Climate Change. Design Teaching for a New Reality

In October 2015, students from Kingston University, London designed and delivered ‘Climate Customs’, an open pop-up studio during London’s Inside Out festival. Conceived and developed in association with Helen Storey Foundation, the studio aimed to test ways of capturing public responses to climate change and sustainability. Tasked with developing methods of public engagement, students devised a journey of participation to highlight the global implications of climate change – how it is likely to affect each and every one of us, albeit in different ways and at different rates in different parts of the world. Drawing on the results and outputs from the pop-up studio – including visitor, student, project initiator, and tutor perspectives – our paper considers questions of design for sustainability, design for engagement, and studio culture. It presents and reflects on the format and programme that the students devised, and considers implications of incorporating such approaches into wider design teaching practice.