The Delivery of Green Design Techniques in an Immersive Environment

This paper details the immersive techniques pioneered in the delivery of a postgraduate module within a new course, MSc Advanced Product Design. The course was written to help graduates engage with thinking and techniques that are at or slightly in front of industry’s cutting edge.
The module at the focus of this paper, Sustainability Issues in Design for Production was designed to bring the consequences of the designer’s actions in contributing to global pollution and climate change to the student’s attention. To make the consequences of energy use, consumption of materials and subsequent waste apparent, the graduates were taken to the Centre for Alternative Technology. There they were given lectures on sustainability and access to information on alternative materials. Most importantly however, they were housed in accommodation where they directly experienced the consequence of their use of resources. Hence every time they used too much power they would experience a short power cut, when they needed heat they had to collect wood, and throughout they were forced to monitor their energy use.
The paper describes the module delivery in more detail and presents case studies of the project outcomes with analysis of the results. In conclusion it looks to the future and how the module is expected to develop.