Sustainability and Design Lab
At present, change at every level of our society is needed to address the complex issues, such as the loss of biodiversity, environmental and climate issues, inequalities and overconsumption. These issues require novel, imaginative and alternative ways of thinking and problem-solving, involving inter-disciplinary team efforts. We perceive design and complex system thinking as a key to open a way to future and more sustainable lifestyles that are in harmony with nature.
Every present moment is arrived at by a variety of trajectories from different points in the past and leads to a multitude of alternative futures. We focus on digital technologies and their potential to break or make these futures.
We base our research on work coming out of the Carnegie Mellon University School for Design led by Irwin and Tonkinwise [1,2] and Raworth, Rockström and others working on safe space for the humanity [3,4]. The figure above, from [3], shows the safe and just space for humanity.
1. Terry Irwin. 2018. The Emerging Transition Design Approach. DRS 2018.
2. Terry Irwin, Gideon Kossoff, Cameron Tonkinwise, and Peter Scupelli. 2015. Transition design 2015.
3. Kate Raworth. 2017. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont.
4. Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, et al. 2015. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347, 6223: 1259855.