Repair-led learning for design education

Drawing from the experience of Restart Parties (RP) – public community events where technically skilled volunteers help participants to repair their own electric and electronic devices – we explore and propose how to integrate these reparative projects into educational processes of (technological) design in the context of the climate crisis. If repairers hold an advantageous epistemic position to better understand technology by confronting material damages of (electronic) industry and design, then, learning from repair-led design in academic curriculums could bring more caring, just and responsible creative engagements with the world. The chapter employs an unusual strategy: presenting information via a speculative curriculum. By closing the text with a one-semester “Teaching Plan,” we pursue two main objectives: to analyse the RP potential to become a repair-led learning experience to inform design education; and to propose a pilot pedagogical programme for engaging collectively with this type of repair practice. Through the connection between repair and design knowledge for education, we aim to make of design a fairer and restorative creative practice with a capacity to recognise some of its damaging effects and take co-responsibility for them. In other words, this text offers a repair lens to interrogate design learning, its educational practices and spaces.