Authors:Eva Lutnæs Abstract: This paper addresses one of the challenges presented in the call for the October 2022 symposium prior to this special issue: How would we expect design literacy (knowledge) to be demonstrated by non-designers' The study focuses on Norwegian pupils aged 15–16 years who were tasked with designing shared-living spaces for an ecovillage, aiming to encourage mixed use, inclusive social interaction, and a reduction in the carbon footprint. The study explores the level of critical design literacy demonstrated in 55 digital submissions from the pupils. The results indicate that the pupils are more proficient in expressing and discussing aspects of social sustainability than they are at addressing environmental sustainability. The paper concludes by discussing how teachers might structure projects to encourage pupils to engage more deeply in transformative design practices. PubDate: 2024-06-17 DOI: 10.7577/formakademisk.5761 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 5 (2024)
Authors:Xiaoyu Li Abstract: Education for international understanding is an educational concept put forward by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the goal of promoting cultural understanding and world peace, which is still of great practical significance in the current world of changing and complex conflicts and crises. Following a close look at the humanistic perspective of promoting exchanges, cooperation, prosperity and world peace in the Asia-Europe-Africa region and the rest of the world, China’s government developed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to put into practice the concept of education for international understanding. This article presents the argument that as art and design education serves social development and promotes humanistic exchanges, the concept and values of education for international understanding should be integrated into university art and design education. This important literacy not only explores the design value of promoting cultural understanding in the face of the current complex global crisis and a challenging environment but also adds a new dimension to promoting exchanges and cooperation in the humanities along the BRI. PubDate: 2024-06-17 DOI: 10.7577/formakademisk.5749 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 5 (2024)
Authors:Catalina Cortés, Oscar Huerta Abstract: Design for Sustainability has evolved rapidly over the last decades as a response to unprecedented global challenges. Several models have been developed to address the need to design more sustainable products, services, and policies. These strategies are oriented towards more sustainable ways of living. The Compass, developed by the Index Project in Denmark, is a method that offers a framework to structure the design process while considering social, environmental, and economic sustainability aspects. This article presents an exploratory case study to infuse sustainability in design education using this method in interdisciplinary teams. The context is a master’s degree offered by a design school in a Chilean university. The study's outcomes reveal that The Compass method is a dynamic and flexible structure for design in interdisciplinary teams. To strengthen its applicability, it could incorporate links to sustainability methods from various areas of knowledge that specifically address economic, environmental, or social aspects. Complementing The Compass with these sustainable approaches to confront the complexity of the challenges may facilitate the move from good ideas to feasible, sustainable design solutions in design and other fields. PubDate: 2024-06-17 DOI: 10.7577/formakademisk.5525 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 5 (2024)
Authors:Yinglei Wen Abstract: Students majoring in design have the important responsibility of implementing the Chinese national rural revitalisation strategy in their future careers. The Rural Planning and Design course at Shandong University of Art & Design (SUAD) is a contributes to the cultivation of students' quality of responsibility. The design of this course adheres to the national strategy and closely focuses on the cultivation of these responsibilities, which are integrated into the course syllabus and activities. Students in this course are required to go into the countryside, conduct in-depth investigations to determine what social problems the people face and then think independently, cooperate with each other, create and propose innovative design strategies to solve the problems. Multidisciplinary theoretical knowledge is integrated into the course to promote students’ design literacy, including collaborative innovation, critical thinking, communication and research skills. This article introduces this course in detail and uses it as a practical case through which to explore what kind of design literacy is needed, how to cultivate design literacy and its impacts on various practical challenges. PubDate: 2024-05-16 DOI: 10.7577/formakademisk.5723 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 5 (2024)
Authors:Úrsula Bravo, Erik Bohemia, Fernanda Saval Abstract: The Chilean school curriculum shares with the design literacy approach the goal of forming responsible citizens committed to caring for the environment. Given that design is included as obligatory content of the visual arts and technology subjects in the first 10 years of compulsory education, we wonder if the learning objectives of visual arts and technology support the development of design literacy abilities, as outlined by Lutnæs and Cross. To address this question, we coded 119 learning objectives in alignment with Lutnæs’s and Cross’s design literacy abilities. Then, we generated heatmaps to undertake a visual analysis of the alignment between the learning objectives and design literacy categories. As a result, we found a strong convergence between the Cross and Lutnæs categories and technology learning objectives, especially in lower secondary level education. In the visual arts, design was focused on aesthetics, and connections with design literacy narratives were scarce. We propose that adopting the analytical instrument (coding table) as a standardised tool will encourage comparable studies of how well design literacy is incorporated into other national curricula. PubDate: 2024-05-04 DOI: 10.7577/formakademisk.5731 Issue No:Vol. 16, No. 5 (2024)
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