Sunday, 25 May 2008 14:00
As business responds to new environmental limits, designers now work on eco-efficient services, dematerialisation, eco-innovation, product-service systems and social innovation. What does that mean for cities, office design, consumer products, services, emotional qualities, semantics, new businesses, design education, the role of designers in future vision?
As a part of the EecoLEAD innovative thinkers program VEIl will be hosting a public lecture from Sustainable design expert Ursula Tishner.
Date: Thursday 5 June 2008
Venue: Prince Philip Theatre, University of Melbourne
Ursula Tischner:Ass. Prof. Ursula Tischner, born in Germany, studied Architecture and Industrial Design and specialised in Eco- and Sustainable Design of products and services. After her master graduation she worked for more than 4 years at the German Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, where she was involved in developing concepts such as eco-efficiency, MIPS, Factor 4 and Factor 10, Ecodesign, Eco-innovation etc. In 1996 she founded her own company, called econcept, Agency for Sustainable Design, in Cologne.
With econcept Ursula carries out research and consulting projects with small and large companies and other organizations. She runs several training and educational courses and programs, including a Masters program in Sustainable Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. She is widely published and is a lead ograniser for a number of networks around Eco- and Sustainable Design, product service systems, sustainable consumption and service design. She is a member of design juries and standardization bodies such as ISO, and evaluator in European research programs.
Recent and current projects:
• SCORE, Sustainable Consumption Research Exchange, a European Research Network
• Sustainable Office, Sustainable System Innovations for the office sector, project with 30 industry partners and stakeholder organisations, to develop sustainable innovations, funded by German Research Ministry
• ecobiente, how to design and market eco-products more successfully by integrating target group adequate design of the soft factors of ecodesign, e.g. product semantics, emotional qualities etc., funded by German Research Ministry
• MEPSS, European Research project and
• SusProNet, European thematic network on the development of Sustainable Product Service Systems, funded by EC growth program
• Ecodesign in craft companies, research and pilot projects with 15 craft companies and the chamber of craft, Aachen, Germany
• Sustainable System Innovation, research project for the German Research Ministry, methodology development, case study research and establishment of an European expert
network