1. Sustainability goals
Considering the fundamental scope of our planet’s ongoing environmental crisis, the HSLU aims to contribute to achieving the UN’s Sustainability Goals. The causes of this crisis are manifold and not just technical in nature, but deeply rooted in our cultural and social practices.1 It is therefore important to understand climate change not only as a technical challenge, but also as a cultural one. Accordingly, we must not just transform established product ideas and use practices, but our culture as a whole.
2. The end of carbonisation
In pre-modern times, when technical possibilities were limited and population densities low, environmental problems only occurred locally and over limited periods of time. They did not threaten human existence overall.2 However, this changed radically with the advent of the era of a carbonised economy brought about by industrialisation. However, the new production processes that drove climate change and continue to do so were always deeply enmeshed with a changing culture.3 They facilitated mass consumption and created new needs among the population. Millennia-old recycling practices were forgotten, while established and sustainable production processes were abandoned in favour of new and generally delocalised processes (e.g., flax), which were more rational according to the logic of a newly emerging economic system. As a result, design practices emerged that perfectly aligned with these new conditions and produced environmentally problematic solutions.
3. Cultural paradigm change
We all have been socialised into this unsustainable culture. Its paradigms limit our design practices that seem natural and which are difficult to change. They inform our notion of a product (e.g., shoes) and our solution approaches (e.g., belief in engineered solutions such as chemistry). The design and development of product solutions is invariably influenced by the paradigms of a given time. This typically happens without us noticing. After all, these cultural paradigms not only define strategies and ideas to address specific problems, but they also influence how we identify these problems in the first place (e.g., transformation of propulsion technology instead of mobility behaviour).4
4. From path dependencies to culture-critical reflection
If we read our current sustainability problems as a cultural phenomenon, we can critically reflect on the present which, in turn, allows us to challenge established processes and to overcome entrenched path dependencies.5 This opens our eyes to alternative creative fields of action and helps us to find more effective solutions, be it in terms of product ideas, production, distribution or consumerism practices or in design processes.
5. Cultural impact
For the research at the HSLU this means that it must be more considerate of the cultural impact of its work when searching for design solutions and that it needs to reflect on its research projects accordingly. This perspective is not only helpful to pave the way for new creative approaches, but also imperative if we are to stop producing results that perpetuate an unsustainable culture. It uses the academic tools of art history and incorporates research into material.6
6. Actors and participation
One of the many ways to effectively operationalise this cultural dimension in research projects is to take a closer look at the actors involved. Moreover, recent research has proven the notion of the designer as the sole creator of design solutions and innovations to be unhelpful. In fact, civil society plays a key role in the design process, and it should be able to participate in these processes alongside the consumers and other groups affected by design interventions.7 In every project, their objectives, ideas, habits and constructs must be considered holistically while applying a broad concept of “actors”. In recent times, the case has been made for materials and tools being included as factors playing a part not only in production but also in the design process.8 Their nature and operating principles must be considered as well.
In addition to these cultural actors, researchers must take human actors into account as well. All design processes exist in in relation with nature. For every project, the relevant actors must be identified, and their interrelationships investigated, recognised and duly considered.9 Bearing in mind that a clear distinction between nature and culture is impossible, it is necessary to go beyond classical sustainability analyses. Their objective is to shed light on our cultural practices in exchange with the natural actors and to investigate, for instance, their mutual interdependencies.
7. The role of design
Designers are mediators between all the actors described above. Along the “four orders of design”, the role of designers in research processes extends from the subject-specific material engineering and the process technologies to the shaping of products and to interactions and process designs.10 In exchange with the actors, designers create new transformative solutions and products in their projects.11 Studying the cultural enmeshment of the actors involved not only enables designers to anticipate the environmental-cultural impact of their proposed solutions, it also helps them to develop transformative ideas and test their feasibility through prototyping.12 13 Instead of being made into agents (typically by the client) of some of the actors involved who then go on to manipulate all the other actors, their role as mediators allows them to integrate and to modify the objectives themselves in the design process. For instance, designers challenge existing needs and requirements, which helps them to establish more well-elaborated objectives. Accordingly, research projects should be cooperative in nature from the outset.
To live up to the task at hand, designers in research projects also assume the role of educators.14 Their mandate includes teaching others about the impact of their project goals and proposed solutions in terms of sustainability. At the same time, they must show the potential cultural impact of their project ideas, and the associated risks and chances for transformation—ideally, towards a newly sustainable culture. It will give designers and researchers the ability to comprehensively involve social actors in the design of new products for a sustainable culture. This step is of utmost importance: a transition process of this magnitude can only succeed if it is supported by society as a whole.15
8. Added value
The applied focus of the CC PT research group allows for a reflection of the added value generated by design in interaction with business, society.16 Applying design skills and knowledge means throwing the relations between the actors involvedinto relief exploring meanings, building acceptance, and foster understanding of the shared concept of sustainability. In doing so, designers investigate and assess the level of impact of their research process as relates to generating new significances and meanings for the sustainable transition.
Authors: Gassler Cornelia, Leysieffer Jonas, Moor Tina, Müggler Isabel, Wagner Nora
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1 Raworth 2018.
2 Kehnel 2021.
3 Brand/Wissen 2017; Sommer/Welzer 2017.
4 Welzer 2019.
5 Sommer/Welzer 2017.
6 Ludwig, 2020.
7 Brocchi 2017; Wuelser et al. 2020.
8 Latour, 2009; Barad, 2020; Haraway, 2018; Soentgen, 2014; Dörrenbächer, 2022.
9 Dörrenbächer, 2022.
10 Ingold, 2013; Buchanan, 2001.
11 Willener et al. 2019.
12 Hérnandez, 2018.
13 TRL is an acronym for Technology Readiness Level. Link: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Readiness_Level retrieved on 7 December2022; note: TRL1 up to and including TRL6 contain objectives that can be established in a research setting while TRL7 and higher are the responsibility of the partner in the industry in that they apply and further develop the research results.
14 Brocchi 2021; Wuelser et al. 2020.
15 Hopkins 2014; Mondardini et al. 2021.
16 Heskett, 2017; note: even though, from today’s point of view, Heskett’s business theory is problematic (cf. “De-growth”), it seems significant here that design is situated on top of his value profit chain model.
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