Design for Sustainability
Design for Sustainability covers a broad range of interrelated topics and research interests - from large scale environments and urban planning to architecture and product design. Within ImaginationLancaster the focus is primarily on the design-related and social aspects of sustainability, which link to other areas of expertise such as engineering and environmental management.
The research brings together information and expertise from many sources and develops arguments, theories and scenarios to pursue our understandings of sustainability. In addition, a key aspect of the design-centred approach at ImaginationLancaster is the visualization of sustainable directions, scenarios and solutions – from the urban scale to the product scale.
Current Research Activities
Emerging directions in design for sustainability
Design-centred research that explores the integration of large-scale mass production and local-scale bespoke methods in the development of notional, illustrative sustainable objects.
Project Overview
This research explores the meaning and potential forms of functional objects that emerge from including localization and distributed creativity in the development of our material culture. Theoretical approaches, and the development of reasoned arguments that address the social, personal, environmental and economic elements of sustainability are developed to provide the foundation for conceptual design work, which transforms these ideas into tangible objects. The creative activity of designing is a primary mode of inquiry that, together with the resulting artefacts, stimulates further theoretical inquiry. This forms an interconnected, iterative process that has at its core design – both as a process and an outcome.
More Information
Contact: Professor Stuart Walker
Develop new cross-disciplinary thinking on environmental sustainability, and develop and test innovations that can enable individuals and communities to live in a more sustainable way in urban settings. Basic research into technological and social innovation will be combined with public engagement.
Project Overview
Tarmac has no conscience. Supermarkets know no restraint. In urban environments we are separated from the consequences of our actions as surely as the tarmac of the road cuts us off from the earth beneath. Between the cracks in the pavement, another world flourishes: recycling, environmental collectives, community activism.
The project aims to generate, evaluate and seed social and technological innovations in urban sustainability which can contribute to mitigation and adaptation to climate change. It will involve collaboration between environmental sustainability experts, artists and designers, and researchers working in ubiquitous, pervasive and mobile communication technology.
GOAL: To contribute to
- improved environmental sustainability in urban environments and better wellbeing
- enhanced innovation and harness everyday creativity
- an interdisciplinary and international network of experts, practitioners and interest groups
- overcome the disassociation between impactors and impacted
Milestones in the Environment 2.0 project were a major conference event in Manchester in May 2007, and a workshop at Lancaster University in December 2007. One outcome was a pilot carbon audit at a major cultural festival in association with Tyndall Centre Manchester, FutureEverything and Creative Concern with seed funding by North West Regional Development Agency. International journal Leonardo has invited a special issue linked to the project, an invited workshop will take place at ISEA2008 in Singapore during August 2008, and a series of participatory projects involving communities, artists and technologists which will be presented at a major exhibition in Manchester during May 2009.
VivaCity2020 is a university-led research consortium, comprised of 5 UK universities and over 100 partner organisations. In 2003, VivaCity2020 received £2.75M from the EPSRC to undertake a five-year programme of research into the design and delivery of sustainable urban environments. The aim was to develop an in-depth understanding of human behaviour in urban environments and to create new practical resources to support urban design professionals with sustainable design decision-making.
Project Overview
The key the the VivaCity2020 programme was to understand the trade-offs made every day by city dwellers and city developers. The first step was to understand the processes they use to make their decisions: what information they value and what they do not, but this changes from decision-maker to decision-maker and from situation to situation.
The ability of decision-makers (eg. city developers, residents and workers) to make more sustainable decisions relies upon them having accurate and relevant information. It is currently quite difficult to access this information, if the information exists at all.
Through innovative and interdisciplinary research, VivaCity2020 has developed a toolkit of resources that can be used to navigate urban sustainability issues. The toolkit addresses sustainability issues by encouraging decision-makers to think about sustainability in a user-centred, holistic way, identifying overlaps and trade-offs as the drivers of decision-making.
More Information
Website: www.vivacity2020.eu
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