Conference Agenda

In a collaboration between the University of XX and the YY University of Applied Sciences we explore ethics education from a tool-based, practical perspective. In this ongoing project we focus on the question if and how practical tools for ethical deliberation on the impact of technology can be helpful in ethics education for engineering students. To adhere to the practical perspective, the approach uses a focus on the impact of technology as a way toward ethical deliberation. The idea is that engineering students should actively take the probable, desirable ánd possibly unwanted effects of their designs into account during the development of their projects.

To foster this process we have the desire to build an ethics lab, analogous to an engineering lab or a design studio. As part of this ethics lab two students of the bachelor Creative Technology have designed an interactive installation to let the visitors of our lab experience classical ethical dilemmas in a contemporary manner.

This paper will present the installations -representing Plato’s cave and the Panopticon- as well as our first experiences with “teaching ethics through interactive installations”.

Final degree shows are often described as a ‘culmination’ – a climax or completion. Is the academy missing an opportunity with this perspective? This paper calls into question the role of final degree shows, exploring the potential for them to stimulate pedagogical and curricular development within a design programme or design school.

There are increasing pressures on universities to engage in socially relevant research and nurture students able to respond to the grand challenges of the modern world. To ensure relevance, the academy must learn with the communities it serves. Whilst much research exists on different forms of collaboration with universities, this position paper responds to a gap in literature regarding the role of public exhibitions and proposes final degree shows as a space for new models of public discourse, providing opportunities for knowledge exchange and stimulating discussion with communities outside of academia in different contexts. Rather than being the end of a conversation, we propose that final degree shows become an invitation to begin.

Using a single case study methodology we describe a snapshot safari activity, held during a final degree show, highlighting key outcomes, and exploring the insights revealed in terms of design teaching and curricula. The paper concludes by proposing models of micro-engagement within the context of a final degree show. We believe these could form the basis of further research in this area giving universities the opportunity to explore specific areas of interest through thematic curation of exhibitions with considered convening of people to discuss them.

Hand disability, which could be considered as a part of the physical disability, is not only described as the person who lost one of their hands or arm when they have born or encountered an accident but also noticed someone whose one of their hand malfunctioned, like hemiplegic stroke patients. Those disabilities faced are not only physical issues, like mobility and dexterity, during their daily life, but also have the challenge of biopsychosocial approach and social exclusion due to the aspect of appearance and capability. Those external challenges would trigger the problem of low self-esteem and discrimination to them and influence their mental and social statements negatively. In fact, the employment rate of physical disability among the population of whole disabled persons is only 4.4% in Hong Kong, compared to the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) persons, with nearly 8 times difference (HKSAR Census and Statistics Department, 2008).

To analyse the pain point and opportunity of the one-hand disabled, and understand the life experience and emotion of the one-hand person, testing and interview has been conducted in this research respectively. For testing, daily activities which have a high frequency of applying two hands with generating more force and dexterity action would be experienced because loss of strength and dexterity is also a major issue for physical disability because of the loss of muscle activity (Canning et al. 2004). The experiment showed that activities, which involved the moving of objects and plenty of steps, would take longer time for the one-hand users and have lower performance than a normal person. For interviewing, two people in Hong Kong, who were between the age of 40 and 65, with a one-hand disablement problem consented to participate in the study. Although an adaptation of one-hand activity and time consumption is a major issue for one-hand users, both participants would like to cope with the challenge by themselves independently and have a housework habit.

Confidence and the capability by using a single hand is the major pain point for one-hand disability. Since cooking is a high complexity housework for them, particularly Asian cooking which contained plenty of action, like steaming and poaching soup, providing a design which could assist them to learn and cope with those difficult processes independently as a normal person does not only increase the effectiveness but also could build up their positive attitude because housework could provide a message that “ they could do it without assist” and those hand disabilities could demonstrate their own value and support to their family by themselves.

In a course on sustainable design strategies, students explore different notions of what it means to be sustainable and what that, in turn, implies for how one should design. As I believe that many of the philosophical notions (such as Circular Economy, Cradle 2 Cradle, and biomimicry) that have been proposed, and the tools and methods that associate them, still have many shortcomings, I deliberately set up my students for failure. By handing in that failure

In this course we set out to understand how different perspectives on sustainability differ from each other, how they are currently operationalised in tools and methods, and –most importantly– what limitations those perspectives, tools and methods have. I could lecture about this of course, and talk about many cases, each with their own particular hurdles, but I deem it more educational for students to bump into, or trip over such hurdles themselves. Enter the notion of annotated failure.

In a 10 week course, we start with jointly reading some basic texts (such as Fabrizio Ceschin and İdil Gaziulusoy's "Evolution of design for sustainability: From product design to design for system innovations and transitions"), after which students select their own focus. After several years, I see Biomimicry and Design Justice as two very popular focal points in our program. Students continue reading individually for a couple of weeks, to familiarise themselves with the philosophical notion of their chosen strategy, and the methods and tools that have been developed for them. this focussed reading material is selected with the help of the instructor. Subsequently, they try out their focal sustainable strategy on a very small design project (on which they spent roughly 8 working days). But here is the thing: they are not asked to deliver a finished design. Instead they are required to submit an annotated design process up to the point where they got stuck. So, the deliverable is not the usual final design, but rather an annotated failure. Students find this very challenging ("You know I'm gonna ask you five more times, right?"), because they feel it means that they themselves have failed, instead of the sustainable strategy, method or tool they employed, which is actually coming up short.

The notion of annotated failure as the course deliverable was to some extent a consequence of allotting sufficient time for reading in the beginning of the course, and the limitation of having only 6 credit points. Reading previous research consists of about a 100 pages per week for the first weeks. This reading yields much deeper insight than if I were to select a single design for sustainability manual as course literature. However, in hindsight, I feel the notion of annotated failure turned out as a valuable educational model. There are of course links to the notion of productive failure, but it is different in the sense that it is the final deliverable and not a step towards finding a final design.

Unprecedented extreme climate emergencies are becoming part of everyday conversations and experiences. As students seek how to design for these challenges, design educators need to enhance learning in the area of *habitability in extreme environments. Author Solnit defines emergency as “separation from the familiar, a sudden emergence into a new atmosphere” (p.x, 2009). The authors’ experience in extremes and habitability* inform design education projects for unfamiliar, remote settings, where the challenge is inaccessibility to real end users and real-time conditions. This is a case study of a habitat designed and prototyped by a student team in one location, installed and inhabited in a remote setting by analogue (where one situation is intended to simulate another; a common approach in space architecture) astronauts. (*design of suitable living conditions/life support systems).

Project Design briefs invite students to frame a problem to generate and test prototypes to an expected final state, leading them to develop skills, confidence and competencies. For the case study described, the full-scale prototype was installed in a remote lava tube (representing a subsurface cave on the moon) and used by two crews during two missions. Extreme contexts can captivate students and lead to spectacular concepts. While this project’s success was the development of a prototype, the habitability experience was problematic. Post-mission reporting cites the success of a design but not its crew's experience, therefore the authors offer recommendations for extended learning to future-enable design education through field-relevant skills, socially meaningful competencies and resilient contextual solutions.