Hi Ken,

The reality is that most design education exists outside design programs
called Design. Most design (even the 'Art and Design' version of design)
isn't called 'Design' unless you want to insist on a primarily
western-centric (read 'english-centric') picture of commercial art. For
example the Finnish word for Design - my understanding is it translates as
'hand craft', i.e. making rather than design.

One way of viewing design education is to see it in terms of the learning
necessary to  improve an individual's design activity. The term Design is
used in a wide variety of disciplines and people are taught how to design
(regardless of what it is called).  'Design education' has a long tradition
outside the units and courses specifically labeled 'Design'. This point can
be developed in many ways, including the reality that many designers have
and still do gain their design education by a wide range of approaches
including autodidactically. Education programs called 'Design Program' are a
relatively small part of designers education, and a relatively ineffective
part of design education according to several graduate destination studies
I've seen.

Gulden asked about 'the history of sustainable design education' - for me
this is an aspect of  the history of the education that designers have
gained to develop their design knowledge and skills.  The underlying logic
is' if there is design being done' then somehow and in some way the designer
learned (educated themselves or was educated by others) to do that and hence
some form of design education happened.

This gives a much more complete context to answer Gulden's question about
the history of sustainability in design education. It enables the
possibility of  answering Gulden's question by taking some of the bias and
overemphasis off those individuals and academic groups that were better at
public promotion in this increasingly fashionable 'sustainability' space. It
offers some insights into the depth of the understanding and design activity
in relation to sustainability that has existed since perhaps design first
was undertaken by humans. It also gives an opportunity for some humility to
reconsider the widely held simplistic assumption that the period from the
industrial revolution to the present was absent of sustainable thinking and
that we are now heros for inventing sustainability and saving the world.

Best wishes,
Terry
____________________

Dr. Terence Love, FRDS, AMIMechE, PMACM

Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate,  Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________



-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken
Friedman
Sent: Sunday, 19 April 2009 4:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: History of sustainable design education

Dear All,

Reflecting on Terry's comments, one must always wonder where to parse a
phrase. I had read Gulden's query on the [history of sustainable design
education] as a search for the specific literature on the history of
sustainable design education rather than a search through all history for
sustainability practices in design.

Design education itself only dates back -- depending how you define it -- to
some relatively recent date, probably in the 20th century.