Strategies for teaching sustainable design practice with product design students

Abstract

Teaching students how to tackle the issu e of producing practical, commercial product designs that respond to the sustainability impe rative is an important challenge for design educators at this time. This paper provides clear strategies for this new aspect of product design teaching, breaki ng down sustainable design prac tice into six approaches that allow the educator to introduce a spectrum of sustainable design, providing the opportunity to explore the work of practitione rs in each area and tools to differentiate their sustainable design basis. Designing within, for example, an eco-p luralistic philosophy still provides the opportunity for different strategies that would be contradictory if attempts were made to contain them within one piece. Clarifyi ng sustainable design strategies enables designers to then clarify their intentions for different ideas. Understanding the design intent provides a basis for value judgments as to the success of a product within a sustainable design portfolio. This paper s uggests definitions for six approaches which can be used by the product design educator as starting points for students in their quest for a sophisticated understanding of designing for sustainable practice.