Sustainable design and the design curriculum

This article reports on an initial study that begins the process of considering how design education should deal with the issue of sustainable design specifically in the context of the education of graduate designers in the fields of product design (PD) engineering and interior design. Consideration is given to the development of the design curriculum and the design process. Further, a number of questions related to shaping the future of design and engineering education are also explored. The question this research seeks to address is whether sustainability, or more specifically sustainable design, should or can be an integral part of engineering/PD programmes or whether it should or can be developed as a separate design discipline, perhaps as a postgraduate extension to the designer's core skills set. The research also discusses the difference between eco-design and sustainable design, and the implications of the understanding of this difference for design education.