MAPD4100 Sustainable Design Approaches Course description

The course "Sustainable Design Approaches" introduces the ecological, social, and economic challenges that global society faces today and explores how designers can contribute to sustainable industrial production and everyday lifestyles through new design solutions. The course provides an overview of scientific sustainability principles as well as the political global goals (such as the Paris Agreement and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2030). It further explores how these may be implemented in the design process.

Systems theory and thinking will introduce you to the elements of sustainability and explain the complexity of relations in socio-ecological systems. You will train your design methodology to find focus, identify needs, and define problems related to chosen tasks and user groups, as well as explore a set of design strategies in idea generation and the design of final solutions. Finally, you will be introduced to methods for evaluating products and services to discuss their contribution to sustainable development at both the product level and from a systemic perspective.

Admission to the Master's programme.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have an overview and understanding of the most important socio-ecological challenges the world is facing today and how design can contribute to solving them. Working on this complex topic, the course should bring the students to an advanced level of

Knowledge

• understanding how products and services can be interconnected in systems and mutually affecting each other
• understanding the scientific principles of sustainability
• understanding how to make informed decisions for design strategies to minimize the negative impact on socio-ecological systems
• understanding the concept of a circular economy and how design can contribute to achieving this
• understanding the differences between scientific knowledge and political goals concerning sustainability
• about how people behaviour may affect the environmental impact caused by the product or service systems, and how the design may affect this behaviour
• about the global challenges of production and consumption as well as how design may contribute to a sustainable development and the UN sustainability goals

Skills

• taking a systems perspective to describe a chosen topic in relation to the sustainability challenges
• identifying needs on a basic level and related user groups
• identifying the main environmental impacts caused by a product/service system throughout its lifecycle and make rough estimates of these impacts
• evaluating choices of sustainable design strategy/strategies to be implemented in the project’s ideation phase, design process & results
• making design decisions to enable for additional life cycles in a circular economy
• analysing and comparing sustainability performance (socio-ecological) of product concepts in order to identify areas for improvement and select most promising concepts

General competence

• understanding the importance of considering sustainability aspects in a design process, identify and apply appropriate tools or methods to minimize or eliminate the negative environmental impact
• being able to communicate the design process, the use of design strategies and tools, as well as the evaluations and decisions made to reach the most promising results for sustainability
• is able to reflect on the consequences of values and strategies chosen by the designer and company in a systemic perspective.

• Sustainability principles
• Sustainability challenges
• Human basic needs
• Sustainable design strategies
• Design for a circular economy (Cradle to Cradle)
• Understand the principles of Life Cycle Assessment
• UN Sustainable development goals
• Tripple bottom line (people, planet, profit)
• Systems thinking
• Design for sustainable behaviour
• Harmful substances in products
• Team work processes and reflection of own learning as well as self-management

The most important teaching and learning methods for this course are workshops in class, guest lectures, smaller assignments, peer group presentations, excursions, both individual and group project work. The course includes an individual reflection essay about own learning, contribution and group process.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• One assignment in group or individual, orally presented or written submission
• Individual reflection essay on learning process, downloaded assignment

Group or individual written home examination, which consists of:

• One written report. Describing an understanding of the theory, research and analyses approaches supporting a design practice for sustainability, as well as relevant design methodology and methods explored through a project of design practice. The report may vary according to the project and chosen format/layout, but between 10 and 40 pages are expected.

The examination result can be appealed.

No restrictions on examination resources

Grade scale A-F.

Two internal. External examiner is used periodically.