design.sustainability
Goal
- Development and validation of methodologies for evolutionary / open-ended socio-technical product-service systems
- A more sustainable future through cybernetic, transdisciplinary, reality-based and collaborative approaches
- Designing, observing and anticipating positive change
Sustainability at our faculty
"Within our faculty, sustainability is an important focus, both within our research and education. Sustainability can also be seen as a thread in our Industrial Design education, which is divided into a multitude of subjects ranging from the first to the last year (including the master's thesis). In the video below, we give some nice examples where our focus from product development and our research on applications of biomaterials are also shown.
Bio-Makerspace
Growing materials instead of extracting them? The Bio-Makerspace is a new creative space in our design workshop at Kortrijk Campus. Here, students and companies can learn to apply the basic principle of Design for a Circular Economy by making prototypes and experimenting with DIY, bio-based and circular materials. The laboratory is co-funded by Circular Flanders.
Projects on sustainability
PhD research on sustainability
- Bert Vuylsteke / Study on the opportunities of new circular and bio-based materials for the design process
INTERREG - Learning network bio-builders
Learning Network Biobuilders is committed to developing an innovative, practice-oriented educational method for the construction sector. It focuses on wood and biocomposites, as examples of biocircular materials, and pays attention to ecological systems thinking and '21st century skills' such as problem solving, leadership and multidisciplinary cooperation.
5 Flemish and Dutch partners, together with many stakeholders from the construction sector, will work on this future-proof, innovative educational method until the end of 2022. Gaps between supply and demand will be mapped and cross-border pilots will be set up to test new methods. Both bachelor's students and professionals will participate in the pilots. The intended result is a roadmap along which relevant programmes can further develop their existing curricula.
PROTOTYPING CIRCULAIR: Circular prototyping using bio-based and/or digital production
In Prototyping Circular, we introduced tools and methodologies to design for a Circular Economy in our education programme, and also in our design studio. Together with companies supplying waste streams, we triggered students to create prototypes and experiment with DIY, bio-based and circular materials. The result of this project is the creation of our BioFabLab and the formulation of our learning line on designing for sustainability. The project is in collaboration with GLIMPS, Switchrs and was funded by Vlaanderen Circulair.
Circular sprint / Craft
The Circular sprint projects addresses Circular Economy in a multidisciplinary and project-based manner. The event challenges PhD students, professional designers and companies, coming from a wide background, in combining Additive Manufacturing technologies (AM) and Circular Design (CD) to address specific design problems or challenges related to the implementation of a more circular economy.
Workshops linked to sustainability
- Workshop "Co-creating Circular Values" in colaboration with Design Regio Kortrijk:
In deze workshop leggen we de belangrijkste concepten uit en doen we samen met bedrijven enkele oefeningen binnen hun eigen bedrijfscontext. Vervolgens passen we de toegelichte concepten toe op een casus van het bedrijf met als doel kansen te identificeren en te helpen bij het formuleren van doelstellingen.
Publicaties
Contact
Take contact via design.nexus@ugent.be for questions or projects on sustainability