Good design as design for good: exploring how design can be ethically and environmentally sustainable by co-designing an eco-hostel within a Mayan community

Designers acknowledge that their skills can assist the visualization and materialization of a desirable future and have gone as far as proposing that design can achieve societal change. Designing for a better world is associated with decreasing environmental depletion impacts while making good for b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of global ethics
Main Author: García, Claudia Garduño (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2015]
In: Journal of global ethics
Further subjects:B environmentally and socially responsible design
B intercultural collaboration
B design pedagogy
B design ethics
B designing with(in) communities
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Designers acknowledge that their skills can assist the visualization and materialization of a desirable future and have gone as far as proposing that design can achieve societal change. Designing for a better world is associated with decreasing environmental depletion impacts while making good for both people and the environment, if possible. Evidently, this is a space where design deals with ethical matters, defining what is good or questioning if good has a universal meaning. This paper discusses the case of Aalto LAB Mexico's (ALM) Eco-hostel project, a practical and ethical design exploration. It shares the impressions of the design team when co-designing with(in) the Mayan community of ‘20 de Noviembre’ (20 Nov), located in Calakmul, Campeche, México. The Eco-hostel project was proposed as an element which can play a central role in achieving betterment of several aspects of the community's daily life. Several of those aspects were communicated by the inhabitants of 20 Nov, and some others were identified by ALM's experts. Whereas some universal principles were applicable to the construction, the context-centred approach of ALM generated a unique proposal, conceptualized to achieve harmony with the local environmental and cultural conditions.
ISSN:1744-9634
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of global ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/17449626.2015.1012685