Study on Solutions and Roadmap of Sustainable Development of Creative Design Industry In China

The creative design sector is still at preliminary development stage in China. Internally, the sector faces deficiencies in design philosophy, transformation techniques, industrial chain communication, talents, and comprehensive administration. Externally, it has to deal with unfavorable environment. In order to find a way out, this chapter proposes a roadmap of sustainable development which comprises erecting a public service platform integrating system and establishing third-party public service platforms. The goals are to facilitate healthy development of China's creative design sector, chase up the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry, enhance creative design competency, foster micro and small startups of creative design business, help them to pick up market shares and enhance design competitiveness, and ultimately drive the transformation and upgrading of regional economy.

Design Freedom

Against the backdrop of increasing recognition of the social and cultural pillar of sustainable development, this chapter advances the notion of design freedom as a conceptual and methodological tool for deepening our commitments towards participatory and emancipatory design. Drawing from Sen's development as freedom approach, design freedom is broadly defined as a process that identifies opportunities for people to ameliorate their life conditions. In addition to enabling sustainability, design freedom is also a transformative process in and of itself, expanding opportunities of all participants in the process. As such, it augments the subfield of design methods adding processual consideration to its instrumental orientation. The chapter offers an illustration of the potential of design freedom as research and action approach by presenting a case study of co-design with the Pinoleville Pomo Nation tribe in California. This design freedom project identified and fostered three key capacities for community flourishing: distributed agency, expressive materials, and effective form.

Educating a Socially Responsible Designer

Between user and environment, the main responsibility of a designer is to conceive user as part of design understanding. Design education is one of the important stages to provide required bottom-up change in prevalent design perspectives by equipping student with necessary skills and tools towards a socially responsible designer. Addressing this issue, the chapter aims to provide a framework to contribute education of socially responsible designer. Focusing on Donald Schön's notion of “on-the-spot inquiry,” a framework for the organization of user learning in design studio is discussed to provide design students a way to understand real user with its complex dimensions and lead them to define their design problem with this user-informed perspective. The critical tools of this approach are underlined as real user-student interaction, on-the-spot user inquiry, and user case in design studio. This framework is exemplified with a user case involving a design studio experience.

A Case Study on Pipli Craft of Orissa

India is known for its arts and crafts, handicrafts form the gateway to this ethnic nation. Primary research for this project started with a visit to Odisha to study the craft of Pipli appliqué. The state Odisha has a rich cultural heritage, which is a harmonious blending of art, religion, and philosophy interwoven around “Lord Purusottam Jagannath”—the internationally famous Vaishnavite God at holy city of Puri. Pipli applique textiles originated as temple offerings, chariot decoration, and ceremonial products. The technique itself was practiced by the selected few craftsmen of the village. Through this chapter, the author presents craft cluster study project through a learning together initiative project conducted by an on-site visit, stay at the cluster, at a small village Pipli located in the eastern state of India: Odisha. This chapter also gives an insight about the socio-economic factors that have affected the Pipli craft. An effort that has built a strong community relationship between the Hindus and Muslims of the village, all bound by the Pipli applique craft.

A Research of Ecological Farmhouse Design Based on the Sustainable Development Needs

To summarize the problems and needs of the current rural life, identify the pathway that suits the sustainable development of rural areas, and propose the design concept and method that meet the current rural ecological design requirements. Use the organized research approaches. This chapter makes a case study of Nanma Village, provides the theoretical and design practice reference for the rural sustainable development in China, and establishes the knowledge and methodology system that meets the requirements of rural sustainable development. This chapter proposes the design concept and method in line with the current requirements of rural ecological design, suggests that the current village design should be adapted to “local conditions,” and indicates that the harmonious development between human and environment will be a new possible direction for the rural sustainable development and design in future.

An Intergenerational Solidarity Approach to Community Public Space in China

Community intergenerational solidarity is an effective intervention to facilitate cohesiveness and to explore mutual supports between generations within neighborhoods. However, few attempts have been made in China from the perspective of physical environment. This study aims to explore the associations between community intergenerational solidarity and the built environment, and then figure out the approaches for the facilitation of community intergenerational solidarity. Firstly, a conceptual framework of community intergenerational solidarity was proposed. Then field surveys were carried out and questionnaires were distributed in four residential communities in Harbin, China, investigating the respondents' preferences for intergenerational solidarity. The results demonstrate that inhabitants have the expectation of intergenerational solidarity and they would prefer to those activities that take place in public space. Based on that, design approaches of community public space, including overall planning, service facilities and open space, as well as other suggestions, were proposed.

The Knowledge Vehicle (K-Yan)

The world today is in a state of digital flux where the rapid spread of technology demands young people to stay au courant with new skills and approaches. India, set to become a young nation by 2030, will face the digital challenge if policies are not steered to realize the bottom-up approach to progress that clubs traditional teaching methods with technology. As a user-centered social design, K-Yan transforms a mix of products and services to a sustainable device, while still being economically successful. It captures the valorization of existing social resources/knowledge and its digitization under K-Yan. K-Yan exhibits a sustainability shift from a technological and product-related innovation to a broader techno-socio-cultural innovation. This chapter explores K-Yan as a design for social inclusion and equality that combines the triple bottom line approach with ICT to generate sustainable value.

Design for Child-Friendly Environment in Primary and Secondary Schools Aims at Safe Society

School bullying has plagued schools with violence for quite some time and exerts a serious negative impact on society. Primary and secondary school can be looked at like a micro-society composed of students, teachers, and staff where students can suffer serious injury, physically and mentally, at the hands of school bullies. It is therefore urgent to reduce the prevalence of school bullying in hopes of eliminating it altogether. The present research aims to encourage social safety promotion through the study of crime prevention through environmental design theory and an exploration of characteristics of school bullying in primary and secondary schools. From there, environmental design strategies such as improved spatial interaction, a sense of safe territory, dedicated space for various activities, and positive emotions in child-friendly spaces are proposed. The outcome of this research hopes to improve campus security and reduce and prevent school bullying while guiding architectural design for primary and secondary school campus design.

Play Safe?

Playgrounds in Hong Kong have been boring to children, as elements of risk and fun have been removed for parents' concern for safety. The government resorted to homogenous plastic play facilities to extinguish any liability and complaints. While adults wanted to play safe, children's opportunities for balanced physical, sensory, and social development diminished. A play consultant organization, Playright, came forward with social design initiatives that brought all the stakeholders—government departments, professionals, schools, and families—together to reach a common goal—better playgrounds. The Children's Playground Design Workshops and Junior Playground Commissioner Incubation Programme, in which children participated as the designer, allowed their ideas to inform the actual design of the pilot project at Tuen Mun Park Playground, which is due to complete by the end of 2017 by the Architectural Services Department. The aim of this chapter is to document and discuss how the co-designing of all the stakeholders, especially children, could make social change together.

Social-Architectural Design of Community-Based Embedded Comprehensive Elderly Centers in China

The community-based embedded comprehensive elderly center (CECEC) was proposed in 2015 to address ageing population issues in China in existing communities. However, there is as yet no satisfactory solution for how to design the CECEC to properly integrate resources and create social inclusion. Synthesizing the social design and architectural design literature, this study proposes a CECEC architectural design that incorporates the approach, content, and design steps of social design. This study argues that social-architectural CECEC design goes beyond traditional architectural design. It is not limited to the construction of material space; it also focuses on the participation of different stakeholders. Considering the needs of the people and the potential of existing communities, the proposed social-architectural CECEC design process involves architectural-social problem definition, project establishment, architectural programming, design ordering, strategy confirmation, and architectural design.