Unravelling design : fashion, dressmaking, ethos

Discourses on ethical fashion are usually geared toward finding solutions—or right outcomes—to ethical problems, based on a teleological model of design and a positioning of the designer as an autonomous and isolated design authority. This practice-led project argues, however, that considerations of design ethics must take into account not only the outcome of a design, but also the ongoing, lived experience of designing as a making located in pre-existing social, historical and cultural conditions. Through an exploration of my own dressmaking practice and a reading of ethos as location, I argue for two things: one, for the designer as a located entity rather than an autonomous "author", and, two, against design-asplan and the original design object, and for the circular and conditioned character of design. Through a connection to ethos, understandings of design ethics shift from an end object focus to something situated, and invested in, everyday lived experience—and always in the making.

Design and Ethics: Reflections on Practice

This book is an multi disciplinary approach to design thinking across the fields of Architecture, Communication Design, Fashion, Graphic Design, Urban Design and Philosophy.

Greenfield shopping center development. The integration between environmental features, building design and investment analysis at the decision making stage

The Shopping centre is a long term investment in which Greenfield development decisions are often taken based on risks analysis regarding construction costs, location, competition, market and an expected DCF. Furthermore, integration between the building design, project planning, operational costs and investment analysis is not entirely considered by the investor at the decision making stage. The absence of such information tends to produce certain negative impacts on the future running costs and annual maintenance of the building, especially on energy demand and other occupancy expenses paid by the tenants to the landlord. From the investor´s point of view, this blind spot in strategy development will possibly decrease their profit margin as changes in the occupancy expenses[ ] have a direct outcome on the profit margin. In order to try to reduce some higher operating cost components such as energy use and other utility savings as well as their CO2 emissions, quite a few income properties worldwide have some type of environmental label such as BREEAM and LEED. The drawback identified in this labelling is that usually the investments required to get an ecolabel are high and the investor finds no direct evidence that it increases market value. However there is research on certified commercial properties (especially offices) that shows better performance in terms of occupancy rate and rental cost (Warren-Myers, 2012). Additionally, Sayce (2013) says that the certification only provides a quick reference point i.e. the lack of a certificate does not indicate that a building is not sustainable or efficient. Based on the issues described above, this research compares important components of the development stages such as investments costs, concept/ strategy development as well as the current investor income and property value. The subjects for this analysis are a shopping centre designed with passive cooling/bioclimatic strategies evaluated at the decision making stage, a certified regional shopping centre and a non-certified standard regional shopping centre. Moreover, the proposal intends to provide decision makers with some tools for linking green design features to the investment analysis in order to optimize the decision making process when looking into cost savings and design quality.

Framing perspectives on design and ethics

This chapter discusses design thinking and design as a process which spans all spheres of everyday life.

Design and ethics in digital mental health promotion

This chapter presents a case study of Participatory Design as a design framework for developing interactive digital tools for promoting children’s resilience. The author argues for a participatory methodology as an ethical approach that involves children as co-designers in the process from which they are traditionally excluded, namely the creative design process and the process of mental health promotion.

(Re) making trajectories: Eviction, control and power

The City of Cairo's experienced a major shift in its urban planning attitude and practice since the mid 1970s which mostly validated elements of economic planning while neutralizing its social aspects. This ad hoc approach escalated conflict in planning politics over the control of space between tiers of the planning institution and the locals leading to rigorous planning actions among major stakeholders such as eviction and control of spaces. The article examines how institutional claims over space reassembled alternative definitions of quality of life in one of Cairo's oldest quarters, and how ambitious planning schemes were mostly driven by entrepreneurial rather than societal. Based on first-hand interviews and visuals, the article aims to reveal the local's struggle to survive such interventions with attention to their daily negotiations in place.

The repatriation of 1973 and the re-making of modern south Asia

In the aftermath of the 1971 war, nearly 250,000 people found themselves stranded in various parts of the subcontinent. These 'trapped minorities' became hostages in a complex negotiation process that highlighted how questions of citizenship and belonging remained unresolved in post-Partition South Asia. By studying three groups - the non-Bengalis, the Bengalis and the prisoners of war in a comparative perspective, this paper re-visits the question of who was welcome within certain borders and on what terms. It argues that these decisions depended not just on the state's policies towards 'outsiders' but also upon its own relationship with its minority communities.

Re-making a frontier community or defending ethnic boundaries? The Caucasus in Cossack identity

The essay focuses on the notion of the Caucasus as a reference point in the construction of Cossack identity in southern Russia. Since the late Soviet period, the Cossack revivalist/nativist movement has emerged in the territories which constituted the frontier zones of Tsarist Russia. Arguably, the historical Cossack hosts were established as a kind of frontier community which played an important role in the expansion of the Russian Empire. This essay examines how post-Soviet Cossacks reinterpret the meanings of the Caucasus as a spatial and cultural realm where, or in relation to which, they produce their identity as a distinct ethnic and cultural community.