It has been fascinating to watch how quickly people respond to market forces.

When gas was over four dollars a gallon, metro transit systems experienced record ridership and hybrids were on lengthening backorder. Now with our global economy in a tailspin, front lawns are being replaced with vegetable gardens and backyards are filling with chicken coops. But I wonder…with a probable resumption of a (more slowly) growing economy, will we see a majority of people return to more comfortable but less sustainable behaviors?

There is an interesting trend afoot these days. As I set about developing a messaging platform and launch strategy for my client, Boom Boom Revolution, I became aware of a whole world of new games that give people a way to practice random acts of kindness – using cards, coins, and online tracking.

From Kind Acts and RandomKindActs to the Boom Boom Revolution, entrepreneurs are taking their passion for changing the world and creating an interesting new product category. What struck me about each of them is the blend of altruism and fun that pervades each offering, in very unique and different ways. You can be a social revolutionary or part of a coin-spiracy. You can play or be inspired. But the goal for each is to connect in the real world and then watch that connection ripple out in the world, using an online community.

Sustainable design is more than a philosophy for the work space. It should also become a philosophy for living, driving the decisions we make every minute of the day. For some people it is like dieting; sometimes you go overboard and sometimes you forget about it altogether.

I like to integrate more and more sustainable design philosophies in my personal life as well. I have the most fun uncovering what is behind the immediate impact of our choices; asking “what all happened before I made this decision, and what will have to happen because I made this decision?”

Let me talk through some of my thought processes, and how they apply across the life/work divide.

Let’s talk about food OK, so you are hungry and want to eat something. What do you do? Should you go for fresh, local, organic, all Whole Foods, or that delicious burger that is staring at you from the billboard?

There is no simple answer, but some things are clearly not sustainable — for example, fresh produce that is flown in from around the world. And yet this is still what you can find at Whole Foods.

Let me share with you a small experiment I did during my travels in India.

Like all architects and designers I share a common curiosity about the innards of products, which often leads me to dissecting and disassembling them. I recently found sketches I had made of houses and their sections while visiting parts of India characterized by extreme climates. I revisited those sketches, this time looking through a lens of sustainability and environmental sensitivity.

The sections are not only telling of the local construction and vernacular but also how practices that have evolved over centuries can teach us about adapting to climates more sustainably today.

While there are many lessons to be learned from vernacular architecture in these areas, it is noticeable that most aspects of sustainability are absent from modern buildings in these regions. This is due to many reasons: rapid development, use of foreign materials, design methods, and construction systems.