84909 Product Design and Sustainability
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particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks
Requisite(s): 84611 Integrated Product Design AND 84117 Product Design Communication B
Description
This subject explores the challenges and opportunities associated with sustaining and revitalising healthy ecologies on planet earth, at a time of sigificant environmental and technological change. Recognition of the importance of the present moment as a time of transition, and the need for design that can enable positive human responses to feedback from the dynamic systems that we participate in and depend upon, are starting points for a commitment to the principles of sustainable design. Students are introduced to a range of strategies to address the sustainability of designed products and product-enabled practices. The focus will be on the roles and impacts of designed products, including both whole-of-life impacts of the product's materials and form, and the roles played by products in shaping sustainable or unsustainable attitudes and behaviours. Through studio projects, students develop values-based product design proposals that can help us realise more promising relations within planetary eco-systems.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:
| 1. | Display an in-depth understanding of the underlying sustainability drivers in context |
|---|---|
| 2. | Identify and evaluate relevant sustainability strategies for product design applications |
| 3. | Demonstrate critical thinking on the use of sustainability strategies within different contexts |
| 4. | Demonstrate skills in the development, explanation and realisation of research-led product design responses to sustainability challenges in the current context |
| 5. | Discuss and debate co-operatively and professionally with their peers on topics within sustainability |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:
- Demonstrated engagement with ideas and learning (A.1)
- Value for richly diverse and sustainable human cultures and environmental ecologies (A.4)
- Effective tangible 3D representation (C.3)
- Ability to work in teams and in multi-disciplinary contexts (C.4)
- Demonstrated ability for problem setting and problem solving (I.1)
- Demonstration of aesthetic sensibility (I.3)
- Ability to critically evaluate ethical practices including the protection of Indigenous Intellectual property rights across Product Design projects and industry (P.6)
Contribution to the development of graduate attributes
The term CAPRI is used for the five Design, Architecture and Building faculty graduate attribute categories where:
C = communication and groupwork
A = attitudes and values
P = practical and professional
R = research and critique
I = innovation and creativity.
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs) are linked to these categories using codes (e.g. C-1, A-3, P-4, etc.).
Teaching and learning strategies
This subject uses an inquiry-based learning strategy that involves students researching and developing their own solutions to complex design challenges. The design process and strategies taught in this subject are relevant to current professional practice in a global context. Students work in collaborative teams to develop research-based understandings of product user contexts and experiences, drawing on material developed within and between classes. Individual design propositions that reference these research-based understandings, are iteratively developed by students over the course of the semester. Studio leaders offer ongoing, in-class support and guidance for the development of these integrated product design propositions. It is therefore imperative that students attend all classes. Regular verbal feedback is provided in class by peers and studio leaders. Feedback on collaborative work will be given via a voluntary Self and Peer Assessment system. Some formal feedback may be provided by the studio leaders in response to student in-class presentations of task-work, in Canvas.
It shall be the students' responsibility to record any feedback provided in studio. During presentations students will be expected to actively participate in collaborative peer review feedback exercises. Students will also be supported by the Level 2 Faculty Workshop in the construction of presentation models and/or prototypes. Grades, marks and feedback on task submissions will be provided through Canvas.
An additional aim of this subject is to help you develop academic and professional language and communication skills to succeed at university and in the workplace. During the course of this subject, you will complete a milestone assessment task that will, in addition to assessing your subject-specific learning objectives, assess your English language proficiency. This will not influence your assessment of the design assessment tasks in this subject.
Content (topics)
Subject content will vary depending on design tasks, but generally, will include:
- Critical reflection - on the socio-cultural, environmental and economic contexts that create opportunities and challenges for environmentally sustainable design; and on the role of design in supporting or re-directing behaviours impacting environmental un/sustainability.
- Research - including prototyping and user testing of design propositions to gauge the likely success of particular product-based strategies for fostering more sustainable practices.
- Design - specific product or product-service system propositions to achieve more environmentally sustainable practices.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Project 1
| Intent: | This task requires students to demonstrate their understanding of how to approach the application of Indigenous intellectual property rights in Product Design projects. Full details of this task will be supplied on a Task Sheet available through Canvas. | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 3 and 5 This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.): C.4 and P.6 | ||||||||||||
| Type: | Case study | ||||||||||||
| Groupwork: | Individual | ||||||||||||
| Weight: | 10% | ||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 2: Project 2
| Intent: | This task allows students to develop a deeper understanding of how to use selected sustainability strategies to achieve more sustainable design, through a full design process. Details of this task will be supplied on a Task Sheet available through Canvas. | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 2, 3 and 4 This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.): A.1, A.4, C.3 and I.1 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Type: | Design/drawing/plan/sketch | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Groupwork: | Individual | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight: | 50% | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 3: Project 3
| Intent: | This task progresses from task 2, providing further practice in utilising specific sustainability strategies within product design processes. Details of this task will be supplied on a Task Sheet available through Canvas. | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 2 and 4 This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.): A.4, I.1 and I.3 | ||||||||||||||||
| Type: | Design/drawing/plan/sketch | ||||||||||||||||
| Groupwork: | Individual | ||||||||||||||||
| Weight: | 40% | ||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Minimum requirements
The DAB attendance policy requires students to attend no less than 80% of formal teaching sessions (lectures and tutorials) for each class they are enrolled in to remain eligible for assessment.
References
Attenborough, D. F. (2020). A Life on Our Planet - my witness statement and a vision for the future. Witness Books.
Bhamra, T.A., Hernandez-Pardo, R.J. & Mawle, R. (2013). Sustainability: methods and practices. In: Walker, S. and Giard, J. Handbook of Design for Sustainability. pp106-120. Bloomsbury.
Benyus, J (2002). Biomimicry (2nd ed.). HarperCollins.
Braungart, M. & McDonough, W. (2009). Cradle to Cradle. Vintage.
Faud-Luke, A. (2010). Eco-design, the Sourcebook. Chronicle Books.
Fuad-Luke, A. (2009). Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World. Routledge.
Gammage, B. (2011). The Biggest Estate on Earth – how Aborigines made Australia. Allen & Unwin.
Goleman, D. (2009) Ecological Intelligence - the coming age of radical transparency. Penguin.
Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens – a brief history of humankind. Vintage.
Hawken, P., Lovins, A. B. & Lovins, L. H. (2000) Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution. Earthscan.
Hawken, P. (2010). The Ecology of Commerce. Harper.
Muthu, S. & Savalani, M (Eds.) (2016). Handbook of Sustainability in Additive Manufacturing: Volume 1 (Environmental Footprints and Eco-Design of Products and Processes). Springer.
Papanek, V. (1971). Design for the Real World - made to measure. Thames & Hudson.
Pascoe, B. (2018). Dark Emu – Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture (2nd ed.). Magabala Books.
Sheldrake, M. (2020) Entangled Life - how fungi make our worlds, change our minds, and shape our futures.Penguin.
Steffensen, V. (2020). Fire Country - how indigenous fire management could help save Australia. Hardie Grant Travel.
Thompson, R. (2013). Sustainable Materials, Processes and Production. Thames Hudson.
Walker, S. (2006). Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice. Routledge.
Wilson, F. R. (1998). The Hand – how it shapes the brain, language, and human culture. Vintage.
Yunkaporta, T. (2019). Sand Talk - how indigenous thinking can save the world. The Text Publishing Company.