Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was a wake-up call for humanity. The resulting slowdown demanded existential reflection and a need to reframe industrial values related to the acceleration and growth logic of the capitalist economy. The pandemic and the blank space it produced have initiated radical changes to respond to both human and planetary health challenges. In response, this paper suggests a life-centered design framework that includes a life-centred design attitude and a 4- foci model aimed at inner and outer sustainability. The 4-foci model entails an inner focus, an outer focus, an outer praxis/ business focus and an outer planetary/world focus. The model’s overall intention is to guide students to become sustainable designers of their own lives and sustainable codesigners in other people's lives and in the world. This paper presents extracts from two experiments and demonstrates how to train inner and other foci and how co-designing assumes a central position.

Keywords

Designing for inner sustainability, Value clarification, Future design education

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Guiding students to become better designers and co-designers of inner sustainability: A framework for higher education

The COVID-19 pandemic was a wake-up call for humanity. The resulting slowdown demanded existential reflection and a need to reframe industrial values related to the acceleration and growth logic of the capitalist economy. The pandemic and the blank space it produced have initiated radical changes to respond to both human and planetary health challenges. In response, this paper suggests a life-centered design framework that includes a life-centred design attitude and a 4- foci model aimed at inner and outer sustainability. The 4-foci model entails an inner focus, an outer focus, an outer praxis/ business focus and an outer planetary/world focus. The model’s overall intention is to guide students to become sustainable designers of their own lives and sustainable codesigners in other people's lives and in the world. This paper presents extracts from two experiments and demonstrates how to train inner and other foci and how co-designing assumes a central position.

 

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