What is Sustainability? What are the Design Opportunities for India?

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR INDIA
The issue of understanding sustainable design has had the five groups of students working very hard over the week and the weekend and we were able to complete all the presentations on saturday. Today I have been able to post on my advocasy blog called "Design for India" a note on Sustainability as a Principle for Design Action in India, take a look.

The presentations done by the students groups are shown below. The next stage would be in exploring the areas of uncertainity and the unknown by making some research moves into the field as well as into published resources using the present understanding of the group as a starting point. The purpose is to move forward and understand the finer details while getting a better grasp of the big sweeping conception of both global as well as historical perspectives that may apply to the task area and the sub-field that the groups is addressing. Sustainability is a very complex concept and it may be useful to get in touch with some of the published resources especially some good simple texts that could give one a quick entry into the concepts that are associated with this field. Based on this understanding the discussions with experts would be more fruitful. By experts we do not mean only those qualified by training or by having obtained a degree in some field, particularly a PhD! far from it, we mean that the students should try and make contact with people in the field who have a direct contact with the subject and some of them may even have a very current contact and therefore some useful insights that may be critical and contemporary and others may have had an extended contact through years of experience and would be able to give some historical perspectives as well. Others may be from the academic field and yet others may be from organisations that deal with the subject, such as the Centre for Environment Education in Ahmedabad or the Physical Research Laboratory, each with their own area of focus. Getting access to these Institutes may not be easy but with some diplomacy and a letter from NID many doors could open and individuals too could be open to share their experiences.

Presentation of the Food Group


Presentation of the Health Group


Presentation of the Play Group


Presentation of the Mobility Group


Presentation of the Learning Group


The very expressive metaphor of the ocean going ship in search of the learning experiences Click image to enlarge.