11.11.2025 10:00 UHR

Workshop and roundtable “Unlearning Design: Roundtable on sustainability and transformation competence in design education”

What role can design play in the sustainable transformation of society? Sustainability and transformation competences are central topics in design education, but many teaching formats remain stuck in established structures that restrict rather than promote sustainable innovation. The concept of unlearning opens up a critical perspective: which assumptions, methods and practices in design education need to be questioned and overcome in order to enable sustainable design approaches?

“Unlearning Design” is conceived as a two-part event:

1. Workshop with experts and practitioners (non-public, at the University of Art and Design Linz)

• Aim: Reflection and discussion of future perspectives of design teaching in the context of sustainable transformation
• Content: Identification of barriers and potentials for a sustainability-oriented design education, development of approaches for the integration of transformation competencies.

2. Public roundtable (hybrid)

• Opening and exchange with students, teachers and researchers
• With short impulses from the participants on key findings of the workshop

Call for Interest: We invite experts from the fields of sustainable design, transformation design, circular design, design research and related disciplines to participate in the internal workshop! Send a short statement (max. 300 words) on your teaching practice in relation to sustainability, preferably as a short description of a teaching example you would like to present, to florian.sametinger[at]kunstuni-linz.at and/or susanne.ritzmann[at]uni-kassel.de by June 10, 2025.

Date
11.11.2025, 10 am to 6 pm

Location
University of Art and Design Linz
Hauptplatz 6
4020 Linz
Austria

Links
www.kunstuni-linz.at