In this lecture, Terry Irwin will discuss the role that design can play in addressing the complex problems confronting 21st century societies. She will introduce Transition Design, a new area of design focus aimed at catalyizing systems level change and making the tools and approaches used by designers available to transdisciplinary teams working on problems such as climate change, water shortages, poverty, crime and many more. To resolve these complex problems, entire societies will need to transition toward sustainable futures characterized by lifestyles that are place-based and local, yet cosmopolitan in their global awareness and exchange of knowledge and technology. In particular, Terry will discuss her recent work with the city of Ojai California using Transition Design to address the city’s extreme, drought-induced water shortage. She will also explain how Transition Design may offer an approach for resolving conflicts among the multiple diverse stakeholders found within a complex, wicked problem such as water security. Download abstract/flyer
Bio
Terry Irwin is a professor/Head of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University and has been teaching at the University level since 1986. She has been on the faculty at Otis Parsons College of Design, Los Angeles, California College of the Arts (1989-2003), San Francisco and The University of Dundee, Scotland. She has also guest taught and lectured widely in North America and Europe.
Terry has been a practicing designer for more than 40 years, and was a founding partner of the San Francisco office of the international design firm, MetaDesign where she served as Creative Director from 1992 – 2001. In 2003 Terry moved to Devon, England to do a Masters Degree in Holistic Science at Schumacher College/Plymouth University, an international center for ecological studies and joined the faculty in 2004. At CMU Terry led the faculty in a redesign of all programs to place design for society and the environment at the heart of all curricula. Terry1s research is in Transition Design a new area of design focus that involves seeding and catalyzing societal transition toward more sustainable futures. Terry holds an MFA in Design from the Allgemeine Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland.