Designing with the Interrelationships of Objects, Environments and People

While humans’ rationality enables us to build a more sustainable future, our sensoriality desires richer experiences in our daily living. For example, we can light our space with highly energy-efficient LED bulbs.
However, it is hard to give up a crackling fireplace, flickering candlelight, and even the warm colour of incandescent bulbs even though we are aware of the availability of technologies that are better at saving energy and polluting the environment less. This is because our values and behaviours are not only shaped by the logic of problem-solving technologies but also constructed by sensorial and emotional experiences enabled by them. How might design education address this dichotomy between the technical needs and emotive agency of things? Rather than relegating the important value of objects to technical subjects in design education, the interconnectedness between objects, environment, and people was emphasised in teaching the Global Production studio at Parsons School of Design.