Sustainability, Design, Education and Transformation
This strand will be introduced by Tony Fry who leads the Master of Design Futures Program at the Queensland College of Art, and will explore how the imperative of sustainability will radically transform the agenda of design education.
Sustainability requires to be understood not simply as just another topic to add to the curriculum, across all design disciplines, but rather as an issue now starting to trigger a paradigmatic shift in what is taught, why and how. In addressing questions of the transformation of design education in relation to sustainability there needs to be an acknowledgement that `unsustainability? has arrived in large part through a failure of design (mostly unwittingly). But conversely, it is equally the case that the creation of `sustainment? demands and depends upon design innovation. However, this innovation has to commence with the `redesign of design? theory and practice. The implication of this proposition clearly runs counter to most of the ways sustainability has been introduced into design education to date.
The papers to be presented will be selected on the basis of reporting thinking, research and teaching practice that rises to the challenge of educating for sustainment ? the expectation is not that the challenges have been fully met and all problems solved. Rather what will be expected to be delivered will be reports of `work-in-progress.? that outline the kind of problems being faced and engaged.