More-Than-Human Design Pedagogy: Reimagining Design Education to Engender Sustainable Futures

Teaching sustainable design praxis to next generation designers during their higher education is considered crucial to aiding societal transitions to more environmentally responsible futures. However, much scholarship detailing sustainable design methodology focusses upon its application in external settings e.g., commercial and organisational contexts, and speaks less to facilitating design tutors to embed sustainable design concerns, strategies and tools into their teaching and learning delivery. Responding to this lacuna, this paper utilizes a UK university design studio module as a substrate to explore how novel systemic and technological futures methods More-than-Human-Centred Design and Speculative Design can be leveraged, alongside Constructive Alignment techniques and ‘glocal’ education policies, to reimagine sustainable pedagogic practice. The paper argues that through this novel approach, educators can develop curricula and learning outcomes which better equip students with the critical and creative mindset and skills they will need to tackle growing sustainability challenges once post-study and designing for the real world.