Abstract
With the pressure of growing environmental problems, the world is changing and so is the paradigm of design. Accordingly, the calls for change in design education have been increasing throughout the literature day by day. As the designers of the future, students must be prepared for alternative scenarios. This article describes an assignment which is a part of the master’s degree design course at Linköping University. In this project, repair is integrated into product design education aiming to explore insights about repair and sustainability. The requirement of the assignment for each student was to visibly repair one or more products in an aesthetically pleasing way by using different design perspectives such as artistic, industrial and critical perspectives. In the end, the students have repaired fifteen different types of products including a bicycle, leggings and a motorcycle part. Aiming to find out the insights of this process and articulate each students’ views a focus group session was conducted. As a result of this focus group session, fifteen insights were developed such as the concepts of brokenness, designed repair and the collaboration / social aspect. All these insights emphasize the richness of the repair as a subject area and how it can be used in product design education to teach sustainability principles. Repair is an inevitable part of a product’s life and it should be understood and applied to its maximum extent if we are to transition to a circular economy. The value of this research for academics and researchers is in providing a case of incorporating repair into product design education. For design practice, its value lies in showing concrete examples as well as insights from diverse repair processes.
Keywords
repair, product design, circular economy, design education
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.16117
Citation
Özkan, N.G.,and Wever, R.(2019) Integrating repair into product design education: Insights on repair, design and sustainability, in Börekçi, N., Koçyıldırım, D., Korkut, F. and Jones, D. (eds.), Insider Knowledge, DRS Learn X Design Conference 2019, 9-12 July, Ankara, Turkey. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.16117
Creative Commons License
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Integrating repair into product design education: Insights on repair, design and sustainability
With the pressure of growing environmental problems, the world is changing and so is the paradigm of design. Accordingly, the calls for change in design education have been increasing throughout the literature day by day. As the designers of the future, students must be prepared for alternative scenarios. This article describes an assignment which is a part of the master’s degree design course at Linköping University. In this project, repair is integrated into product design education aiming to explore insights about repair and sustainability. The requirement of the assignment for each student was to visibly repair one or more products in an aesthetically pleasing way by using different design perspectives such as artistic, industrial and critical perspectives. In the end, the students have repaired fifteen different types of products including a bicycle, leggings and a motorcycle part. Aiming to find out the insights of this process and articulate each students’ views a focus group session was conducted. As a result of this focus group session, fifteen insights were developed such as the concepts of brokenness, designed repair and the collaboration / social aspect. All these insights emphasize the richness of the repair as a subject area and how it can be used in product design education to teach sustainability principles. Repair is an inevitable part of a product’s life and it should be understood and applied to its maximum extent if we are to transition to a circular economy. The value of this research for academics and researchers is in providing a case of incorporating repair into product design education. For design practice, its value lies in showing concrete examples as well as insights from diverse repair processes.