2.6.2 Research that has investigated ways to integrate sustainability into design education
Several authors (Benson, 2007; Nussbaum, 2008; Perullos, 2013; Dritz, 2014) have confirmed the necessity of integrating sustainability into design education in order to advance the practice of DfS. Four projects that investigated ways of mainstreaming sustainability into design curricula and that resulted in the production of DfS teaching resources will now be reviewed. These are the Design Education and Sustainability (DEEDS) project, the
Designers Accord, the Learning Networks on Sustainability and the Teaching Guide for The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability (see Appendix A for hyperlinks to these resources).
As discussed in Section 2.2.1, the DEEDS project contributed to the development of strategies for integrating sustainability into design education. DEEDS discovered that for
educators to be motivated to integrate sustainability into their practice, they wanted to be provided with new teaching and learning materials that would not only lessen their workload, but also inspire innovation in the educational space (Blincoe et al., 2010; Park, 2010). It was therefore proposed that the SCALES Principles should form the basis of sustainable design education in Europe (Fuad-Luke, 2009). Ainsworth et al. (2008:2&8) believed that if educators engaged with the SCALES Principles, their “skills and competences” would be improved as the principles provided a “philosophical and practical foundation” from which educators could build. In addition, each principle offered the potential of becoming a separate teaching module (Blincoe et al., 2010). Through “educational experiments” conducted in design departments at universities in Brighton and Poznan, DEEDS was able to suggest examples of teaching and learning that would motivate students to adopt DfS practices (Blincoe et al., 2010:1489). One such suggestion was that “substituting traditional design briefs for sustainability-oriented instructions broadened the horizon of students and led to an outburst of creativity and originality” (ibid). The SCALES Principles document is accessible online for educators to utilise (see Appendix A).
A similar project, the Designers Accord, ran in North America between 2007 and 2012. Its vision was to “integrate the principles of sustainability into all aspects of design practice and manufacturing” and thereby create positive environmental and social impact (AIGA, 2009:10). The first Designers Accord initiatives focused on evolving design education. This was done through the development of the 2009 Designers Accord Educational Toolkit, which is freely available online (Dritz, 2014). The toolkit was the outcome of an intensive two-day Global Summit involving international academics and design professionals – none of whom were from Africa – who brainstormed the most effective ways to integrate sustainability into design curricula (Designers Accord, 2011:2). Targeted at design educators, the toolkit focuses on answering eight pertinent questions (see Table 2.11). The toolkit offers an average of five solutions for each question. Those solutions considered by the researcher as the most achievable for educators to implement are listed below.
Table 2.11: Questions and proposed solutions from the Designers Accord Educational Toolkit (Adapted from Designers Accord, 2011:3)
QUESTIONS PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
How can we continue to move design education forward? Create design challenges in context. How can we create a common language? Guide and facilitate – don’t dictate.
Allow students to discover meaning on a personal level.
How can we communicate best? Lead by example and seek out great
examples.
How can we design a sustainability curriculum? Choose a new theme to explore each term or year. How can we update existing design programs? Interdisciplinary and multi-generational:
build a diverse framework. How can we turn abstract ideas into concrete actions? Add a tangible context to theory. How can we help students work in more meaningful ways? Support the critical role of reflection in
gathering new insight.
How can we measure success? Set benchmarks.
By addressing these questions, the toolkit suggests ways to provide opportunities to empower students – both practically and theoretically – to become ambassadors for sustainable change. Furthermore, The Designers Accord toolkit (2011:9) identifies that sustainability must be “integrated as a critical lens in design” and should not “be considered as an extra-curricular concern”. To be most effective, it is advised that the toolkits’ content be adapted to fit the local context in which it is to be taught, as well as to the specific design discipline. By aligning the content of the toolkit with local challenges, DfS should become more meaningful to both the educator and the student (Designers Accord, 2011; Wals, 2014). Although the toolkit does not provide specific examples of projects or resources, the Designers Accord website does offer a platform where educators can share and discuss examples of educational activities that attempt to integrate sustainability into curricula (Designers Accord, 2011). Another online platform that aims to provide learning resources and tools to assist educators with DfS curricula development is the Learning Networks on Sustainability (LeNS) portal.
LeNS began in 2007 as a three-year project involving seven design schools across Asia and Europe. The objective was to promote a “new generation” of designers and design educators knowledgeable in DfS (Kohtala & Vezzoli, 2010:2). Today LeNS continues to operate as an open-source e-learning platform for exchanging knowledge and experiences of curriculum development. It provides tools and materials that have been developed and tested by a variety of design educators from institutions across the world. Resources that guide educators to implement DfS into their courses include presentations, spread sheets, audio- visuals and related readings (Learning Network on Sustainability, n.d.). LeNS has affiliates in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australasia, with each chapter able to adapt the modular platform to suit their requirements. While the three teaching resources developed by
DEEDS, the Designers Accord and LeNS were intended to be modified according to the didactic needs of the various design disciplines, none of the resources provide specific solutions for integrating DfS into communication design curricula.
A teaching resource that did attempt to address the education of sustainability for all design disciplines, including communication design, was Ann Thorpe’s Teaching Guide for The
Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability. It was developed by Thorpe (2011:3) to assist design
educators to explore the comprehensive presentation of sustainability concepts that were featured in her earlier book, The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability. This book received praise from many educators (Beale, Lynas, Underwood, Wahr, 2010; Park, 2010; Thorpe; 2011). Due to the book’s popularity, it is assumed by the researcher that the Teaching Guide will also be recognised by educators as a valuable tool. However, only five out of the thirty design briefs and research exercises in Thorpe’s guide mention how these can be adapted to the communication design discipline. This highlights that the resources available are limited and that more should be done to aid educators in integrating sustainability principles into communication design curricula. The lack of resources is one of numerous barriers that inhibit the implementation of sustainability in design education (Perullos, 2013). Section 2.6.3 explores further barriers to the advancement of sustainability in higher education.