucial synthesis of whole systems thinking, Nature's fundamental principles, and an ethically driven worldview.
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. Explore its many collections and exhibits, including sustainable design.
Core 77 Sustainable Design Blog
Core77 provides a gathering point for designers and others by producing design competitions, lecture series, parties, and exhibits.
Safer Choice | US Environmental Protection Agency
Safer Choice helps consumers, businesses, and purchasers find products that perform and contain ingredients that are safer for human health and the environment.
Environmental Working Group - News & Analysis
Environmental connections to health.