Integrating social factors through design analysis.

Abstract

In recent years there has been a drive to embed sustainable development (SD) into UK higher education design curricula, encouraged and supported by the professional institutions. Progress is evident with approaches involving problem based learning (PBL) and peer assisted learning (PAL) yielding measurable benefits. Activity has focused toward quantitative environmental and economic impacts while less tangible qualitative social factors are ignored or isolated from the design process. Recently the "social usefulness" concept has emerged, engaging these aspects within the design process. To engage students with the broader elements of SD, particularly the social sphere, a short course was developed from ongoing research. Building upon previous work the compulsory course ran for the first week of the academic year with first and second year students involved in no other academic activities. Groups conducted design analysis of consumer products broadening to a sustainability perspective. This included social usefulness, the product-service mix and material utilisation. Didactic elements were restricted, emphasising underlying concepts with learning delivered through PBL, PAL and student presentations, discussion and reflective learning accounts. Students developed understanding of sustainability and relevance to engineering and design. They discriminated between aspirational and inspirational products, understood how social usefulness links to function and how the product-service mix influences material utilisation. PBL and PAL encouraged students to develop strategies for problem solving and learning, skills required for study within HE and beyond into lifelong learning and continuous professional development. Emotional attachment to the products was unexpected and inhibited the students' ability to consider them objectively. This was unexpected and considered an important learning observation leading the research team to consider adapting the phenomena to both existing and proposed learning programmes.