Course syllabus

Welcome to the course in Design Practice, Sustainability and Ethics!

We are happy to invite you to the coming course and are eager to start this course with you! We look forward to exploring issues and possibilities in design, sustainability and ethics along the way with you all!

Course introduction Monday 19^th February 15:30–20:00 in Bio Valand

See below for more info about this day. Due to the teachers’ planning week, you will have your own work for the rest of this first week. Submission on the first assignment (Entanglement 1) is Friday first week, 23^rd February, at 16:00. More info about the assignment will be given at the intro session. In short, it is about reading and writing. See also course literature below.

Course introduction 2 Monday 26^th February 10:00–16:30 in room 310  

You will be given a more formal course introduction and be introduced to the other course teachers, Entanglement 2’s theme and layout. We will also look at the schedule, learning progression and learning goals of the course. 

In this course, emphasis will be put on how you, as a becoming designer, approach and navigate the complex concepts of sustainability and ethics. You will further develop critical, analytical, and artistic approaches to the subject and the design profession. You will also meet active practitioners and researchers within the design field.

Theoretical learnings from the course “An Object’s Biography” will be contextualized, and you will process issues in an artistic conceptual practice. Through three modules, you will activate your own engagement to develop a design practice that responds to the central concepts of sustainability and ethics. And explore how we can fulfil our fundamental needs via inner methods through design and how our design can be created in symbiosis with nature.

The first week

The first week of the course, as well as the first module (w. 8, 19–23 February) will be primarily individual studies; there will be no lectures since all teachers have planning week. We will briefly introduce the course and kick off your processes by watching a movie together.

We meet for an introduction at 15:30 in Bio Valand. From 17:00, we start the movie. It is not mandatory to watch the movie on this day; if you prefer to watch it at home instead, that’s fine. But, even if you have seen it before, we really recommend seeing it again—with new eyes.

This movie and the literature below will be the starting point for your studies for the rest of the first week. The other two modules in the course will be built on the knowledge you gain in this first week.

Course literature

The book The Designer's Atlas of Sustainability by Ann Thorpe is assigned this week, and its bibliography is below. The book can be found in both English and Swedish.

Thorpe, Ann; övers. Marianne Wijkmark, Design för hållbar utveckling : ekologi, ekonomi, kultur. Stockholm: Raster, 2008.

Thorpe, Ann, The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability. Washington D.C.: Island Press, 2007.

For now, you will find the schedule in TimEdit, but we will use the Canvas calendar when the course starts.