Tag Archives: Design Research

Debates in Enterprise and Sustainability

29 April 2013
The debate on 15th of May includes key sustainability leaders across UAL that will explore what kind of future awaits students and graduates from UAL and how creative roles in art & design can contribute to a more sustainable developments. Chaired by Jeremy Till, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design Professor, the debate is structured around three questions that will each be addressed by 4 speakers:

 

Transitions:

What do we mean by a sustainable future in a creative company?

With TFRC Director Professor Rebecca Earley, Anthony Bennett, David Bent and David Cross.

 

Behaviour:

As practitioners in art and design, how can we change behaviours for a more sustainable future?

With Ed Gillespie, Virginia Gardiner, Dilys Williams and Adam Thorpe.

 

Paradigm Shifts :

What is the greatest barrier and opportunity for creating a sustainable future?

With MA Textile Futures Course Leader Caroline Till, Professor Lawrence Zeegen, Michaela Crimmin and Lord Redesdale.

 

The event will start at 1.30pm and end at 6.30pm in the St Bride’s Foundation, Bride Lane, Fleet Street, EC4Y 8EQ. Tickets cost £10 for students and £15 for standard entry.

For bookings and further information please visit the event’s website.

New THE TEN cards

23 April 2013

The TED’s TEN cards were launched by the TED research team in 2011 as a tool to enable workshop participants to design using sustainability as a driver for innovation. The team has now updated the text on the cards, now called THE TEN, to reflect fully the questions that each strategy addresses and to provide examples of how they can be approached.

The cards are used to enable design thinking approaches to the making, lifecycle and aesthetic values of a product. TED is using strategies 1-5 at H&M this spring in a course that has been specifically designed for their divisions.

The strategies can be a catalyst for companies and individuals to apply sustainable thinking to small and large-scale decisions, driving future innovation and new ways of doing business.

The new cards are available for sale from the TFRC web-shop.

PhD Application deadline 5th of April

27 March 2013

Image: Work by TED PhD student Emmeline Child

TED has been chatting to many potential PhD candidates recently. The deadline for applications for funding for a research degree at University of the Arts London in the 2013/2014 academic year is on on Friday 5th of April next week. University of the Arts London offers many different research areas and applicants are required to select which of the Colleges would be best placed to support their proposed research project.

Information regarding each college and its specialisms can be consulted on the college research web pages:

 

Applications can be made using an application pack and it is recommended to identify research staff and potential supervisors from the world class cohort of researchers at UAL. More information on key research contacts at the University and Funding Opportunities can be found here.

Skills Development for Researchers in Design Practice (SKIP)

4 March 2013

This week TED and TFRC will host the AHRC funded Skills Development for Researchers in Design Practice (SKIP). An ongoing collaboration between PhD researchers from Royal College of Art, Kingston University, and University of the Arts London, this session is titled Sustainable Design Thinking & Material Selection.

A series of short talks and a workshop from Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design will include TFRC researchers; Becky Earley, Dr Kate Goldsworthy, Caroline Till and Clara Vuletich. The talks and the workshops will be framed by TED’s TEN, and will demonstrate how TFRC is actively landscaping sustainability as a space for design innovation. The focus of the workshop is to test the new Toolbox for designers – a kit full of inspiring industry studies and design thinking exercises- and will be designed to create innovative product and business model prototypes.

The event is only for SKIP PhD researchers, but further information about SKIP can be found here.

TED’s TEN featured in the Green Week 2013 film at UAL

18 February 2013

UAL recently commissioned a video for Green Week in March featuring UAL Pro Vice-Chanellors Natalie Brett, Jeremy Till and Chris Wainwright, and LCF’s Dilys Williams, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion. The film focuses on the creative practice at UAL and how artists and designers of the future can have a positive impact on the environment by considering their use of resources and their approach to making. The Head of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Chris Wainwright speaks about TED’s research and the approach for making creative work with the TED’s TEN strategies for sustainable design. The film also features exerts of the TED’s TEN Summer workshop in June 2012 where we invited scientists, researchers and designers to make their particular recommendations for achieving systemic change in the fashion industry. Watch the film here.

PhD Open Day at Chelsea College of Art & Design

12 February 2013

TED will be part of the Research Degree Open Day for CCW at Chelsea College of Art & Design on Monday 4th of March. Organised by the CCW Graduate School, the event invites prospective research degree applicants to find out more about research degrees at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Art & Design. A few short presentations will introduce the variety of PhD students at CCW, and research centre representatives will be introduced for participants to meet and ask questions. More information about current research degrees can be found here.

TED researchers and current PhD students are looking forward to talking with prospective students – and are looking to develop proposals with applicants specifically around: sustainable textiles, materials and processes; sustainable design strategy; systems and services design for textiles and fashion; and sustainable interior/living applications and contexts.

Please join us in the Green Room at Chelsea College of Art & Design from 5pm to 7pm. For more information on how to find us please follow this link and RSVP to gsevents@arts.ac.uk Follow us on Twitter @TEDTextiles #CCWPhD

TED Paper and workshop at EAD conference in Sweden

23 January 2013

This spring’s team commitments in Sweden also include a workshop and paper presentation at the 10th EAD Crafting the Future Conference in Gothenburg in April. Professor Becky Earley collaborates with Jen Ballie (TED PhD student) and Otto von Busch (Konsfact University Sweden) on a hands-on workshop. TED PhD Researcher Clara Vuletich has successfully submitted a paper and will present this at the conference.

Titled Black Hack Chat, the workshop will combine two design activism research projects - The Black Hack where Earley worked with participants on upcycling old polyester shirts and Old is the New Black, where Ballie and von Busch re-worked old clothes using black paint. The aim of the workshop is to push the boundaries of textile design practice through co-design to identify how it can be used as a tool for citizen engagement, for both: the individual creating for themselves, and the retailer who wishes to creatively engage with their products over a longer time frame.

The paper ‘We Are Disruptive: New Practices for Fashion/Textile Designers in the Supply Chain’ explores a recently completed project as part of the Clara’s PhD research (funded by MISTRA Future Fashion research project 2011), that examines how a designer can use design skills throughout a supply chain to identify opportunities to improve both environmental and social impacts for a company.

Image: Black Hack, Sept 2012

TED and University of Sao Paulo

16 January 2013

Dr Francisca Dantas Mendes from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in Brazil visited TED yesterday to develop potential links to her courses at USP with design-led textile research and sustainability thinking at Chelsea. USP offers 247 undergraduate programs and 239 graduate programs across seven sites in Brazil. Textiles and Fashion are taught with a focus on textile/ chemical/ mechanical engineering but the increasing importance of the environment has led to set up a new design course within USP. Brazil has recently increased visibility with Rio+20 in 2012, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The TED team attended the InCrops event in September 2012 titled ‘Delivering Sustainable Business – Rio+20 and beyond’. Melissa Jaques from UNEP-WCMC explained how Rio+20 developed from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and Rio+10 in 2002. The new emerging challenges for sustainable development goals are the outcomes from the green economy:

  • toolboxes in applying policies on green economy
  • models or good examples
  • platforms

 

Other key themes are national plans for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) with policy frameworks, public-private partnerships for business action towards sustainable development, biodiversity, human population growth and human well-being. At Textiles Environment Design we are part of the MISTRA Future Fashion project which embraces these key themes in order to create systemic change: policy instruments, new business models, and TED’s Textiletoolbox platform with inspiring models for sustainability. With the success of the London Olympics 2012 the Ministry of Tourism and Embratur (the Brazilian Tourism Board) has launched the campaign ‘The World Meets in Brazil. Come Celebrate Life’ to promote Brazil as the host of major sporting events, including the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Research Degrees Open Evening at UAL

2 January 2013

The University of the Arts London hosts a Research Degrees Open Evening on 29th of January at London College of Fashion from 6.15pm to 8.15pm. The Textile Futures Research Centre (TFRC) with TED will give a presentation about the research degrees opportunities within the Centre. Further information will be provided at the event as staff will be present to answer questions about the degrees. The event is a great networking opportunity for prospective research degree applicants who wish to gain more information about the research centres at the six colleges.

Based across two eminent arts and design colleges at the University of the Arts London (UAL) – Central Saint Martins and Chelsea – TFRC hosts a community of practice-based and design-led researchers who share a vision. As a PhD researcher you would be participating in one of the few specialist research centres situated in an institution with an established history of design practice and teaching, one which has shaped the thinking of generations of world leading influential designers.

To RSVP for the event please e-mail researchdegrees@arts.ac.uk and for further information please follow this link.

3rd International Journal of Motorcycle Studies Conference

17 December 2012

BA Course Director Caryn Simonson is organising a conference in association with the International Journal Of Motorcycle Studies (IJMS), from 4th – 7th of July 2013 to be held here at Chelsea College of Art & Design. The event will also include a curated exhibition of textiles, film and photography. It is a collaboration between Simonson (CCAD) & Eryl Price-Davies, from Imperial College London.

Simonson’s paper, Fashionable ‘Bikers’ And Biker Fashion – Exploring the Fascination for the Biker Image and its Relationship with Luxury Brands, was presented at this year’s IJMS conference, University Of Colorado Springs, USA.

At the 2010 conference, Simonson’s paper was Chintz My Ride which contextualised her photographic portrait works of fabric-customised motorcycles with their perceived ‘owners’. For more information on the call for papers 2013 please click here.