Spring 2009: Designing the Future

Full-time, 15 credits (DIAL 390W, 391W, 392W).

COURSE DESCRIPTION

We will use Metro Vancouver to explore the multiple dimensions of sustainability as they relate to the city, region and the global context. Bringing together writers, policy makers, and leading thinkers, as well as designers, artists, business and community leaders, we will examine how the decisions we are making today are significantly altering the planet. We will use a systems approach to examine urban sustainability with the intention of posing some fundamental questions:

  • Do we really know what sustainability is?
  • What is sustainable urban development for the 21st Century?
  • What ideas shape the way we currently live? What ideas are the most important for living on the planet - in and out of cities?
  • How do we understand and balance competing forces in order to turn visions for the future into reality?
  • Does our conception of urban systems (water, energy, transportation etc) predispose us to unsustainability?
  • How do we move forward with hope and optimism?

Plan to be excited, confused, mesmerized, optimistic, and disenchanted while engaging deeply with leading experts in sustainability, green design, community planning, cultural change and corporate social responsibility. The class will be charged with convening a large public event that will help Metro Vancouverites re-engage in a dialogue-archive about our collective future.

Assignments will include both reflective and public writing and small and large group projects.

FACULTY

Janet Moore is a faculty member at the Centre for Dialogue at SFU, collaborator with the SFU Centre for Sustainable Community Development and leader of a social network of sustainability educators (walkingthetalk.bc.ca)

Duane Elverum is an Emily Carr faculty member where he teaches in Design, Foundation, and Critical Studies as well as develops coursework in sustainable systems. He sits on the President’s Sustainability Task Force at the university. He is personally responsible for emitting 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere. He has crossed the Pacific Ocean in a sailboat five times.