Design for Planet (MA)

Semester start: August / September
Registration deadline: 1st of March at 12.00 PM (CET)
Duration: 2 years (120 ECTS)
Admission requirements: Application
Downloads: Course Descriptions Planet 2024/2025
Curriculum Master's 2023
Location: Kolding School of Design
Instruction language: English

Design for Planet
Skills
Practice
Courses
Studios
Future
Career
Graduation projects
Admission

Design for Planet

Why should I choose Design for Planet

Design for Planet is for those who are professionally bold and curious and who want to direct their practice towards sustainable agendas.

The education emphasises experiments, creativity, empathy, ethics, cooperation and one-on-one engagements in and with the world. You must have a strong design-based grounding to which a thematic and multidisciplinary approach to working with sustainability design will be added.

Students from all of the school's own bachelor programmes as well as students from other disciplines will be accepted provided they meet the admission criteria by showing design understanding and technical/creative design skills equivalent to the level of a bachelor’s degree in design.

Kandidatprojekt / 2023 / Design for Planet. Tiia Maria Jaakkola. Gender neutral. 50ties Hip Hop. Classic suit. Unsold, recycled denim. Red Cross. The digital design tool Clo3D was used in order to minimize material waste and to ensure the potential for later upcycling.

Skills

What will I learn?

Design for Planet adopts a comprehensive approach to design thinking and 'doing' and builds professional gravitas, which enables students to challenge and rethink existing solutions through design.

To support these visions of design, we apply innovative practical working methods within a wide range of topics such as: past use and production practices, user studies, material driven design, speculative prototyping, critical design, holistic systems, circular and sharing economy, design activism and cultural intervention.

Design for Planet offers the opportunity to work with design of materials, products, services, systems, experiences and cultural changes. Hence, throughout the course, students will be acquainted with different design contexts and designer roles.

Resiliente fællesskaber, kandidatprojekt, af Carlo Enrico Spini, 2022

Practice

How will I learn?

Design School Kolding is a frontrunner in the field of sustainability and we have worked with dedication on the topic for more than 20 years.

The instructors at Design for Planet are highly qualified Danish and foreign personalities with experience from research and practice and with a broad professional spectrum.

Changes through design cannot occur in isolation, and therefore Design for Planet collaborates with external actors such as museums, companies, production sites, organizations, associations and institutions.

Generally speaking the programme has a practice approach to design. However, since we consider theoretical and methodological anchoring as essential for the designers of today and tomorrow, a number of written elements are associated with the project work. Furthermore, you must be interested in and be prepared to engage in literature.

In addition to the thematic instruction anchored in Design for Planet, the basic disciplines of textile design, communication design, fashion design, accessory design and industrial design will be continuously developed. A strong professional foundation is a good starting point for learning from each other and discovering opportunities across professional disciplines. Therefore it is possible to work in an interdisciplinary fashion throughout the course.

The instruction comprises a mixture of lectures, workshops, individual and group-based project work and seminars.

Courses

Transforming Practices

Understanding how design arises from situated contexts

Material Narratives

Focusing on materials as a translator of values and concepts

Holistic Systems

Mastering complexity, dynamics and collaboration through direct engagement

Exploring Design Perspectives

An exploration of your motivation and goals and competences in relation to the content of the Master's education.

Design Practice and Prototyping

The course will expand your professional repertoire within prototyping and encourage you to form a strategy for the future acquisition of skills.

Design Methodology

An introduction to design methodology in a historic as well as contemporary context making you able to understand and put theories, discussions and main directions in the field into perspective as well as reflect on your own practice.

Empowering Change

In collaboration with chosen companies, the course identifies relevant problems and focuses on process facilitation from idea to creation of ideas in real scenarios.

Exploring Design Profession

An introduction to the design practices in the job market while exploring different ways of working within the design profession with the perspective of sustainability, co-creation or play aiming to develop contemporary design practices.

Studios

Learning through making is a core part of Designschool Koldings approach to education - discover the Studios

hero picture for the subpage textile print studio

Future

Why is Design for Planet important?

Design for Planet addresses one of the most important challenges of today: Creating a more sustainable world ecology for the Earth and all its residents.

Design for Planet views the value of design as a means of generating changes in the way we do things. Hence the programme − both directly and indirectly − addresses the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which call on all countries in the world to assume a shared responsibility and be prepared to produce, consume and act sustainably.

Sustainability is a complex subject and there are no easy answers. Design for Planet encourages free and critical thinking in relation to the sustainable agendas it addresses and the programme embraces an understanding of the designer as a transformer of what exists here and now as well as a generator of novel solutions so that design can contribute as much as possible to a more sustainable world.

Career

What jobs can I get?

An MA degree in Design for Planet focused on design and sustainability enables you to work in many fields and organisations depending on your interests and expertise.

Either as an employee in a company, an organisation, or an institution or as self-employed, you can design and develop products, including communication, that focus on sustainability.

The programme also prepares you to have a systemic approach to working with sustainability in production and use. This could involve circular economy, product lifespan and new services in the private and public sectors. This enables you to help develop sustainable strategies and change within companies and organisations throughout the value chain.

Your experiences with holistic thinking and process planning in relation to many types of approaches to sustainability along with your experiences with cross-disciplinary collaborations could also make you a valued consultant.

In addition, the programme prepares you to pursue an academic career in a university or design school and enables you to become a facilitator, teacher or communicator of design and sustainability.