In this course, you will learn about the principles and methods for evaluating, and then making design improvement decisions about, the ecological impacts of products. Current societal unsustainability is primarily a material problem – a problem with the kinds and quantities of materials with which we make the built environments upon which we depend to live. Designs hold materials temporarily together, materials that have all come from somewhere or something else and are going somewhere or becoming something else. This course explores those materials flows through the life of designed products and environments and their ecological impacts. Students will learn a range of current techniques and tools for evaluating the sustainability of their design directions, with a focus on Life Cycle Assessment. The course examines the conflicts and complex consequences that result when this or that material are put together in a design.