Master of Arts in Sustainable Design including Professional Placement

Kingston University

This module recognises human-centred design has a role to play in shifting communities toward a more equitable and regenerative future. It engages with social research and co-design methods in response to ‘wicked problems’ inherent within the contemporary sustainability agenda. Design Thinking is used to consider real-world challenges like changing demographics, equity, inclusion, and access to services, and explore creative strategies for future planet prosperity. Emphasis is placed on problem-finding, rather than seeking solutions to problems as they are currently expressed. You will be expected to involve users in the co-production of outcomes through participatory research and testing methods.

This module establishes that research is integral to the design process, and developing a robust understanding of practical, theoretical, and material approaches to it, is fundamental to enquiry-led practice. You are therefore asked to explore a diverse range of multidisciplinary practice-based research methods through engagement with externally facing, social, political, cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts.

This module recognises that principles and practices of sustainability are diverse, and perspectives on design’s role within it, are contested. It explores how contemporary and emerging design practices relate to sustainability through responsible practice. Critical Design is established as a tool to interrogate, articulate and disseminate your ideas through experimentation with imaginative and varied formats. A praxis-oriented approach is then used to translate theoretical understanding into design outputs that engage audiences and provoke new ways of thinking. Throughout the module you will be encouraged to question established norms, engaging with decolonisation, inclusion, plurality and design pedagogy discourses.

This module establishes that many future jobs do not yet exist, so there are opportunities for you to play a part in co-creating them. You are therefore asked to critically consider current roles for designers, emerging fields of design, and how we might reframe, or even reinvent, our future design practice.

In this module, you will define and realise your Major Project. The module establishes a space for developing your future practice through a substantial body of research and experimentation, and the integration of learning from previous modules. You will be supported through tutorials, reviews and peer-to-peer activities. You will be expected to bring an individual critical position to your project, in an expanded mode of your discipline and its possibilities.