Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

Climate change goes beyond being an environmental crisis, at its root we are talking about a social crisis that compels designersto address issues of inequality. While every design has a social impact, not all design is socially focused. This is why a lot of theissues faced in the Anthropocene are connected to bad design. Nature is not at fault; the responsibility falls in humanity to designand engineer their way out of our present issues, and to find how technology can help us become more human while creating amore sustainable world. But how can we design for the future when the future we are designing for is a dystopia that designhelped create? Design has always been about looking forward in a linear way, naively thinking that tomorrow would be better thanyesterday. As we stand facing unavoidable apocalyptic scenarios, can design show the systemic interdependence to be resilientand adaptable, helping humanity become more versatile? This are the type of questions we are asking at the ExtremeEnvironments Studio, a social design studio at the American University of Sharjah. This article will cover the work done thissemester which combines our normal curriculum of a comprehensive studio with a social design program and ideas of adaptivesustainability. The project will explore methods for generating energy, producing of food and water, cleaning air and water,sequestering carbon, supporting biodiversity, and waste management allowing us to rethink the design process, and contributepositively to their local ecologies.