Stewardship in Design Education

How can we equip the next generation of designers with the skills for eco-social design and stewardship?

Exploring the set of skills to be incorporated into contemporary design education when design education is struggling to move beyond old paradigms. Jan Albert Eckert provides a framework for eco-social design education, emphasizing stewardship for people, communities, and our planet.

Stewardship in Design delves into the practical skills which are crucial for navigating the challenges posed by our interconnected global and systemic polycrisis, ensuring that design education remains relevant and resilient.

Geared toward design professionals, this book is ideal reading for students and educators of Human-Centered Design Studies, visual communication design, product design, interaction design, service design, eco-social design and design management.

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Learning objectives
  • 1.2 Rationale and outline
  • 1.3 Learning pathways in traditional design education
  • 1.4 Summary
• Part I
• 2 At the tipping points of our systems: Design and eco-social responsibility
  • 2.1 Learning objectives
  • 2.2 The ontological dimension of design
  • 2.3 Design in the social sphere
  • 2.4 Designing in systems
  • 2.5 Summary
• 3 Trapped into silos: Design beyond disciplines
  • 3.1 Learning objectives
  • 3.2 The dichotomy of disciplinary versus problem-based learning
  • 3.3 The dichotomy of theory and practice in design
  • 3.4 Bridging dichotomies: The Y-shaped designer
  • 3.5 Summary
• 4 Degrowth through inner growth: Designing toward our safe space
  • 4.1 Learning objectives
  • 4.2 Planetary and social boundaries: Defining our safe operating space
  • 4.3 Degrowth theories: Designing beyond the growth imperative
  • 4.4 Inner development goals: Building capacities for eco-social transformation
  • 4.5 Summary
• Part II
• 5 Designing toward the Coenocene
  • 5.1 Learning objectives
  • 5.2 Stewardship: A framework for our transition into the Coenocene
    • Inner core: Inner development
    • First ring: Planetary and social boundaries
    • Second ring: Design leadership
    • Third ring: Territories of transformative design interventions
    • Outer ring: Designing transitions into the Coenocene
  • 5.3 Summary
• 6 Our own transformation to form a safe space to operate
  • 6.1 Starting from inside and setting the boundaries
  • 6.2 Integrating inner development and eco-social boundaries into your own learning journey
    • Reflective journaling
    • Building a peer learning community
  • 6.3 Transforming your design practice from inside
    • Re-brief the brief
    • Metrics building
    • Challenge conventional business models
  • 6.4 Designing transformative learning environments
    • Integrate inner development into the curriculum
    • Embed reflective practices and transformative pedagogies
    • Create physical learning environments that support inner development
    • Develop faculty capacity
    • Cocreating learning experience
• 7 Design leadership: Leading from inside and with foresight
  • 7.1 Leading through empathy, with ethical awareness, and cultural humility
    • Deep listening
    • Meeting diversity with cultural humility
  • 7.2 Navigating complexity over time: Systemic foresight and issue mapping
    • Foresight and metrics-building
    • Issue mapping and identifying leverage points
  • 7.3 Design forensics: Grounding design in evidence and critique
    • Design forensics
    • Research integrity and transparency
    • Data literacy and de-computation
  • 7.4 Expanding your leadership learning territory
    • Lifewide learning: Beyond the classroom and studio
    • Creating your leadership learning ecosystem
• 8 Designing transitions: New territories for eco-social design practice
  • 8.1 From Problem solution to transition design
    • Creating landing strips for preferred futures
  • 8.2 Transformative learning across design territories
    • Communication: From messaging to meaning-making
    • Action and orchestration: From control to cultivation
    • Construction: From objects to relations
    • Behavior and consciousness: From nudging to nurturing
  • 8.3 Transformative practice through mitigation, adaptation, and avoidance of suffering
  • 8.4 Designing transformative learning environments
    • Permeable boundaries: Education as intervention
    • Designing for emergence
    • Collective stewardship of learning
    • Learning ecologies for transition designers
• 9 No conclusions but starting points
  • 9.1 Beginning with inner development
  • 9.2 Reconsidering design territories
  • 9.3 From solution-oriented toward transition design
  • 9.4 Expanding temporal horizons
  • 9.5 Reframing success
  • 9.6 Building a community of research and practice
    • An evolutionary moment
• 10Further readings
• References
• Index

Dr Jan A. Eckert is an urbanist, author, and researcher exploring eco-social transformation through phenomenological methodology and photographic inquiry. Based in Switzerland, he serves as a researcher at Lugano Living Lab and visiting professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences. His two decades of leadership in higher education and applied research inform his integration of critical systems thinking, place-making and inner development.