Design for a Sustainable Culture

Perspectives, Practices and Education

Astrid Skjerven, Janne Reitan, Astrid Skjerven, Janne Reitan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351857963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economía
• Subtopic: Diseño de productos

As culture is becoming increasingly recognised as a crucial element of sustainable development, design competence has emerged as a useful tool in creating a meaningful life within a sustainable mental, cultural and physical environment.

Design for a Sustainable Culture explores the relationship between sustainability, culture and the shaping of human surroundings by examining the significance and potential of design as a tool for the creation of sustainable development. Drawing on interdisciplinary case studies and investigations from Europe, North America and India, this book discusses theoretical, methodological and educational aspects of the role of design in relation to human well-being and provides a unique perspective on the interface between design, culture and sustainability.

This book will appeal to researchers as well as postgraduate and undergraduate students in design and design literacy, crafts, architecture and environmental planning, but also scholars of sustainability from other disciplines who wish to understand the role and impact of design and culture in sustainable development.

1
Introduction

Astrid Skjerven and Janne Beate Reitan

Design for a sustainable culture: methods, practices and education

The relationship between culture and nature is antagonistic. Harmony with nature has consistently been an ideal, but rarely a reality. Culture, understood as patterns of thinking, communicating and acting, has often diverged from or even counteracted harmony, causing damage to nature and undermining sustainability. In recent decades, our ability to shape our surroundings has increased to a degree that has resulted in profound changes to nature (Böhme, 2001). At the same time, the persistent urge for progress has sometimes prompted the rejection of cultural traditions.

Design is both a way of shaping our surroundings and an expression of the culture to which it belongs. It is a professional activity performed by highly educated practitioners, but all humans take part in shaping the environment of their daily lives, and thus design is also performed by the layperson. Therefore, knowledge of design and awareness of its potential to contribute to sustainable development is relevant to everyone.

The role of design

The term design has been used in various ways among the general public and within different research disciplines. It is derived from the French term dessin and the Italian term disegno, which both mean to construct something with a particular aim or intention. In this book, design is understood as the competence to creatively shape our surroundings using a combination of aesthetical, practical and technical means. Design is the only profession besides architecture that specialises in this combination. Traditionally, it has been read within a ‘modern’ tradition. It was a result of the Industrial Revolution, and was directed towards the mass-production manufacture of objects, the Modern Movement and the consumer society (Julier, 1993). This notion also maintains that the ideal goal of design is to create a meaningful life for present and future generations, thereby implicitly contributing to sustainable development. During the last three decades, along with the expansion and diversification of the design activity, understanding of the term has become blurred and its definition diluted. In 2004, the authoritative design historian Jonathan Woodham simply described it as ‘an activity that concerns daily life’ (Woodham, 2004), which can hardly be characterised as a definition at all.

The understanding of design adopted in this book is built on John Heskett’s definition of design: ‘the human capacity to shape and make our environment in ways without precedent in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives’ (Heskett, 2002, p. 7). It comprises both professional and lay activity, spans from objects and services to area planning and fulfils practical, emotional and aesthetical requirements. The ability to create both cultural and physical sustainability is closely related to and dependent on the arts and aesthetics combined with other kinds of actions (Kagan, 2013). Therefore, design, which comprises all these ingredients, is an especially useful competence. Although it is a professional activity, design is also performed by everyone in the shaping of our daily surroundings and in our choice and use of material and virtual artefacts (Saito, 2007). Indeed, interactions with virtual media involve a strong materiality, which makes the two quite similar. This book has a certain emphasis on material artefacts, which also constitutes a basis for virtuality.

Sustainable design and design for sustainability have been a growing research field, particularly in the last decade (e.g. Bhamra, Lofthouse & Cooper, 2016; Chapman, 2015; Chick & Micklethwaite, 2011; Fry, 2009; Vezzoli & Manzini, 2008; Walker & Giard, 2013), since Victor Papanek (1971) started the discussion. However, unlike the present book, the connection between design, sustainability and culture is not a main theme in any of these studies. During the last four decades, designers have been engaged in using their profession in a way that contributes to sustainable development. Catch phrases like eco design and green design have flourished, and methodologies to meet these requirements have been developed. This activity has focused on the physical environment and use of eco-friendly materials. As culture has increasingly been recognised as a precondition for and main ingredient in sustainable development, the role of design has changed. The activity’s ability to create aesthetically pleasing surroundings that contribute to human well-being and communication, and finding innovative solutions based on traditions has made design a core ingredient in cultural matters, whether it is culture for, in or as sustainability (Soini & Dessein, 2016). Until recently, design’s significance as a tool to transform the environment and affect people’s lives has been relatively unknown outside the design community. The discipline’s cultural platform, humanistic intentions, multidisciplinary approach and practical goals constitute values that need to be communicated and further discussed and developed. The discourse on sustainability has hitherto been dominated by the social and environmental sciences, and design research is a fruitful complement to these disciplines.

The traditional aim of professional design activity is to shape the human environment and its artefacts in order to create a meaningful life for both existing and future generations (see Skjerven’s article in this book). It is and should be further utilised to play a vital role in sustainable development. The design profession’s long experience comprises various cultural traditions and can be useful in increasing cultural diversity and adapting traditions to contemporary and future requirements. On the other hand, it may also contribute to increased consumption, pollution and lack of critical reflection. The profession has been heavily criticised for this (Baudrillard, 1998; Foster, 2002). The contents of this book will hopefully shed light on its many and powerful roles by problematising its various means and effects and by presenting historic, contemporary and future solutions to create sustainable development.

There are many definitions of cultural sustainability. Our starting point is the definition provided in the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development’s (which was chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland) report Our Common Future: ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Here the future of humankind is put in the forefront, instead of nature, which means that culture is given a paramount role. This definition was regarded as controversial when it was first introduced due to its lack of focus on environmental matters, and it was never universally accepted (Manns, 2010). In 2012, the definition was expanded at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Rio+20):

Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Seen as the guiding principle for long-term global development, sustainable development consists of three pillars: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

(United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, 2012)

According to the definition from Our Common Future in 1987, sustainable development implements ethical norms of welfare, distribution and democracy, while recognising nature’s limited ability to absorb human-made encroachments and pollution. In the expanded definition from the Rio+20 Conference in 2012, the interrelation of environmental, social and economic goals are identified as separate, but parallel important factors, although these pillars were identified already in 2002.

The COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action IS1007 Investigating Cultural Sustainability (COST European cooperation in science and technology, 2011–2015) represents yet another stage in the definition of cultural sustainability. Initially, one of its main goals was to establish culture as a fourth and main pillar. It has since problematized the significance of culture and has identified three important roles culture plays in sustainable development: in, for and as sustainable development. These roles imply, first, ‘culture in sustainable development’, expanding the conventional sustainable development discourse by adding culture as a self-standing fourth pillar alongside separate ecological, social and economic considerations and imperatives. Second, ‘culture for sustainable development’ moves culture into a framing, contextualising and mediating mode, one that can balance all three of the existing pillars and guide sustainable development between economic, social and ecological pressures and needs. Third, ‘culture as sustainable development’ means that there can be an even more fundamental role for culture, which sees it as the essential foundation and structure for achieving the aims of sustainable development. In these roles, culture integrates, coordinates and guides all aspects of sustainable action (Dessein, Soini, Fairclough & Horlings, 2015). These three aspects have been further developed such that culture in sustainability is identified as cultural capital, for is considered a way of life and as is viewed as semiosis (Soini & Dessein, 2016). The activity of design is strongly involved in all of these aspects.

In the Kyoto Design Declaration, the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media (Cumulus) declared that the aim should be as follows:

… to contribute to sustainable social, environmental, cultural and economic development for current and future generations, the Cumulus members will commit themselves to accepting their part in the further education of our youth within a value system where each of us recognizes our global responsibility to build sustainable, human-centred, creative societies.

(Cumulus, 2008)

The Kyoto Design Declaration thus defined the crucial role of design literacy, i.e. the awareness and competence of the layperson to create sustainable development. We apply the concept of design literacy as developed by the research team Design literacy at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. The concept is not new, as it has been used to describe competencies in graphic design (Heller & Pomeroy, 1997) and to promote the lifelong learning of design (Nielsen & Digranes, 2012). Design literacy has also appeared within the European Union (EU) system, e.g. in the report Design for Growth and Prosperity, where the European Design Leadership Board (EDLB) provided 21 recommendations for the future development of Europe to the EU Commission (European Design Leadership Board, 2012). Recommendation 20 is to ‘Raise the level of design literacy for all the citizens of Europe by fostering a culture of “design learning for all” at every level of the education system’ by focusing on general design education for all (European Design Leadership Board, 2012, p. 73). Recommendation 21 focuses on professional design education, where member states of the EU are encouraged to support the development of design competencies for the twenty-first century by embedding the strategic role of design across disciplines in higher education (European Design Leadership Board, 2012, p. 73). Nielsen and Brænne (2013, p. 6) conclude as follows: ‘It is, however, time to be future oriented on behalf of the balance between nature and culture. The design literacy concept must be further discussed.’ The design literacy research team has been focused on a continuum of design education from kindergarten to PhD in the research journal FORMakademisk (2008), the DRS//Cumulus conference in 2013 (Reitan, 2013), a cooperation between the Design Research Society (DRS) and the International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media (Cumulus), and in the research network DesignDialog (n.d.). The aim is to change the culture by providing design education to professionals and the general public in order to develop a more sustainable and democratic society.

In this book, we see design as a crucial component of culture. It includes a wide perspective of artefacts and professions and we thus utilise a broad interpretation of design: ‘everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ (Simon, 1969, p. 55). There is a move towards understanding design products and processes as composed of symbiotic hybrids between design products, media types, services, architecture, communicative spaces, networks and modes of creation, production and exchange (Knutsen & Morrison 2010). We agree with Ezio Manzini, who argues as follows:

Describing design as a problem solver means considering its role in the first world (physical and biological), but when we consider it as a sense maker, we are collocating it in the second (that of meanings and the conversations that produce them).

(Manzini, 2015, p. 35)

This book is intended to offer insights into the conditions for the creation of sustainable development through design. Professional design is a discipline with its own culture, values and modes of operation and is based on a humanistic ideology. However, its practitioners and stakeholders have their own agendas and objectives, and the present conditions for utilising design in sustainable development are thus limited. How to approach these contradictions in a constructive way that opens up for fruitful cooperation presents a major challenge that demands to be met with various official measurements and other actions and the development of useful design approaches. Several chapters discuss and present examples of such efforts.

Thematic and conceptual framework

The contemporary preoccupation with non-practical matters related to aesthetic and personal sensations has resulted in an ‘economy of experience’ (Lash & Lury, 2007). As a result, aestheticisation has acquired paramount significance in all human activities (Welsch, 1998) and even in nature (Böhme, 2001). In this way, design as an aestheticizing component has become a key factor in the creation of sustainability, but it can still be used for other purposes. Design has often been associated with and criticised for stimulating superficiality and affluence – and not without reason (Foster, 2002; Baudrillard, 1998). This book examines the significance of design literacy (Nielsen & Brænne, 2013) as a powerful competence, which can fulfil, create and manipulate human needs. However, this research also focuses on the lesser known dimension of design as an activity that can contribute to the improvement of human well-being and sustainable development.

Worldwide environmental problems are closely linked t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series introduction
• Notes on contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• PART I Contextual perspectives
• PART II Environments
• PART III Products and cultures
• PART IV Design education for citizenship
• Index