Abstract
This paper presents 'designs with benefits' by capitalising on the joint benefits of sustainability and wellbeing. Designs with benefits are proposed through four ‘in-between’ themes for design goals as a new direction in supporting sustainability through design. We conducted post-hoc case study research on student projects from two studios: a studio working on sustainability, and a studio working on wellbeing. We searched for aspects in the sustainable studio's work that would promote wellbeing, and, conversely, for aspects in the wellbeing studio's work that would promote sustainability. Looking at three student projects we selected from each studio resulted in four themes we propose as in-betweens to open the door towards crossover approaches. They are: open reflection, pathway activities, resource and material preservation as side effect, and broader insights. Examples of design work illustrating the themes are given and implications for sustainable design discussed.
Keywords
design for sustainability; design for wellbeing; case study; crossover
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.466
Citation
Boess, S., and Pohlmeyer, A. (2016) Design with benefits: hearth fire nights and bittersweet chores, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.466
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Design with benefits: hearth fire nights and bittersweet chores
This paper presents 'designs with benefits' by capitalising on the joint benefits of sustainability and wellbeing. Designs with benefits are proposed through four ‘in-between’ themes for design goals as a new direction in supporting sustainability through design. We conducted post-hoc case study research on student projects from two studios: a studio working on sustainability, and a studio working on wellbeing. We searched for aspects in the sustainable studio's work that would promote wellbeing, and, conversely, for aspects in the wellbeing studio's work that would promote sustainability. Looking at three student projects we selected from each studio resulted in four themes we propose as in-betweens to open the door towards crossover approaches. They are: open reflection, pathway activities, resource and material preservation as side effect, and broader insights. Examples of design work illustrating the themes are given and implications for sustainable design discussed.