Design Education for a Sustainable Future

Sustainability and the Age of Integration

Sustainability is a powerful force that is fundamentally reshaping humanity’s relationship to the natural world and is ushering in the Age of Integration. The move from well-intentioned environmental friendliness to the higher bar of integral sustainability and regenerative design demands a new type of design professional, one that is deeply collaborative, ethically grounded, empathically connected and technologically empowered.

A New Approach in Design Education

As a response, this book argues for a great leap forward in design education: from an individualistic and competitive model casually focused on greening; to a new approach defined by an integral consciousness, shaped by the values of inclusivity and cooperation, and implemented by a series of integrative behaviors including:

• an ethically infused design brief
• a co-creative design process
• on-going value engineering
• pre-emptive engineering
• design validation through simulation
• on-line enabled integrated learning
• the use of well vetted rating systems.

Frameworks and Methodologies for Sustainable Design

This book contains the integral frameworks, whole system change methodologies and intrinsic values that will assist professors and their students in an authentic and effective pursuit of design education for a sustainable future.