Course Description: Creative Leadership
Denise DeLuca | Spring, 2016 Creative Leadership introduces an important shift in how we view leaders and cultivate leadership in our personal and professional communities. Society places a lot of emphasis on heroic and managerial styles; however, these techniques are limiting to individuals and organizations alike. Creative Leadership breaks through classical models, promoting a values-based, collaborative, and responsive approach to leadership, drawing lessons directly from nature. Being aware of people and the environment around you, learning from them and seeking to understand them, and being an advocate for collective well-being is far more meaningful than prioritizing financial gain and a sense of power and control. |
Creative Leadership Portfolio Piece:
Creative Leadership Journey Throughout the semester I compiled a collection of journal entries that include direct responses to prompts or questions, reflections on course readings and leadership blogs, descriptions of important physical and metaphorical locations in my life, and accounts of personal leadership experiences. Each entry marks a different part of my leadership journey during this course and outside of it. Natural themes have a strong presence in this project as I spent a great deal of time in nature observing leadership examples and developing a better understanding of how my interactions with nature encourage a more authentic and intentional leadership. Link to full Creative Leadership Work - highlights shown below. |
Course Description: Systems Thinking
Curt McNamara | Spring, 2016 Systems Thinking highlights the ways in which the world is interconnected – far too often, views are narrowed and designs limited to focus on a single purpose without accounting for broader relationships, patterns, links, and flows. It’s inadequate to design products and processes that don’t include the whole system ‘from cradle to cradle,’ and ensure a level of adaptability as well. Using a variety of mapping techniques and more formal tools, designers have the ability to identify networks and interactions within a system, understand the areas of greatest impact, and ultimately create a more sustainable approach that holistically balances the needs and behaviors of all system elements. |
Systems Thinking Portfolio Piece:
Community Gardens My final project focused on Community Gardens, applying whole systems thinking to determine how best to incorporate sustainable garden environments into urban settings. The use of multiple systems diagrams and visuals (such as process flows, systems maps, and influence diagrams) ensures each stage, element, boundary, input/output, and function is identified and sufficiently represented before analyzing the life cycle of the system. The concluding solutions and methodologies propose options for furthering the sustainability of community and urban gardening. Rather than design for only one outcome (e.g. grow as much food as possible), these solutions affect greater change across the system and include multiple positive results. |
Course Description: Fundamentals of Sustainable Design
Tim McGee | Fall, 2016 Fundamentals of Sustainable Design digs into the introductory components of sustainability, from a historical perspective to present-day frameworks. It also builds out the context for incorporating sustainability into design at a basic level – first discussing how existing design principles can be roadblocks to more ‘eco-friendly’ alternatives. Overcoming these barriers allows designers to rethink how value is measured. Constantly exploring ways of using better assessments and communication styles is essential for designers working to incorporate ecological, economic, and social sustainability in organizations and products. |
Fundamentals of Sustainable Design Portfolio Piece:
It’s the Bees’ Needs Kit After learning about current efforts in sustainable design and considering the range of issues we encounter on a daily basis, my final project looked at an area where I feel society will benefit from more sustainable initiatives – pollinator protection and well-being. This do-it-yourself (DIY) kit not only educates people about pollinators and the significant threats to their species, but also gives users step-by-step instructions and materials for supporting pollinator habitat in their own backyards and neighborhoods. Often the biggest challenge for people becoming more sustainable or more involved in earth-friendly efforts is knowing where to start. This project allowed me to dig into the background of why this gap continues to persist and design a creative product to counter it. |
Course Description: The Practice of Sustainable Design
Holly Robbins | Fall, 2016 The Practice of Sustainable Design builds on the foundational concepts in Fundamentals of Sustainable Design and Systems Thinking, translating the previously explored standards and techniques from a theoretical to practical space. The design industry is more actively supporting the environmental revolution by tackling sustainability before end-of-life, which has received more focus traditionally. Using a semester-long project, The Practice of Sustainable Design allows students to research and develop a design project using successful frameworks. |
The Practice Of Sustainable Design Portfolio Piece:
Green is the New Orange Prison Redesign This multi-phase project challenged us to not design for gradual environmental improvements (i.e. use recycled material, operate with less electricity, etc.), but rather tackle a problem with radical, paradigm-shifting solutions. Initial brainstorming centered on identifying a need in society that would benefit from a design overhaul. I chose to redesign a typical US prison in order to make it more sustainable and subsequently better for inmates’, prison employees’, and broader communities’ well-being. This project highlighted key social discrepancies, often overlooked, that exist within sustainable design and development. |
Course Description: Biomimetic Design
Denise DeLuca | Spring, 2017 Biomimetic Design is grounded in the concept that nature’s strategies offer some of the most promising frameworks for designers to follow. While biomimetic designs aren’t required to be sustainable, nature’s solutions inherently incorporate patterns and approaches that are more efficient, cyclical, resilient, and optimizing. The fact of the matter is humans have only been on Earth for a fraction of time compared to other life systems, and those have proven far more successful over time. Biomimicry encourages individuals to spend more time interacting with nature, learning from nature, and recognizing routes for humanity to return to a more balanced existence with other life and environments. |
Biomimetic Design Portfolio Piece:
Climate Change Challenge - REASHORE Using the Biomimicry Institute’s Biomimicry Global Design Challenge (BGDC) requirements, we were tasked with developing a biomimetic design that addresses sustainability issues resulting from climate change. We started the challenge individually, and later formed groups for the final project submission based on common interests. This project is the proposal I created individually for the course final, designing a structure to protect against and mitigate the risks of rising sea levels. The design elements of my coastline structure draw from natural processes, backing each decision with research and analysis on the ways this biomimetic design sustainably addresses this climate change challenge longer-term. |
Course Description: Collaborative Product Design
Jeremy Faludi & Nathanial Freeman | Spring, 2017 Collaborative Product Design, similar to The Practice of Sustainable Design, takes materials from Systems Thinking and Fundamentals of Sustainable Design and adds a new twist. Students are divided into groups from day one, and the coursework is completed collaboratively via email, telephone, and video chats. The number and variety of perspectives students are exposed to through different projects is invaluable, especially in an online program where students don’t typically have a lot of direct interaction with each other. While scheduling and coordination makes this one of the most challenging courses in the MASD program, it stands out because group work and final projects most closely mirror what students may do in a formal job setting. |
Collaborative Product Design Portfolio Piece:
Skin Optimizing PlatformTM For a significant portion of the semester, groups were paired with a company to sustainably redesign one of their products. My group worked with Newton, an engineering consulting company, and focused our efforts on the evaluation and redesign of the Skin Optimizing Platform. Using techniques practiced earlier in the course, we created a final presentation with proposals on how this multi-head face cleansing brush can be a more sustainable product. At our final presentation, it was exciting to hear Newton had already used some of our ideas in a recent meeting with their client on the next design phase for the Skin Optimizing Platform. |
Course Description: Making the Business Case for Sustainability
Wendy Jedlicka | Fall, 2017 Making the Business Case for Sustainability covers an important aspect of design that moves away from the creative to the more logistical side. A new product or process idea can fall flat when it isn't accompanied by a strong business case emphasizing how compelling and successful it will be in the marketplace. It's important for designers to know strategies and basic business functions that accompany their designs in order to secure financial backing and build organizations/companies around the new concepts. This course provides students with an introduction to these concepts and offers an opportunity to start applying them to a new design proposal. |
Making the Business Case Portfolio Piece:
Eco-Wedding Venue Association & Certification Using a business case template, we spent the semester taking a sustainable product or process and detailing a summary, marketing plan, operational plan, management and financial plan, and next steps. Beyond having another opportunity to practice developing an innovative, environmentally-conscious idea, we had to identify all of the other elements that must be accounted for throughout the process in order to determine feasibility. My project built out the business case for a wedding venue certification program and umbrella association centered on reducing the environmental impact of wedding celebrations. Link to full Making the Business Case for Sustainability Work - highlights shown below. |
Course Description: Innovation Tools & Techniques
Curt McNamara | Spring, 2018 Innovation Tools & Techniques is a great introductory course that pairs well with the topics in the Fundamentals of Sustainable Design course. Developing new ideas isn't always an easy process, so it is essential to have a toolkit to draw from during brainstorming, when refining an idea, and when implementing the concept. Throughout the semester, students get to test a variety of different techniques, both individually and with partners or groups. |
Innovation Tools and Techniques Portfolio Piece:
BEMindful App Using the approaches practiced throughout the course, we developed a final project in three different stages - first a proposal, an update and overarching plan, and in the end a final presentation. The concept I focused on was "speed recovery," or incorporating greater mindfulness in our day-to-day in order to channel greater sustainability. The final project culminated in the design of a mobile app that prompts users with physical activities, quotes and readings, and moments of pause or meditation to encourage individuals to slow down and be more aware of their surroundings and personal impacts. |