“In the great creative periods of science the artists and the scientists worked very closely together and were in many cases the same people (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci). The result of this separation [i.e. science and art] has been the most incredible mutual ignorance.“ – J.D. Bernal

I have been working the last while on a small research project for the UK Higher Education Academy and Heather Luna looking at interdisciplinarity and design education for sustainability (in collaboration with Jane Davison from Newport school of Art and Design). Interdisciplinarity is a collaborative process that attempts to go beyond the traditional boundaries of disciplines in order to come up with solutions to complex and socially-relevant challenges.

The reason why i started this project was I always assumed that sustainability presents us with complex challenges and numerous ‘wicked problems’ and our current ways of thinking, doing and learning are not working very well. I also assumed that creating collaborations between different disciplines (e.g. design, business, social science, anthropologists, activists etc.) would lead to better solutions.

I also wanted to know how design education can remain relevant in a rapidly changing and dynamic world that is presenting us with complex challenges to which few appear to have solutions (or at least the ability to implement the solutions at an appropriate scale). In that question there is another assumption i.e. that we need to shift from teaching about sustainability, to teaching for sustainability which through a, yet to be defined, process of transformation will lead us to sustainable education.

On reflection, it all sounds very naive….