Intro
09
What’s the matter? Nothing? Everything? Views differ – and regardless, the Planet is what matters. Therefore, contemporary designers are constantly reminded to design for a sustainable future in order to maintain a fertile and healthy Planet that we can pass on to our children. We must design for keeping, not for use-and-throwaway. The matter is also the material with which we design. Our material choices have an enormous impact on the world in terms of resources and pollution. Making the right material choices in a design process therefore becomes a matter of uttermost importance.
This publication presents key insights derived from artistic research projects, which explore how the designer works, and might work, with materials in order to help produce a sustainable future. The projects have applied perspectives of aesthetics, digitalisation and sustainability for exploring, testing and proposing new approaches to material-driven design processes. The projects represent a landmark in a fruitful and long-term strategic partnership between Design School Kolding and ECCO. With the projects we address a very present design challenge and seek to take on the role as first-movers by showing how design education and companies can work together to create a better future. We hope you will enjoy the reading.
