permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

https://medium.com/@designforsustainability/design-education-enables-cultural-transformation-bc72887ea35c

Design education enables cultural transformation

*“Our eyes do not divide us from the world, but they unite us to it. Let
this be known to be true. Let us abandon the simplicity of separation and
give unity its due. Let us abandon the self-mutilation that has been our
way […].”* —* Ian L. McHarg in Design with Nature *(1969: 5)

*“What we need is an education for collective living rather than for
individual success. The collective to which we need to pay more attention
includes all the other species of this planet.”* —* Brian Goodwin *(2001)

In 2001, after an unsuccessful attempt to create a sustainability education
centre and ecovillage in Southern Spain, I enrolled in the Masters in
Holistic Science
<https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses/holistic-science>
at Schumacher College. At the time the word ‘sustainability’ had not yet
entered the vocabulary of the vast majority of industrial designers and
academic design educators. My own contact with ‘designing’ until then had
been through the study and application of Bill Mollison’s *Permaculture — A
Designer’s Manual*
<https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzsQQClGtr3WZDUxZjRlNGItOWNiNi00ZmQ2LWIyMDMtZTIxODZlODgwMDU4/edit>
(1988)
and a series of courses and internships at the Centre for Alternative
Technology in Wales, where I had learned about the design of timber frame
structures, basic ecological sewage treatment systems, compost toilets and
off-the-grid photovoltaic, micro-wind and micro-hydro systems.

At Schumacher College I had the good fortune to attend a course with John
Todd and Nancy Jack-Todd, two elders of the ecological design field and
co-founders of the New Alchemy Institute in 1969, and David Orr, the USA’s
foremost environmental educator. After spending 3 weeks with them in the
unique ‘small is beautiful’ environment of the enchanting Old Postern that
houses the college, *the importance and transformative agency of
design *suddenly
struck me.

I understood that the practice end of the emerging worldview we were
exploring in holistic science (complexity theory, chaos theory, Goethean
science, Gaia theory, deep ecology and eco-psychology) was in fact *design.
*I realized that the overarching shift from, as Brian Goodwin put it,
prediction and control of nature to *appropriate participation *in nature,
would have to be implemented in our ways of living *by *and *through design*.
As David Orr explains:

*“The problem is simply how a species pleased to call itself Homo sapiens
fits on a planet with a biosphere. This is a design problem and requires a
design philosophy. The very idea that we need to build a sustainable
civilization needs to be invented or rediscovered, then widely
disseminated, and put into practice quickly.”* — *David W. Orr* (2002: 50)

In my Master’s thesis I argued that “ecological design is a participatory,
interdisciplinary, community-based process that takes place, scale and
appropriateness seriously and considers potential solutions within a
holistic context” (Wahl, 2002: 58
<https://www.academia.edu/9491230/EXPLORING_PARTICIPATION_-_Holistic_Science_Sustainability_and_the_Emergence_of_Healthy_Wholes_through_Appropriate_Participation_MSc_Thesis_distinction_Daniel_Christian_Wahl_Schumacher_College_2002>)
and suggested that all design should aim to increase diversity and
resilience as a means to increasing whole-systems health.

During my time at Schumacher College I met Professor Seaton Baxter
<https://www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/staff/seatonbaxter/> who turned out to be
one of the most influential mentors and helpful supporters I was to
encounter on my path of learning so far. After reading my dissertation, he
suggested that I might want to deepen my research during a PhD in Design.
He had recently created the Centre for the Study of Natural Design at the
University of Dundee. In 2003, Seaton helped me win a full scholarship to
support my doctoral research and in January 2006 I received my PhD for a
thesis entitled *Design for human and planetary health — a
holistic/integral*
<https://www.academia.edu/8703162/Design_for_Human_and_Planetary_Health_-_A_Holistic_Integral_Approach_to_Compexity_and_Sustainability>
approach to complexity and sustainability (Wahl, 2006b), which informs many
aspects of this book.





This graphic is from Designing Regenerative Cultures
<http://www.triarchypress.net/designing-regenerative-cultures.html>, the
book I published ten years after my PhD in which I explore the importance
of the scales of design and scale-linking design in some detail.

In 2008, Seaton and I co-authored a paper
<https://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/Home/Portals/0/LMD/design.role%20in%20%20sustain_solutions.pdf>
in *Design Issues *in which we suggested that integral theory (Wilber,
2001), spiral dynamics (Beck & Cowan, 1996) and integral ecology
(Esbjörn-Hargen, 2005; Zimmerman, 2005) offered designers a framework for
facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue and the integration of diverse
perspectives in support of more sustainable and culturally transformative
solutions:

*“Designing for sustainability not only requires the redesign of our
habits, lifestyles, and practices, but also of the way we think about
design. Sustainability is a process of coevolution and co-design that
involves diverse communities in making flexible and adaptable design
decisions on local, regional, and global scales. The transition towards
sustainability is about co- creating a human civilization that flourishes
within the ecological limits of the planetary life support system […]
Design plays a central role in shaping a sustainable civilization. It does
so in the material dimensions of product design, architecture, industrial
design, and town and regional planning, as well as in the immaterial
dimension of the metadesign of concepts and inclusive multiperspectives
from which a holistic/integral worldview can emerge.”* — Daniel Wahl &
Seaton Baxter (2008: 72–74)

The application of integral theory to design has since been taken up by a
number of design practitioners and academics. In *Design Education for a
Sustainable Future*
<http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/April-2013/Design-Education-for-a-Sustainable-Future/>,
Rob Fleming (2013) applied Ken Wilber’s integral framework (2001) and Mark
DeKay’s methodology for *Integral Sustainable Design*
<https://integral-review.org/issues/vol_9_no_1_schwartz_review_of_integral_sustainable_design.pdf>
(2011)
to reframing the role of design educators. Fleming argues that we need to
reconsider design education “as an essential tool in the larger societal
movement towards a sustainable future” (p.xxv) and asks the important
question:

*Q How can design educators better reflect the zeitgeist of the new century
by moving from well-intentioned but lightweight ‘greening’ to deeper and
more impactful ideals of sustainability and resilience? (p.1)*

Fleming stresses that “evolving the design professions to higher states of
consciousness does not demand a paradigm shift so much as it does the
transcendence to a new more integrated worldview, and the inclusion of all
preceding worldviews”; and says that “the approach of ‘both and’ or
‘transcend and include’ recognizes the continuing value of all previous
world views and plays an essential role in the establishment of new design
consciousness not as a choice between the past and the present, but rather
as an additional motivation to pursue sustainability” (p.4).

At a time when we are drowning in information and knowledge, while
thirsting for meaning and wisdom, we need new pathways towards synthesis
and integration. Fleming points to the fact that “design education,
especially the studio, is one of the most powerfully effective vehicles for
learning across the entire spectrum of higher education” (p.7). I agree
with his conviction that “design educators hold the promise of a
sustainable future in the hearts and minds of the students they teach”. His
book offers a wealth of useful frameworks and methodologies for students
and educators alike. It will contribute further to the silent (r)evolution
that is currently changing design education to serve the transition towards
a regenerative human presence on Earth.

Gideon Kossoff (2011a) has recently articulated a framework for the
emerging field of *transition design*. He explores the implications of a
holistic participatory worldview for a design-led transition towards a more
sustainable society through the reinvention of the domains of everyday life
by design.

*“The transition to a sustainable society will require the reconstitution
and reinvention of households, villages, neighbourhoods, towns, cities and
regions everywhere on the planet as interdependent, nested, self-organized,
participatory and diversified wholes. […] The result will be a
decentralized and diversified structure of everyday life which is in
contrast to the centralized and increasingly homogenized structures that we
have become accustomed to. […] Reconstituting the Domains is an inherently
transdisciplinary and grassroots process that represents an opportunity to
reintegrate and recontextualize knowledge, embedding it in both community
and everyday life. It calls for the intentional, or designed, reintegration
of all facets of everyday life in place, and suggests that a new kind of
designer is needed, a transition designer.”* — *Gideon Kossoff* (2011b:
22–23)

In collaboration with Terry Irwin and Cameron Tonkinwise, Gideon has helped
to establish a PhD programme in transition design
<http://design.cmu.edu/content/phd-transition-design> and a professional
doctorate (DDes) programme that includes transition design at Carnegie
Mellon University’s prestigious School of Design. They define *transition
design *as “design-led, systems-level societal change towards a more
sustainable future” and suggest “transition designers will use the tools
and processes of design to re-conceive whole lifestyles and develop
infrastructures, policies, systems (food, healthcare, education) and energy
resources to support a more sustainable society” (Carnegie Mellon Design,
2015).

The approaches to transformative innovation and design for regenerative
cultures explored in this book
<http://www.triarchypress.net/designing-regenerative-cultures.html>
are *transition
approaches. *They recognize that solutions are moving targets rather than
fixed states. The community-based practice of living the questions is an
invitation to take the design conversations about how to support the
transition to a more sustainable future and regenerative culture beyond the
academic environment and into the heart of communities, businesses and
governance everywhere.

Design education will be a critical enabler of the transition ahead.
Well-facilitated design conversations can invite all of us to explore the
transition within our communities, to collaborate with and learn from each
other so we all become more effective in our role as transition designers.
Design education can enable cooperative cultural transformation. We have to
create a new kind of partnership between universities, civil society, the
private sector, and governance by initiating integrative design
conversations.

*“Transition designers deploy a deep understanding of the
interconnectedness of social and natural systems and conceive solutions
that leverage the power of interdependency and symbiosis. We explore the
role of design in negotiating between the transition our society is
undergoing and the transition that it needs to make.”* — *Carnegie Mellon
Design* (2015)

Terry Irwin writes: “Until designers shift to a more holistic worldview,
design will continue to be part of the problem, not the solution” (2012);
and elsewhere: “One of the most fundamental changes for designers and
design process will be a shift in focus from objects to relationship […] An
organic model of society and environment will replace the dominant,
mechanistic one and this in turn will suggest a more respectful, iterative
and inclusive process for designing solutions” (Irwin, 2011).

The number of design-focused programmes that share the *transition 
*perspective
is growing steadily. Among them are Gaia University’s programme in
‘Integrative eco-social design’, Gaia Education’s ‘Design for Sustainability
<https://www.gaiaeducation.org/index.php/en/online>’, the Environmental
Studies
<http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/departments/environment/index.dot>
program at Oberlin College and the postgraduate programme in ‘Ecological
Design Thinking
<https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses/ecological-design-thinking>’
at Schumacher College. Other aligned programmes include Cornell
University’s programme in Sustainable and Regenerative Design
<http://www.human.cornell.edu/dea/graduate/maid/upload/MA-Design-Sustainable-Design-Studies.pdf>;
Regenerative Ecological Design
<http://www.prescott.edu/lifelong-learning/courses/certificate-in-regenerative-ecological-design.php>
at Prescott College, and the Sustainable Design
<http://www.philau.edu/green/> programme at Philadelphia University.

Ezio Manzini’s work at the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on
Innovation for Sustainability at Milan Polytechnic has played a pivotal
role in transforming the design community from within. He and François
Jégou (2004) invite designers to ask important questions and to take an
active role in envisioning and shaping a sustainable future:

*Q What might everyday life be like in a sustainable society?*

*Q How will you take care of yourself and other people?*

*Q How will you work, study and move around?*

*Q How will you cultivate a network of personal and social relationships
and create an undistorted relationship with the environment?*

*Q What do the sustainable societies we are able to imagine today have in
common?*

*Q How wide a range of options do we have open to us on the basis of these
common elements?*

Manzini and Jégou have created the Sustainable Everyday Project
<http://www.sustainable-everyday-project.net>as an open web platform to
stimulate social conversation on possible sustainable futures. Manzini is
also president of the ‘Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability’ (D
ESIS) <http://www.desisnetwork.org> Network, which works “with local,
regional, and global partners to promote and support social change towards
sustainability”. The network’s vision statement highlights that “social
innovation is spreading and its potential, as a driver of sustainable
change, is increasing. To facilitate this process, the design community, in
general, and design schools, in particular, can play a pivotal role”
(DESIS, 2015).

At Griffith University, Tony Fry, who created the EcoDesign Foundation
<http://www.changedesign.org>in 1991, leads a Design Futures
<http://designfutures.com.au/about/people/i_46-tony-fry> programme that
aims to “better educate designers […] to become change agents, research
based practitioners, critics, entrepreneurs, theorists, strategist and
practical intellectuals” (Design Futures, 2015). Stuart Walker directs a
research group in sustainable design at Imagination Lancaster
<http://imagination.lancs.ac.uk>. Bill Reed teaches integrative design at
the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and the University of British
Columbia [and the Regenesis Group <https://regenesisgroup.com/team> offers The
Regenerative Practitioner
<https://regenesisgroup.com/what/education/the-regenerative-practitioner/>
course]. Alastair Fuad-Luke explores design as ‘co-futuring’
<http://www.hel.fi/hel2/kanslia/irbc/presentations/Tonttila.pdf> as
Professor for Emerging Design Practices at Aalto University and Martin
Charter directs the Centre for Sustainable Design <http://cfsd.org.uk> at
University College for the Creative Arts (UCCA).

By no means is this list exhaustive and there are many more design
programmes worth mentioning, but the people and programmes mentioned here
have all made an important contribution to taking the dialogue about the
sustainability transition into design academia and professional design
practice. They share an understanding of the central role of design and
design education in cultural transformation towards sustainability. As such
they are catalyst for the emergence of regenerative cultures.

Last but not least I would like to mention Gonzalo Salazar, at the
Universidad Católica de Chile, who is working along similar lines. He also
received his PhD at the Centre for the Study of Natural Design. I am
indebted to Gonzalo for helping me appreciate more deeply how central
c*onversation
i*s to design. In a poetic language that carries the imprint of his native
Chile, the land of Pablo Neruda, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela and
Manfred Max-Neef, Gonzalo’s doctorate concludes:

*“Design is a human conversation about facilitating our existence in
conversation […] design only becomes ecological when it is mainly guided by
the emotion of loving through the ongoing process of creating and
cultivating our (sense of) being at home in the world. […] attentive
listening is the first and most important action of ecological design. […]
ecological design is fundamentally cooperative. It is co-creation,
co-facilitation; it is co-designing in love.”* -*Gonzalo Salazar-Preece*
(2011: 398–401)

…

*[This subchapter is an excerpt from **Designing Regenerative Cultures*
<http://www.triarchypress.net/designing-regenerative-cultures.html>*,
published by Triarchy Press in May 2016. You can find reviews of the book *
*here*
<http://www.triarchypress.net/reviews-designing-regenerative-cultures.html>
*.]*

*NOTE:* From June 12th to 16th, 2017 the three founders of Transition
Design, Terry Irwin, Gideon Kossoff, ad Cameron Tonkinwise will offer a 5
day training in Transition Design on the island of Majorca: *Transition
Design: Everyday Life, Cosmopolitan Localism, and System Level Change*
<http://smart.uib.eu/Activitats/Formacio/>.

This course
<http://smart.uib.eu/digitalAssets/417/417256_cmu-majorca-course-flyer-1.pdf>
is part of a series in the Smart UIB ‘*International Programme in
Innovation, Sustainability and Design*
<http://smart.uib.eu/Activitats/Formacio/>’ that I am helping to create at
the University of the Balearic Islands. Majorca is lovely in June, the
Sanctuary of Lluc in the mountains is one of the jewels on the island, and
Terry, Gideon and Cameron are likely to attract a fascinating group of
people for an unforgettable 5 days of learning together. I will join the
course as a participant and hope to see you there! Here is some more
*information*
<http://smart.uib.eu/Activitats/Projectes/PIFISD/Transition-Design-cat/> [
http://smart.uib.eu/Activitats/Projectes/PIFISD/Transition-Design-cat/}.