Design responsibility and sustainable design as reflective practice: an educational challenge

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

* Correspondence to: PhD Candidate Malene Leerberg, Kolding School of Design, Aagade 10, 6000 Kolding, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected]

Sustainable DevelopmentSust. Dev. 18, 306–317 (2010)Published online 6 July 2010 in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/sd.481

Design Responsibility and Sustainable Design as Refl ective Practice: An Educational Challenge

Malene Leerberg,* Vibeke Riisberg and Joy BoutrupKolding School of Design, Kolding, Denmark

ABSTRACTAn important element in design education is to prepare students for the reality of the pro-fession. Often these students question their ability and power to infl uence industry and commerce, especially when it comes to proposing innovative and sustainable solutions. This paper discusses how the notion of design responsibility can be integrated in design education, describing ways of training and encouraging students to become responsible and sustainability-oriented designers. Using examples from the curriculum of the Kolding School of Design in Denmark, we make a case for employing both practice-based and theory-based learning approaches to promote a critical and refl ective design practice. Fur-thermore, we argue for the value of teaching design responsibility to imbue design students with the knowledge and confi dence that sustainable design thinking and the designer can make a difference. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Received 7 October 2009; revised 16 November 2009; accepted 19 March 2010

Keywords: design education; design responsibility; environmental citizenship; practice-based learning; refl ective practice, sustain-

able design; textile and fashion design; theory-based learning

. . . It is estimated that 80% of a product’s environmental and economic costs are committed by the fi nal design stage. Before production begins.

Kate Fletcher

Pioneer designer and researcher in eco fashion and textiles

(Fletcher, 1999: 75–76)

Introduction

DESIGN STUDENTS OFTEN QUESTION THEIR ABILITY AND POWER TO INFLUENCE INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE TO MAKE sound and responsible design decisions. Aware of the complexity of the design process, of transforming

an idea to a product of value to manufacturers as well as consumers, students can feel overwhelmed

by the demands on the designer to create not only functional and aesthetic products, but also ethical

and sustainable design.

Design Responsibility and Sustainable Design 307

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Sust. Dev. 18, 306–317 (2010)DOI: 10.1002/sd

The objective of this paper is to argue for the value of teaching design responsibility based on experiences from

the development of three courses in the curriculum at the Kolding School of Design in Denmark. Whereas all

three courses aim to train students in refl ective practice, they represent different approaches to the subject, differ-

ent learning settings and different teaching methods.1

For more than 10 years textile and fashion students at the Kolding School of Design have been taught courses

in sustainable design. These are practice-based courses with studio assignments, and this paper presents the

development and knowledge gained concerning methodology, level and angle of information in the fi eld. In the

general curriculum, all students are taught a course in design criticism, this is a theory-based course with lectures

and plenary discussions, and the paper presents the potentials of using theoretical refl ection to affect design prac-

tice. The courses have constantly developed according to new knowledge gained by the industry, the design profes-

sion and colleagues teaching similar courses nationally as well as internationally.2 In addition, the introduction of

the World Wide Web had a tremendous effect on the accessibility of knowledge, methods, sustainable product

examples, inspiration, etc.

The paper discusses the prospects of exposing design students to both practice-based and theory-based approaches

to complex subjects such as design responsibility and sustainable design. Furthermore, the discussion looks at

how the presented courses can be mutually enriching and advance the education of responsible and sustainability-

oriented designers. The paper closes with some considerations of how the three presented modules could be further

developed and extended to give more substance to rely and build on for the students’ individual projects in the

master program.

In this paper and in our teaching the terms sustainability and sustainable design are used according to the broad

defi nition in the so-called Brundtland Report: ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,’ (United Nations, 1987). When

talking about design and environmental issues, we refer to the concept of Design for Environment (DFE) as defi ned

by Thomas E. Graedel et al. (1995: 17): ‘[DFE] is a proactive approach to environmental protection that addresses life-cycle environmental concerns in the product design stage.’3

Design Responsibility and the Education of Designers

In 1997, the editor-in-chief of the infl uential design magazine Metropolis, Susan S. Szenasy, began teaching a

course in ethics of design at New York’s Parsons School of Design with the following goal: ‘The course is all about responsibility: to the planet, to the regions we live in, to the community, to the profession, to the client, and to the self,’ (Szenasy, 2003: 20–21). Szenasy’s main focus is on sustainability, but her view is not limited to sustainability, it

can embrace all aspects of design, including functionality, aesthetics and socio-cultural meaning.

Arguably Szenasy’s statement is abstract and describes an attitude, rather than a design practice. However,

attitudes are important and Andrew Dobson, who has written extensively on citizenship in relation to environment

and sustainability,4 draws a signifi cant distinction between attitudes and behavior in terms of human ability to

make long-lasting change (Dobson, 2007: 278–279). Whereas attitudes signify values, behavior denotes actions.

Most environmental policy measures target behavior, e.g. through fi nancial incentives, using carrot or stick

methods as seen in different versions of so-called ‘green taxes’. However, Dobson states: ‘The change in behavior lasts only as long as the incentives or disincentives are in place – and these are inevitably subject to the vagaries of fashion, experiment and the direction of the political wind that happens to be blowing at the time,’ (Dobson, 2007: 278).

1 The key ideas in this paper were fi rst presented at Design Responsibility: Potentials and Pitfalls, the 8th NORDCODE Seminar & Workshop, May 27–29, 2009, at the Kolding School of Design. The authors would like to thank Martina Keitsch for her encouragement to develop these early thoughts into a research paper.2Two infl uential resources should be mentioned: The O2 Sustainable Design Network established in 1988 (http://www.o2.org) and the John Thackara led design conferences Doors of Perception established 1993 (http://doorsofperception.com).3 It is important to note that designers are not engineers. However, DFE has been an important source of knowledge and inspiration to designers wanting to confront sustainability issues, e.g. Kate Fletcher, who in her PhD dissertation Environmental Improvement by Design: An Investigation of the UK Textile Industry (1999) refers to the work of Graedel and Allenby on environmental industry, Industrial Ecology (1995). A more recent approach is the cradle-to-cradle concept of Braungart and McDonough, Cradle to Cradle (2003).4 E.g. the monograph Citizenship and the Environment (Dobson, 2003) and with Derek Bell the edited volume Environmental Citizenship (Dobson and Bell, 2006).

308 M. Leerberg et al.


Furthermore, fi nancial incentive and/or disincentive policies are based on a self-interested rational model of

human motivation (Dobson, 2007: 277) – however, people do not necessarily act according to models or indeed

policy intent, neither does self-interested behavior automatically serve a common good. And when it comes to

penalties, people are likely to look for loopholes. Policies alone do not engage people in change in terms of values:

‘The evidence suggests that discursive, elaborative processes are a vital element in behaviour change – in particular in negotiating new social norms and ‘unfreezing’ habitual behaviours,’ (Jackson, in Dobson, 2007: 278). Dobson speaks

of underlying attitudes as opposed to superfi cial behavior, arguing that it is reasonable to assume that if underlying

attitudes changes, behavioral changes will likely follow, e.g. if our attitude towards the use of fossil fuels changes,

we are likely to behave accordingly by changing our energy consumption pattern. Dobson fi nds less support for

reversing this logic; that change in behavior in the same respect will lead to change in the underlying attitudes (cf.

Dobson, 2007: 279).

Consistent with Szenasy and Dobson, we defi ne design responsibility as an attitude towards the value of design

and the role of the designer for sustainable development as well as a refl ective practice. Design shapes our lives,

and designers must consider the impact of this process – the desired as well as the undesired. For this reason, a

responsible designer is characterized as someone, who questions the logic of our present consumer society, the

effects of design and the product life cycle, who tests ideas, considering scenarios and alternatives by evaluating

materials, manufacturing processes, form and functionality as well as consumer attachment and emotional value,

and who uses this knowledge to set criteria for the design and to take a stance as a designer. This does not exclude

or reject the fact that when designing for both high-end and mass market, the goal of the design activity is to make

a profi t. Hence, as educators we refrain from advocating ideology or presenting entirely utopian ideas to students;

rather the aim of teaching design responsibility is to establish an awareness of how designers may be part of creat-

ing value and meaning in people’s lives through products and services (Margolin, 2002; Riisberg, 2006).

In a recent paper, the infl uential design theorist Victor Margolin refl ects on the role of designers in the future,

particularly in light of the present challenges facing humanity as well as the planet. He views the designer as a

positive and possibly powerful agent of change: ‘As creators of models, prototypes, and propositions, designers occupy a dialectical space between the world that is and the world that could be. Informed by the past and the present, their activity is oriented towards the future. They operate in situations that call for interventions, and they have the unique ability to turn these interventions into material and immaterial forms,’ (Margolin, 2007: 4).

Responding to present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfi ll their needs (cf.

the sustainability defi nition of the Brundtland Report) a designer requires, as Margolin also notes, a vision of both

what the future could and should be (Margolin, 2007: 5). This sentiment echoes the concept of environmental citi-

zenship as presented by Dobson: ‘. . . environmental citizenship involves the recognition that self-interested behaviour will not always protect or sustain public goods such as the environment. Thus environmental citizens make a commitment to the common good,’ (Dobson, 2007: 280). The attitude of the environmental citizen then signifi es awareness that

individual good does not necessarily equate with public good. Embedded in this notion is that an individual act

always has public implications and by extension environmental impact (Dobson, 2007: 280–281). As Tim Jackson

pointed out, changes in attitudes and behaviors can be stimulated through discursive processes, and Dobson calls

attention to educational curricula to provide an opportunity for students to explore environmental issues and

sustainable development (Dobson, 2007: 283–284).5 For students this involves critical exploration of societal values

and consideration of what the future could and should be – for them as well as for the next generations. Relating

to design, such an approach is similar to working with future scenarios to determine a course of action. Margolin

distinguishes between predictive and prescriptive scenarios (Margolin, 2007: 5). Whereas predictive scenarios are

pragmatic, forecasting what could happen based on objective analysis of data and patterns; prescriptive scenarios

are idealistic, articulating more subjective visions of what should happen (cf. Margolin, 2007: 5–6). Designers do

both – predict and prescribe. However, in design education it is important to create a balance to prepare students

for the realities of the design profession. On the one hand, they need to acquire design skills and develop an

individual design identity, on the other, they are required to understand and be able to apply themselves in a

5 Writing in a British context, Dobson relates to the formal education system and the traditional civic courses taught to basic school pupils. Whereas it is important to begin teaching environmental rights and responsibilities at an early age, higher education must continue to give students the opportunity to explore the values of environmental citizenship.



professional setting.6 Ideally, the education moves back and forth between the two perspectives. In this process

the parameters of a design project, including the designer’s aesthetic space, become clear. The term aesthetic space

describes to students the various constraints that, depending on the design context, infl uence a project – e.g. the

differences between working as a designer for a big commercial mass production company or for an editor of

high-design goods, as an individual designer creating limited editions or as a craftsperson (Riisberg, 2006: 23).

Both Dobson’s notion of environmental citizenship and Margolin’s characterization of future scenario’s can be

related to Donald Schön’s notion of refl ective practice, which has become an infl uential pedagogical idiom in

design education. In The Refl ective Practitioner, Schön describes a good design process ‘as a refl ective conversation with the situation,’ (Schön, 2003: 76). A refl ective practice requires a sensibility towards a design context, towards

its requirements, expectations, possibilities and impossibilities, and furthermore an ability to change or adapt

according to the context. The designer enters a dialogue, or as Schön calls it, a conversation with the design context

or situation, and in developing the design, thereby shaping the situation, the situation ‘talks back’ to the designer.

‘In answer to the situation’s back-talk,’ notes Schön, ‘the designer refl ects-in-action on the construction of the problem, the strategies of action, or the model of the phenomena, which have been implicit in his moves,’ (Schön, 2003: 79). Hence,

a refl ective practice addresses the complexity of the design process, including the effects of design, which is also

the concern of design responsibility and sustainability.

Teaching Sustainability to Design Students

The textile and fashion industries are some of the largest and most resource-consuming businesses. Textile pro-

duction is global and most textiles and garments have been transported over long distances before reaching the

end consumer. The production of textiles is connected to several other industries such as the chemical industry,

agriculture and machinery production. Certainly knowledge of these connections and reciprocal infl uences is

required to create sustainable design in both textiles and fashion. Fortunately, sustainable development is becom-

ing one of the driving forces in the new advances of textile technology, especially in the Western-led industry. This

is largely motivated by laws and economic factors, e.g. water resources are becoming scarce and more expensive

to use, in addition comes the cleaning of waste water required by law in an increasing number of countries.

For more than 10 years, the Kolding School of Design has taught a design concept course focusing on materials

and sustainability to third semester fashion and textile students.7 The main message of the course is that sustain-

ability and quality design go hand in hand, and that the sustainability aspect is not necessarily apparent in the end

product. It is also emphasized that quality design solutions may include user information and immaterial services.

The term quality is evidently non-objective; the quality of a design is contextual and can be said to describe to what

extent the design successfully corresponds to the needs and wants8 of a given context, be they aesthetic, functional,

social or environmental. The course encourages students to take this into account and create designs, which in

terms of quality are appealing and preferable to consumers regardless of their sustainability.

Table 1 gives details of natural fi ber analyses. By combining a micro perspective in the form of the material

based process of using natural fi bers with a macro perspective by introducing simplifi ed life cycle assessment

(LCA) schemas, the student are enabled to fi nd creative ways to deal with complex problems.

The initial approach to teaching sustainability to the design students was to a great extent informed by a macro-

perspective, looking at the design system – the manufacturers, the production line, the use of resources, etc.

However, the didactic approach has developed and is continuously adjusted. Early on, it became clear, how

6 Fashion designer and senior tutor of menswear at the Royal College of Art, Ike Rust, describes this as a double learning perspective of identify-ing self and applying self (Rust, 2007; Skjold, 2007). To identify self as a design student is about learning the design discipline and discovering who you are as a designer. To apply self is about learning how to use your skills in a professional design context.7 Development of the curriculum at the Kolding Design School began in 1998, however as early as 1992 Joy Boutrup and Vibeke Riisberg initiated teaching in environmental issues to textile students at the Danish Design School in Copenhagen.8 Victor Papanek, who in the early 1970s introduced the concept of design responsibility to a broader audience, argues in Design for the Real World against designing for what people want: ‘The lesson of this book, to design for people’s needs rather than their wants, can be applied to clothing design as well,’ (Papanek, 2000: 219; Papanek’s emphasis). Idealistically, we agree; however, in design, to meet people’s needs, you often have to appeal to their wants – in particular in the mass market.



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important it is to acknowledge that designers and indeed design students are better off learning about sustainable

issues in bodily ways than through abstract models. Designers often understand an intellectual problem through

acting and creating, which can be described as a micro-perspective with origins in the arts and craft tradition. This

is not to say that designers have no concept of the macro-perspective, there are several examples such as Victor

Papanek’s seminal Design for the Real World from 1971 and almost a century before him, William Morris, who

criticized the emerging mass production from a design as well as a societal point of view (cf. Riisberg, 2006;

MacCarthy, 1994).

In their 2001 paper DEMI: Linking design with sustainability, design researchers Emma Dewberry and Kate

Fletcher, present a recent discussion of micro- and macro-perspectives.9 Dewberry and Fletcher describe the dif-

ferent starting points to teaching sustainable design10 as a continuum between design as context with sustainability

viewed as a subordinate to design and sustainability as context with design viewed as a subordinate to sustainability

(Dewberry and Fletcher, 2001: 3–4). Arguably the Kolding School of Design with its micro-perspective approach

is situated more in the former category. As sustainability becomes more integrated in education, teaching will

likely revolve more towards the latter category; however, sustainable design education is still in its infancy and is

rarely integrated overall in design education (Figure 1) (Dewberry and Fletcher, 2001: 3).11

9 The DEMI (design for the environment multi-media implementation) project was lead by Professor Martin Woolley at Goldsmith College and funded by UK’s Teaching Learning Technology Program 1998–2001. A most useful resource, the DEMI website is unfortunately no longer active.10 Dewberry and Fletcher use the term design for sustainability.11 Today eco-design/sustainable design is part of many design education programs, but often they are still driven by individuals ‘burning’ for the cause, e.g.Kate Fletcher, Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion (http://www.sustainable-fashion.com), Prof. Fumi Masuda, Tokyo Zokei University (http://www.zokei.ac.jp/worldwide/department/sp.html), and Prof. Eija Nieminen, Designium (http://www.taik.fi /designium/english). Nevertheless an important step was taken by the worldwide educational network CUMULUS, when the Kyoto Design Declaration was signed in 2008 as ‘a statement of commitment by the members of Cumulus to sharing the global responsibility for build-ing sustainable, human-centered, creative societies’. See http://www.cumulusassociation.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=637.

Figure 1. Range of possible starting points for education in design for sustainability. Reproduced from Dewberry and Fletcher, with permission



Today the course focuses on positive developments in sustainability and the central role the designer plays in

the choice of materials, colors, decoration and fabric construction along with setting new, more sustainable trends

in response to consumer needs and wants. By showing an aesthetic space in which to act and have an infl uence,

students’ creativity and fantasy are activated.

During the course, students work together for approximately three weeks, mostly in groups of three to four

persons, each group including both textile and fashion students (Figure 2).12 The course normally has a general

theme but the individual group determines the choice of design fi eld. However, it is emphasized that a product,

which nobody wants to buy, cannot be sustainable and that any production, however ecological it may be, consumes

resources, which are wasted if the product is taken directly from production to disposal. The end consumer, cultural

aspects, price, etc. must be taken into account, as well as sustainability, functionality and the product fulfi llment

of consumer needs and wants.

Starting with the academic year 2008/2009, Kolding School of Design is now offering a follow-up to the third

semester course in materials and sustainability to fi fth semester fashion and textile students. The aim of the fi fth

semester course is to give students insight into global production methods and the concept of Corporate Social

Responsibility. The assignment this year was prepared in collaboration with Eurotex Apparel – a Danish company

Figure 2. Example of student project in the third semester course: The Rain Protection Project. On the left, a prototype is tested; on the right, the further developed compostable and biodegradable mackintosh is shown at the Innovation Sustainable Fashion competition in connection with COP 15 in Copenhagen. The project received honorable mention in the category ‘Environmental’

12 The Rain Protection Project was created by Camilla Skøtt Christensen, Lea Parkins Benjaminsen & Randi Samsonsen. Samsonsen.



providing textiles and ready to wear fashion to a number of national as well as international clients. The scope of

the course is both contextualized and widened as the attention moves beyond materials to include issues of pro-

duction, corporate social responsibility and design challenges in a professional setting (Figure 3).13

Over the four-week course, the students are exposed to the demands and requirements of an actual manufactur-

ing company and are asked to focus on designing alternative collections that promote sustainability and ethics as

part of a market strategy. Still, it is emphasized that the fi rst step to creating sustainable products is the quality of

the design, defi ned earlier in the paper as how design successfully corresponds to the needs and wants of a given

context, whether they are aesthetic, functional, environmental or something else.

Introducing materials and sustainability to third semester fashion and textile students and following up with

the more advanced industrial project course in the fi fth semester (Figure 4) holds signifi cant educational potentials.

First, the students become familiar with principles of design responsibility at an early educational stage. Second,

the students’ educational maturation is progressed as the ability to manage the complexity of working with sustain-

able design visibly develops from the third to the fi fth semester. Finally, the students are imbued with the knowl-

edge and confi dence that sustainable design and indeed the designer can make a difference.

Figure 3. Example of student project in the fi fth semester course: The Square Project. The initial analysis is used to identify the design problem and develop ideas

13 The Square Project (fi gures 3 & 4) was created by Anna Ebbesen, Benedicte Holmboe, Elin Sjøgren, Ruth Enoksen, Siff Nielsen, Tina Gabrijelcic & Mette Gliemann.



Teaching Design Criticism

Criticism is an integral aspect of the design profession so it is important to provide design students with insight

and knowledge about the purpose of critique in design practice, which is the aim of the sixth semester course in

design criticism.

Design and criticism represent two different ways of communicating. Whereas design communicates through

visual, tactile and other sensual properties, criticism communicates through spoken and written language. Design

students often feel inadequate when it comes to language, and are as a consequence apprehensive towards design

criticism. According to Schön, verbalization and symbolization are important elements of refl ective practice. It is

a process that makes knowledge explicit and conscious, and so enables communication with others (cf. Schön,

2003 (the Petra/Quist case)). The course seeks to challenge students’ apprehension by introducing them to the

purpose of language in design criticism. The aim is to create awareness of different design discourses and how to

use them strategically as a designer, of the signifi cance of criteria in design and how to use them to solve a design

problem, and of the designer’s responsibility and how to work with the complexity of the design profession.

Whereas the two sustainability courses for fashion and textile students are practice-based, the sixth semester

course in design criticism is theory-based and consists for now of a series of three lectures. For the course the

students are expected to read a selection of texts for each session, and as part of the lectures students are given

short discussion assignments related to the topic of the session (Figure 5).

Aspiring to connect theory-based teaching to practice-based curricula, we have directed the course perspective

from a focus on the critical reception of design to a focus on a critical design practice and how designers can

Figure 4. Example of student project in the fi fi th semester course: The Square Project. The fi nal project is a collection of unisex and transformable garments, which can be worn in several ways



engage in different design discourses through their work, how they can work consciously and responsibly with

criteria to anticipate the effects of their design – desired or undesired. Included in this perspective is DFE and

sustainable design. By explicitly addressing the students’ initial apprehension towards language and introducing

them to criticism as tool for a refl ective practice, the sixth semester course contributes to imbuing the student with

the knowledge and confi dence that design and the designer can make a difference.

Future Perspectives

We will have to be more sensitive to the effect of things on us and to be aware of the implications that come with possessions

Anni Albers

Pioneer textile designer on designing in 1943

(Albers, 2000: 20).

Figure 5. Example of student assignment in the design criticism course: Analysis of the Danish Design Centre’s 2007 design defi nition. Students are given an opportunity to refl ect aloud and exercise their language skill, at fi rst in two- or three-person groups, then in an open plenary discussion



The objective of this paper was to argue for the value of teaching design responsibility based on teaching experi-

ences at the Kolding School of Design. We stated earlier that design responsibility signifi es an attitude towards

the value of design and the role of the designer, and such an attitude requires designers to be assertive about their

power and ability to make a difference through a critical and refl ective design practice. In the end it is about the

quality of design. Throughout the three courses presented here, design students are challenged and required to

ask questions, e.g. via a simplifi ed life cycle assessment analysis of different fi bers, to test their ideas, e.g. through

scenarios of future weather conditions, to set criteria e.g. by determining consumer segment and fi nally to take a

stance as a designer by evaluating the knowledge gained in this process and make an informed choice that consid-

ers responsibility and sustainability issues as well as the designer’s aesthetic space.

As any teacher will know, course intentions and course outcomes do not always correlate. The paper has

described how the initial approach to the sustainability course did not elicit the expected response, and how the

focus was changed. Working with industry is neither a guarantee that the students will adhere to the aesthetic

space given within the company brief. To succeed it requires an explicit focus from both teachers and the compa-

nies involved. It is also a challenge to stimulate refl ection in a lecture-based course such as design criticism,

especially when plenary discussions involve 50 to 60 students.

Despite these diffi culties, we argue that teaching design responsibility and sustainability is valuable in the design

education at the Kolding School of Design, as it creates awareness of the criteria for design, of the effects of design

and perhaps most importantly of the designer’s ability to infl uence the design process from an idea to an end

product. Furthermore, we contend that connecting and developing the presented courses will benefi t design educa-

tion in general. Until recently, the courses in sustainability have been reserved for third and fi fth semester fashion

and textile students, but from the academic year 2009/2010, they are offered to our industrial design students as

well. We believe the courses would be benefi cial to any design student. Moreover, we advocate further development

and connection of the courses. We propose that students start with the course in materials and sustainability, and

then take the course in design criticism, before they are given an industry project course. As we described the

educational maturation is already proving benefi cial between the two practice-based courses, introducing the course

in criticism before the industry project course would strengthen the students’ refl ective practice and ability to

manage the complexity of working with sustainable design. Ideally, we would like to conclude the series of courses

with another criticism course to provide the students with a theoretical superstructure refl ecting the learning from

the previous courses. This would give a more substantial knowledge for the students to develop their individual

projects in the master program. For future course modules, we would also recommend developing a deeper dis-

cussion about the concept of quality in design, and if and how design eventually can help develop a common sense

of environmental citizenship as described by Dobson. This may bring about changes not only in attitudes and

behaviors of designers, but of manufacturers, distributors and consumers as well, thereby furthering sustainability

and the common good.

Ideally, responsibility and sustainability would be an integrated part of all courses in the design curriculum. To

make this happen, a highly focused upgrading of knowledge and skills is urgently needed for all design educators.

We may have come a long way since 1992, but as Dewberry and Fletcher also noted back in 2001 sustainable

design education is still in development and remains to be fully and naturally integrated in design education.

As Susan S. Szenay concludes: ‘Perhaps when we understand that good design is responsible design, we will no longer need to rely on clumsy, descriptive words. We’ll just call it design – a noble and necessary human activity,’ (Szenasy,

2003: 24).

References

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Documents

Design responsibility and sustainable design as reflective practice: an educational challenge