Designing with waste: Comparison of two practice-based education cases

Paper in proceeding, 2016

Designing with discarded materials can be challenging, but it has the benefit of helping material recirculation and in doing so may help to reduce the volumes of waste currently available. This idea initiated work in two independent cases of practice-based design education: one at the Chalmers University of Technology at Gothenburg, Sweden and another at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design, and Manufacturing at Jabalpur. In both the cases, researchers at the two universities developed their methodology considering their contextual set of requirements. Further, the design students in both cases were presented with the ‘challenge’ and an ‘assistive method’ for performing product development using discarded material(s). Both initiatives were developed independently of each other, and the researchers got to know of the other initiative after initial work had been published on each study. This article is a joint analysis that seeks to compare the two initiatives to highlight the differences and similarities between the experiences in both design education and design processes. This is done to better understand the challenges of designing with discarded materials, with critical insights on the activity, thus enhancing the possible contribution of designers to material recirculation.