Abstract
For sustainable practices to emerge, they have to be tried out. In the design intervention A Car-free Year, we studied the particularities of three families’ changed practices. With a collaborative mind-set, the practices’ constituting elements were analysed, and their intertwined links followed, forming possible design concepts. When designing these seeds for changed practices, we have found, through the knowledge gained from the participants’ different perspectives, possibilities to design initiatives that could enable more people to live car-free. We believe that designing enabling ecosystems, where all types of elements encourage sustainable practices, can be an important role of sustainable design. Furthermore, design research can challenge existing societal norms, as clearly revealed in this project, and consequently inspire more people to make sustainable lifestyle choices.
Keywords
sustainable design, practice-oriented design, service design, collaborative design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.190
Citation
Hesselgren, M., and Hasselqvist, H. (2016) Give car-free life a try: Designing seeds for changed practices, 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.2016.190
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Give car-free life a try: Designing seeds for changed practices
For sustainable practices to emerge, they have to be tried out. In the design intervention A Car-free Year, we studied the particularities of three families’ changed practices. With a collaborative mind-set, the practices’ constituting elements were analysed, and their intertwined links followed, forming possible design concepts. When designing these seeds for changed practices, we have found, through the knowledge gained from the participants’ different perspectives, possibilities to design initiatives that could enable more people to live car-free. We believe that designing enabling ecosystems, where all types of elements encourage sustainable practices, can be an important role of sustainable design. Furthermore, design research can challenge existing societal norms, as clearly revealed in this project, and consequently inspire more people to make sustainable lifestyle choices.