Design for Impact: A model for embedding education for sustainability across an undergraduate design program

Growing imperatives to ‘future-proof’ design students’ knowledge, skills, capabilities and careers provided the impetus to develop four ‘Impact Lab’ design units, titled Place, People, Planet and Purpose, as central to a new Bachelor of Design degree at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. Labs are scaffolded across students’ three years of study as a compulsory spine performing the role of transdisciplinary integrator and facilitator. Collectively the labs answer to key facets of Education for Sustainability (EfS), developing students’ theoretical knowledge of societal and global issues, and skills and capabilities to address these via a critical combination of content and enabling pedagogies. Learning encourages students to shift the focus of their design work beyond the economic, to a more holistic frame. Design challenges are situated in, or closely mimic real-world problems – across the labs, there has been engagement with over 45 local and global industry and community partners. With social, environmental and global issues at their heart, the Impact Labs are acknowledged as leading the way in the EfS space at QUT, through their themes, content and pedagogies, constantly endeavouring to deliver on the School of Design manifesto of positive ‘change by design’. The model is supported by feedback from students, staff and partners and has been endorsed by academics and partners globally