Can design alone be a ticket to a sustainable life? That is essentially the question posed by John Hockenberry in a recent essay posted by mentropolismag.com.

Put another way, are we entering the era of the “no-product.”

On the way to uncovering his essay’s original question Hockenberry poses some more such as, “…what if the (public) aspiration is purely not to buy?”, and “How might designers participate in an economy of no product?”.

Questions like these are pretty scary sounding if you make a living in the production end of the economy, which of course includes designers and architects. Hockenberry sums up the role of designers by saying, “Designers celebrate consumer demand as a kind of validation of the mission of improving the human condition, at best, or postponing some tawdry bit of individual boredom, at worst.”

The application of these questions to housing though might be somewhat different than that of the IPhone or X-Box. After all, housing at its core is shelter, a necessity, and many modern architects today are looking for ways to make the purchase of a single house a permanent part of your life.

Buy an eco-friendly house, adapt it to your liking, and even move it when you need to. We highly recommend reading the full post in Metropolismag.com.