Life-affirming design pedagogies The case of the Master’s Programme Design Ecologies at Konstfack, Sweden.

Abstract

This paper presents the pedagogical frame of the Master’s Programme Design Ecologies , a design-driven higher education initiative that integrates ecoliteracy principles and relational approaches to material cultures, striving to create a design practice that is life-affirming. Responding to the ecological crises shaped by extractive, anthropocentric design paradigms, the programme cultivates an ecocentric orientation grounded in our interdependence with other-than-human beings, systems thinking, and political awareness. Drawing on ecoliteracy principles, design is explored as a practice that shapes and is shaped by multispecies relations, material flows, and planetary boundaries. This is examined through two student projects and the conceptual work guiding the programme.

The paper argues that reorienting design education toward ecological relationality contributes critically to the field of Biodesign by proposing situated responses that acknowledge not only the biological aspects of design, but also issues of power, cohabitation, and the ethical responsibilities of intervening in complex ecological systems.