Regenerative practices have evolved over time from the paradigms of sustainability and regenerative sustainability. This literature review focuses on guides and methods in the emerging field of regenerative product design and regenerative materials. The study identified a knowledge gap and a need for methodologies to bridge the higher system levels of socio-ecological processes and regenerative architecture with the product and material levels. The study presents 10 common denominators for regenerative design processes found in architecture and socio-ecological and introduces a first attempt at classifying regenerative materials. The study's findings indicate a clear need to develop strategies and methods that product designers can implement in their future professional practices and design education.

In the EU a program for implementing a circular approach to the Lifestyle and Fashion Industry dealing with the resource challenges of the massive textile-production has been launched (EU 2020). Consequently, national and international legislation is expected to become reality over the coming 5-10 years. Thus, the industry faces a need for circular and closed-loop approaches and will be challenged in developing and recruiting internal competencies for making the transition from linear to circular production possible. Many lifestyle companies face the transition as a challenging process in which the elements are both interdependent, interconnected and influence simultaneously economic, environmental and social concerns. This affects the companies at a wide variety of organizational levels. The companies often struggle to handle the challenges in conjunction, even as this generates tensions, paradoxes and contradictions in the organization – again challenging the roles of i.e. the designer. (Hahn et al., 2014, Berger et al. 2007). Even so, the tensions and paradoxes have received relatively little attention in the literature, and much of the present research on organizational replies to issues related to sustainable development, are often framed around an instrumental logic, - i.e., what benefits the companies in managerial or economical concerns. (Hahn et al., 2014). Performing circular design approaches require the development and use of both personal but also sustainable and systemic-competencies as they have to implode a new level of complexity in the design- and production process, and this puts the designers in often challenging positions and roles in the companies. Research demonstrates how fashion designers can support the transition towards a circular economy (CE) in the fashion industry (EMF, 2018) but as another study investigated the roles of the fashion designers working in medium and large international fashion companies and summarized a model – Organisational Roles of Fashion Designers for Circular Economy (ORFDCE model) suggesting that designers can take up three central roles in the transition process, it provided the designers can expand their sustainability-related knowledge and are supported by four central systemic organizational changes. (Dan & Østergaard, 2020). This paper explores the challenges of the motivational why and also investigates how the designers can implode change in the organizations in the transition from a linear to a circular Lifestyle industry and what obstructions they encounter. This is done by using a 15 semistructured interviews with designers and managers reflecting on both the ORFDCE model, the organizational theory from ‘Tensions in Corporate Sustainability’ and ‘Sustainable-Wellbeing’ using a Quadrant Model Analyzis, (Nygaard, 2019, Hahn et al. 2014, Nygaard & Tønnesbæk, 2013) The paper finally suggests how to use the research when developing design-Educations for Sustainable Development (ESD’s).

The recent academic literature on material practices within design has revealed the emergence of a new design discipline, DIY-materials or material design. Designers educated in DIY-materials and the Material Driven Design method, applied in design courses in major European universities are beginning to identify themselves as material designers. This paper presents a qualitative case study of the challenges faced by material designers and design students developing DIY-materials from the stage of a small sample with promising experiential qualities and technical properties, towards a more viable material. A comparative case study of twenty-eight material driven design projects and four explorative semi-structured interviews were conducted with designers. The result suggest: (a) that designers have a tendency to focus more on the experiential attributes and aesthetical qualities rather than the technical attributes in the early stages of material development, (b) projects that are situated in specific contexts or systems have a higher success rate, (c) bio-based DIY-materials are in general sensitive to moist and high temperatures, (d) a systematic approach during tinkering combined with analytic skills are crucial for the development of DIY-materials. In this paper we also build on our previous research, regarding the development of reflective material practices for design students in higher education. It is hoped that this research can contribute to the further development of material design as a new design discipline.

This study aims to explore the scope of ‘knowledge-carrying’ objects in learning situations. The study is based on a qualitative content analysis of a design project conducted in a science centre for children aged 7-10 years, learning about polymers and circularity. The design project is based on research through design and has been an iterative process where design experiments and observations were intertwined. The main purpose of the study has been to understand the role a ‘knowledge-carrying’ object may play in learning situations, and whether an object can convey knowledge between learners or between the object and the individual, without the presence of a facilitator. The study also aimed to explore what type of properties or requirements can be claimed by such an object. Different types of documentation from the design project has been analysed through a qualitative content analysis in a top-down process in order to explore and identify how the iterations of the objects changed the objects’ capacity to carry knowledge during the project’s time frame. The goal was to create an initial concept of how designers can work with ‘knowledge-carrying’ objects in learning situations. Finally, the understanding of the role of ‘knowledge-carrying’ objects is discussed in relation to other types of mediating objects used by designers in design processes and using ‘knowledge-carrying’ objects as pedagogical agents in design education.

A new paradigm is slowly making its way into society, affecting our material practice as designers. Materials selection in design and product development has for a long time been dominated by a purely technical approach, mainly focusing on properties and performance. With the increasing evidence of climate change, waste and pollution, environmental effects, we are slowly realizing that unsustainable consumption of materials is no longer an alternative. Previous studies of material practices, both within design educations and the design profession, has primarily dealt with the development of material related methods. This thesis has focused on gaining an in-depth understanding of material practices within design processes, in order to develop a pedagogical framework that facilitates the development of reflective material practices in design education. There are four primary aims of the research presented in this licentiate thesis: (1) ascertain obstacles in the traditional ways of teaching materials to design students, (2) to bridge the differences in language, research culture and pedagogic approaches in design education, (3) to investigate current professional material practices in industrial design, and (4) to develop a new material framework for teaching reflective material practices for design students. During the project, the material framework has been tested and evaluated in two mandatory material courses with first and second year bachelor students from Product Design education over a period of four academic years. A comparative case study was conducted with five design consultancies. The qualitative interviews were transcribed and analysed using category zooming. The outcomes of this research are: (1) a new pedagogic framework for teaching materials to Product Design students in higher education, and (2) insights into professional practices of selecting and designing with materials. The pedagogic model A Material Framework for Product Design is designed to facilitate the development of reflective material practices in design education. The Framework consist of four levels: (1) a pedagogical foundation based on Experiential Learning theory that provide a framework for how to approach teaching and learning, (2) designing and structuring learning activities, (3) creating learning environments that facilitate learning activities, and (4) defining learning objectives, assessment of learning outcomes and detecting signs of learning. The main insights from the study of professional practices suggest: (1) that risk management has a major influence on the material selection process, (2) that negotiations of project boundaries in the ‘fuzzy’ pre-design phase has crucial influence on the risk management aspect of the material criteria activities, and (3) a lack of awareness, that design briefs usually outline material criteria expressed as sensorial characteristics, which are later translated by engineering into final material criteria used for the material selection process. The findings implies that design students would benefit from developing reflective material practices in design education.

This study evaluates a new pedagogic approach implemented in material courses for product design students at bachelor level education. Material education within the field of design education at technical faculties has, in general, a strong technical focus, e.g. selecting materials with predominant focus on engineering properties of materials. Product design education at a bachelor level need to offer material courses that prepares the design students to work both on inspirational and analytical levels in material selection processes. Early in the design education, students often have a preconception of materials, and they need to be introduced to an open-minded inspirational material selection process, based on scientific design methods. When developing a new curriculum for the material courses, it is important to teach materials and production methods in a contextualized setting with emphasis on how materials can be approached in a design process. Methods can be seen as mental tools that aids the design students in navigating complexity and offers them a structure to deal with unfamiliar territories. After an evaluation, we selected some methods, guidelines and tools to integrate in the mandatory material courses for the product design students e.g. the Expressive-Sensorial Atlas, Meaning Driven Materials Selection and the Material Driven Design method. The implementation were made in two steps in order to test, evaluate and further develop a framework for teaching materials courses to product design students. This study only reports the first step of implementation since the second step is under development and will be implemented during autumn 2017.

The aim of this study is to evaluate a new pedagogic approach implemented in a compulsory materials course for product design students at bachelors level at Malmö University. When developing a new curriculum for the material course, a decision was made to teach materials and production methods in a contextualized setting with emphasis on how students can deal with materials in a design process. Methods can be seen as mental tools that aid the design students in navigating complexity and offers them a structure to deal with unfamiliar territories. After an evaluation, some methods, guidelines and tools were selected to integrate in the compulsory materials course for the product design students, e.g. the Expressive-Sensorial Atlas [1], Meaning Driven Materials Selection [2] and the Material Driven Design method [3]. The implementation is made in two steps in order to test, evaluate and further develop a framework for teaching materials courses to product design students. The study evaluate the first step of implementation in general, and the implementation of the Material Driven Design method in particular. It is hoped that this research can contribute to further development of pedagogical approaches for teaching materials and production methods in a contextualized setting for product design students at bachelors level.

This qualitative case study aims at understanding when and how industrial designers, working in design consultancies, engage in activities that will influence material selection in the design process. While the extant literature presents material selection processes as a sequence of activities aimed at finding candidate materials, there is paucity of research on material criteria activities. Formulating material criteria is an activity that is performed during all design phases and they become clearer and more complete throughout the project. For the case studies, explorative semi-structured interviews were conducted with five industrial designers with 10 years of work experience or more. The results suggest (a) that risk management has a major influence on the material selection process, (b) that negotiations of project boundaries in the ‘fuzzy’ pre-design phase has crucial influence on the risk management aspect of the material criteria activities, and (c) a lack of awareness that design briefs usually outline material criteria expressed as sensorial characteristics, which are later translated by engineering into final material criteria used for the material selection process.

This study reviews literature on the aspects of material selection within the field of industrial design education, specifically focusing on existing material selection tools and guidelines used in industrial design education. The growing number of materials available today has created a large variety of options for industrial designers, which they are ill-equipped to handle. A key reason behind this is that industrial designers lack appropriate education in material selection. There is a large body of research in the field of mechanical engineering, examining the material selection process of mechanical engineers. There are differences in material selection activities of mechanical engineers and industrial designers, based on their information requirements during different stages of the design process. Recent research highlights a need to merge the perspectives of engineering and industrial design for teaching the subject of material selection in industrial design education at tertiary level. Industrial designers have unique skills to combine technical properties and intangible characteristics of materials in the product development process. Design students need to learn how to act as ambassadors of the intangible material characteristics in material selection processes in interdisciplinary teams. Industrial design needs to reclaim material education when taught in technical faculties and develop its own curriculum. An open-minded dialogue with the engineering colleagues is a prerequisite in developing a curriculum for material courses in design education at a technical faculty. Together designers and engineers need to define a mutual understanding of concepts and contexts to successfully develop a new curriculum. This paper suggests an approach that prepare the students to work both on inspirational and analytical levels in material selection processes.