Project Manager: Abby Mellick
Project Rationale
With the growth in demand for sustainability
knowledges and skills, the role of the designer is changing from one of
merely servicing clients' needs and desires, to informing them. Increasingly,
designers will need to be able to communicate with clients both formally
and informally about the value of sustainability options beyond legal
compliance issues and/or cultural norms/expectations (eg work place/home
recycling). This kind of communication is also an important strategic
design skill to develop in order to break the closed circuit of environmentally
informed clients approaching niche design businesses - ie, it is about
converting the unconverted. The assumption of this project is that while
economic aspects are always important to clients, the decisions they make
are often culturally motivated and arise in conversations, though this
is the least documentable and quanitifable aspect of the client-designer
relationship. The Rebriefing project continues where "Seven
Tips for a Return Brief" (Design for Sustainability Guide: Left
Menu) left off.
Outcomes
This project will seek to discover, collate and
publish the methods environmentally oriented and/or identified design
organisations and businesses nationally use to introduce sustainability
options to clients, as well as case studies of project experiences that
exemplify learning processes (with both positive and negative outcomes).The
aim is to provide anecdotal information, guidelines and examples for designers
and design students across all design disciplines to pro-actively introduce
sustainability options, as well as to provide documentary support for
the often culturally alienating experience of pursuing non-acquiescent
methods in the commercial domain. An added value of the research process
will be opening dialogues with 'unconverted' designers about introducing
sustainability into their projects.
Project Phases
Stage 1
- Develop project brief and bibliography of relevant research material
- Compile a list of national organisations in each of interior; graphic; industrial; fashion; landscape and architecture design disciplines who are environmentally identified.
- Contact them; explain the project and establish a contact person for each organisation willing to participate.
- Design data collection instrument (survey) in consultation with representatives of each discipline.
- Disseminate to contacts.
- Collate responses and case studies; seek clarification and development where required. Meet with representatives to discuss data and its implication for each of the design disciplines.
- Write a report outlining the general and discipline specific problems and opportunities discovered during the research project.
- Design presentational format in consultation with CDF web manager.
- Publish results; case studies; bibliographic material and project report on CDF website
Project Update
Rebriefing is being re-briefed - Abby is reformulating
the task to drum up some research assistance from students to help out
with this high priority project. If you are interested in helping us canvass
successful sustainable designers and architects in Australia (an excellent
networking exercise), please contact us.
If as a practicing designer, you have managed to convince clients to take
the sustainable option, we'd love to hear from you, too.
