Responsible creativity in design education

Abstract

Creativity is a key concept in the scientific discourse of design education. Conducting a word search, the concepts ‘creative’ and/or ‘creativity’ featured 128 of the 165 papers published at the DRS//CUMULUS Oslo 2013 2nd International Conference for Design Education Researchers. Creativity, as a generic human ability, can drive new ideas or artefacts that contribute to both environmental protection and degradation, human aid and human-made disasters. To support a socioecological transition that rethinks current modes of making, production and consumption, the creativity of designers has to pair up with concepts that promotes ethical concerns. This paper explore how design education at a secondary and tertiary level can draw upon the shared transformative agenda of critical reflection and design. Critical reflection unearths, questions and rethinks sociocultural practices, and the capacity to transcend the known is the expertise of design. A structure of reflective inquiry: 1) Confrontation, 2) Exploration, 3) Evaluation and 4) Transformation adopted to a systems-oriented design process might provide a platform to connect students to real-world problems and the complexity of creating.