Design for sustainability and the design studio

Clune, Stephen (2014) Design for sustainability and the design studio. Fusion Journal, 3 (The St).

Abstract

This paper explores the complexity of engaging undergraduate student designers with sustainability in the master and apprentice model of the design studio. There is a growing call for design practice to reorientate towards a more sustainable form and it is suggested that design educators have a responsibility in driving this shift. A four-year action research project enquired as to why undergraduate industrial design students could not Design for Sustainability (DfS). Interventions were identified and implemented to address this concern. These were: (1.) increasing students’ understanding of unsustainability and its relational complexity, and (2.) improving student engagement by focusing on the pedagogy of deep learning. Deep learning almost mirrors the problem based learning model of the design studio. However in practice, realising deep learning as the desired pedagogy required critical reflection from the educator to introduce a student centred approach to teaching. The paper then locates these findings amongst broader educational and industrial design education for sustainability literature. This exposes the juxtaposition of the studio as a place where the teacher-as-researcher can actively integrate progressive DfS concepts, however, leaves the studio susceptible to the troubling question of what happens when the master does not know?