Teaching modules
DTB018: Sustainable Design
Department: Design and Technology
In the Department of Design and Technology Sustainable Design is integrated throughout the core curriculum so all students build an understanding of how design can contribute to sustainability.
However, the more in depth optional Sustainable Design module is offered enabling students to begin to explore the challenging and innovative elements of the subject. To make the sustainable development concepts more ‘digestible’ the module team conveys them under three main themes: Resources; People; and Systems. These key themes provide a framework for activity across both semesters but more from an explicit to implicit state as the students become more familiar with the landscape of the broader picture of sustainability and its links to designing.
The module incorporates a range of learning styles. The first semester focuses on delivering core content by combining traditional lectures with design activity. Students engage with the formal lecture approach and then split into groups to discuss and respond to a short design activity that reflects that week’s core sustainable design theme.
The second semester is dominated by project–led learning where external organisations deliver a series of design briefs to the students who then work on developing sustainable design outcomes over the 12 week period. All of the lectures, seminars and tutorial activity is directly linked to their designing and covers subjects such as creativity, tools for sustainable design, emotional durability and sustainable behaviour.
