Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Aaron Degenhart on February 23, 2012 at 14:42

Hi Alexandra, as the question is formulated it doesn't really make sense, does it? "Sustainability" is not a thing or a person, it will not change anything itself. It's something to commit to, something to think into everything we plan and do - or not. So i guess the question could be asked something like this: "From all influential factors, how will those that happened in the intention of sustainability have an effect on the domains of design and innovation in the next few years?".

But then one can't help acknowledging that it's not a one-way influence; many impulses along the way will come from 'design' and 'innovation'... so the question could just as well be "How will design and innovation change our approaches to sustainability over the next few years?", or not? Maybe replacing the "will" with a "can" unleashes more energy... after all the attempt of prediction is influencing that which we attempt to predict.

Permalink Reply by Khristian Méndez on February 23, 2012 at 15:27

And then, here's my attempt to answer the reframing of the question:

I think that design will and has the power to innovate towards sustainability, but as anything, it depends what you use it for. Design can green-wash or can change the way we produce, communicate, and even think about things from the core.

But the thing is that, design must become sustainable both in form and content. Not only we need to find ways of producing things that are more sustainable, but we also need to use design to promote a culture that is sustainable as way. By a sustainable culture I mean a culture that finds ways of meeting their needs with internal and not external sources, and one that does not place so much value on consumption as a form of satisfying our needs.

:]

Khristian

Permalink Reply by kate shaw on May 19, 2012 at 6:09

I am interested in the idea that susatinability shifts the focus of design from reconsidering the solution to reconsidering the system. This requires a different starting point for design and innovation in production systems and total life cycles.