Palmer, J.Crocker, R.Graham, F.2025-12-172025-12-172010Proceedings of ConnectED 2010 2nd International Conference on Design Education, 2010 / Graham, F. (ed./s), pp.1-59780646545066https://hdl.handle.net/1959.8/119100Link to a related website: https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.4626.3042, Open Access via UnpaywallAs is widely recognised, unsustainable practices and behaviours are now embedded in everyday life and are difficult to reverse. Our rapidly evolving systems of transport, commerce and communication, land-use, buildings and objects, often depend on unsustainable increases in energy and resource use, and are often directly or indirectly damaging to the environment. Specialized design disciplines are unable singularly to respond adequately to the global scale and multi-disciplinary scope of this unfolding systemic crisis. However, a multidisciplinary approach to the various scenarios and domains of un-sustainability provides a more appropriate response, bringing the large-scale problems of un-sustainability into sharper focus and broadening the designer’s responsibility beyond the typical scenario of a single discipline response. In the University of South Australia’s new Master of Sustainable Design program a multi-disciplinary approach to sustainable design has been adopted as a key educational strategy. In seminar-based courses the cultural, social and technological forces shaping the crisis outlined above are examined from multi-disciplinary standpoints. This informs design oriented scenarios which respond to typical sites of ‘un-sustainability’ and provide a shared context within which multi-disciplinary design is performed. In this paper we discuss our multi-disciplinary strategy and its dimensions in studio and seminar classes. We also examine some initial evidence of its impact on the first cohorts of our Master of Sustainable Design program, from a range of design disciplines including architecture, interior architecture and industrial design. The evidence we will discuss is based upon initial student course evaluation statistics, small focus groups and interview questionnaires, with a special focus on collaborative, cross-disciplinary learningenmultidisciplinarysustainable designtransdiciplinarydesign orienting scenariosConference paper