Design Research from the Sustainability Paradigm Perspective

Abstract

Environmental degradation, the aggravation of inequalities and socio-political conflicts imply new challenges for design and researchers. Researchers—from a critical vision, in anticipation of integral sustainability—must link culture as a system of values for the appropriation of knowledge, cooperation and social innovation, in order to enable an ethical and authentically sustainable model of the designer's professional work. The new digital and post-digital ecologies generate transitions, new relationships and networks, which based on common purposes are presented as systematic design actions to improve local and global interactions. With this approach, and through the research line "sustainability, art, society and environment," of the master and phd in design and creation of the University of Caldas in Manizales, Colombia, applied and transforming studies are conducted, through project methodologies that implement strategic design thinking to search for comprehensive solutions to problems. Broad topics are dealt with in this line of research, which derive from the transdisciplinarity of its members, who under categories such as memory, habitability, representation, co-creation, interculturality, among others, promote inclusion, cultural entrepreneurship, creative communities, collaborative work, and propose alternatives for a possible future of design as a creator of worlds.