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1 - 9 of 9
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(2011)Conference PaperThis paper investigates the engagement towards sustainability of graduating industrial design students in Australia. This was achieved by completing a content analysis of the entries in the Australian Design Award - James Dyson Award, focusing on the claims made in the product descriptions, their rationale for representing design excellence and why they believe their work is award winning. The findings were encouraging, as the overwhelming majority of finalists and winners had incorporated an environmentally responsive strategy or addressed an issue of significance to society. The analysis results provide evidence that sustainability issues are increasingly being tackled in Australian industrial design education. That graduating students choose to do final-year projects which reflect their sensitivity to these global issues suggest concern and readiness on their part in exploring real solutions to these problems, and perhaps a desire and optimism for a more promising world for future generations.
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(2012)Conference PaperThe imperative to teach future generations of industrial designers about the ecological and social sustainability aspects of their practice needs no argument. The profession has generally been blamed for promoting conspicuous consumption and stylistic obsolescence, and designers are considered indirectly responsible for the masses of discarded and short-lived objects in landfill. This paper examines how industrial design education is making up for past errors in design practice. It looks at the undergraduate and postgraduate programs of industrial design universities in various countries around the world, searching for evidences of both ecologically and socially sustainable design in the program descriptions, teaching and learning modules, and galleries of student works appearing on university websites. This research will be useful for industrial design course leaders and academics who are interested in benchmarking the extent to which they cover sustainability in their educational programmes, and help them gauge how they fare in educating their students to become more responsible practitioners in the future.
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(2011)Conference PaperThis paper looks for evidences of socially sustainable product innovations amongst the entries recognized in international industrial design awards. The winning designs for the last four years in three of the most popular mainstream accolades were investigated and profiled. The analysis shows that attention to socially sustainability in design is gradually picking up. Several special awards that pay special attention to social sustainability issues were found, suggesting that support for this type of innovation in the design profession is growing.
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(2011)Conference PaperTechnological and fashion obsolescence continue to be concerns in the design of contemporary products. Research shows that consumers dispose of household items even though those are still fully or partly functional, for various reasons. One cause of premature disposal is the lack of emotional attachment between user and product. Lounge furniture was selected as the product area for this study. The research starts with a literature review on consumer-product attachment, and on design strategies which promote the optimization of product lifetimes, followed by an online survey and in-depth interviews among householders to determine behaviours in furniture usage, maintenance and disposition. The findings of this research add to understanding of product attachment and detachment stages as well as possible factors that would help designers foster long-term product attachment. The study is intended to add support to a new approach to sustainable design that seeks to extend product lifetimes by designing in the potential for continuation of positive experiences that could lead to the consumer’s enduring attachment to particular products.
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(2011)Conference PaperTechnological and fashion obsolescence continue to be concerns in the design of contemporary products. Research shows that consumers dispose of household items even though those are still fully or partly functional, for various reasons including the lack of a stable emotional bond between users and products. This paper aims to explore how industrial designers, as a willing translator and initiator of the relationship between products and users, might facilitate the generation and continuation of positive experiences that could potentially lead to the consumer’s enduring attachment to particular products, thereby optimizing the product’s lifetime and detouring it from becoming landfill too soon.
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(2011)Conference PaperThis paper examines the potential of home modification services to substitute for waged home care services. It found the need for further research to understand how home modifications will impact upon care needs in a real time, longitudinal manner. This further emphasizes the need for data that establishes pre-home modification care hours, home modification recommendation costing
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(2011)Conference PaperThis paper highlights the barriers to undertaking home modifications in Aboriginal housing including structural, social, cultural, and environmental. There is little theoretical difference between Aboriginal housing and other Australian social housing types; however specificity of culture and the socio-economic effects of colonialism are unique to this cohort. The cultural specificity and environmental challenges unique to Aboriginal housing demands a rigorous methodology in assessment and provision of home modifications. Employing inclusive design as a paradigm ensures an interrogation factoring in the widest range of barriers, uses, users, and outcomes.
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(2011)Conference PaperThis publication provided differentiated economic information about ramps and lifts and significant implications for future research. It was found that the significant factors in determining the economic dimensions of ramps and lifts included type of ramp or lift, material, initial purchase and installation, maintenance and replacement, safety, aesthetics, property value, natural environments, spatial utility, adaptability and flexibility, operation, assistance and care, abandonment and durability, and construction period.
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(2011)Conference PaperAs the Australian population ages and the number of people with disabilities subsequently rises, it will become increasingly important to support ‘ageing in place’. However, without mandatory legislation or policies at the Commonwealth level in relation to planning for an ageing population or housing design, there will be a continuation of the disjointed approach currently evident both between and within the states and territories of Australia. This paper recommends a shift in the attitudes of government, developers and consumers towards the design of mainstream housing stock which needs to be flexible and useable to a wide range of users in order to meet the variable needs of current and future occupants. As part of the broader picture, such philosophies towards building practice have the potential to create more equitable built environments.