Nineteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The climate crisis foregrounds a need for an ‘ecological literacy’ which can situate design practice as a critical activity to develop sustainable futures. Design Education, in turn, must meet this emerging challenge to a broad set of disciplines whose very moral and ethical frameworks are reframing not only what it means to ‘design’ but also ‘who’, or what, we design for. Design Futuring asks us to imagine the purpose and function of design outside of capitalist and neo-liberal frameworks, recognizing that what is ‘designed’ will design patterns of behavior shaping morals and ethics, whilst backgrounding others. Many are calling for a mode of design which pays more attention to ecological systems and the non-human when deciding what to design. This paper outlines a pedagogical intervention developed within Cardiff School of Art & Design to foster a mindset shift in level 5 Textile Design students towards ‘Futures thinking’. Adopting a speculative approach to design through a problem-based approach to learning, the project titled ‘CMF Design: What is the Future of Luxury Transport?’, asked students to engage with future and non-human ecosystems to challenge the status quo of material choices in transport design. Present in the students’ outcomes, was a futures focused ecological attunement but also a critical approach to the future of their discipline and its potential to enact change, allowing further themes such as design hegemony, classism, and gender bias to be explored. All resulting in higher levels of engagement and attainment.