Beyond Efficiency and Convenience. Using Post-growth Values as a Nucleus to Transform Design Education and Society

Abstract

In this position paper we present Municipan, an artefact resulting from a post-growth design experiment, applied in a student design project. In contrast to mainstream human-centered design directed at efficiency and convenience, which we argue leads to deskilling, dependency, and the progression of the climate crisis, we challenged students to envision an opposite user that is willing to invest time and effort and learn new skills. While Municipan is not a direct step towards a postgrowth society, integrating the way it was created in design education can act as a nucleus, bringing forth design professionals inclined to create technologies with potential to gradually transform society towards postgrowth living. Bringing in examples from our own research, we illustrate that designs created in this mindset, such as heating systems that train cold resistance, or navigation systems that train orientation have potential to reskill users, reduce technological dependency and steer consumption within planetary limits.