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About Centre for Design
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The Centre for Design promotes sustainability through research, consulting, and capacity building through active dissemination and professional development.
We are recognised internationally for our innovative design methods and tools to support sustainable design of products and services – everything from packaging and consumer products to buildings, suburbs and cities.
As Australia’s key node of activity in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the Centre is dedicated to all aspects of achieving environmental sustainability outcomes, and undertakes fundamental research to inform policy and practice to this end.
The Centre for Design (CfD) is based in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT’s city campus in Melbourne. RMIT is one of Australia's largest and most respected technical and design universities.
CfD has a long history dating back to 1988. Our reputation as a national and international leader in eco-design was established in the 1990s, and our research interest in sustainable built environments grew in the latter part of the decade.
A research project examining the sustainability of building materials and interiors led to EcospecifierTM, widely regarded as pivotal in assisting designers and specifiers to develop green office buildings across Australia over the past 5 years.
CfD now has a worldwide reputation as a key provider of Ecologically Sustainable Design (ESD) and LCA expertise to the building design and construction sectors, and related policy makers.
CfD’s ‘Ecohome’ Australian Research Council Linkage grant project won ‘Energy Efficient Project Home’ award in the Victorian Housing Awards, and Ecospecifier partners (Centre for Design and Natural Integrated Living) received the 2004/05 HIA National GreenSmart ‘Partnership Award’ and a further commendation under the ‘Towards Sustainable Communities’ category of Australia’s Year of the Built Environment 2004 National Awards.
Recently several new staff have joined the CfD team and a wider range of major research projects have developed. CfD is also collaborating actively with researchers and partners across a wide range of disciplines – essential in the search for effective, sustainable solutions and their successful implementation. An example is the coordination of the Reimagining the Australian Suburb – a cluster of research projects involving researchers across RMIT.
Research Clusters
Currently, research is concentrated into four main clusters:
- Sustainable built environments
- Climate change and social context
- Sustainable products and packaging
- Life Cycle Assessment
From traditional discipline areas such as architecture and design, projects branch out into planning and urban design, environmental management and policy, greenhouse emission reduction and behaviour change. Inevitably, interdisciplinary research threads also cross-cut the four main research groups.
Aims
The Centre for Design aims to:
Research new methods and knowledge of environmentally sustainable practices and their social, economic and policy context
Develop and demonstrate new design strategies, decision support tools and processes aimed at improving the environmental performance of products, built environments and services
Assist industry to design and use greener products, buildings and services and to develop more strategic environmental directions
Advise and inform government agencies on policy and programs to reduce environmental impacts through design
Explore new concepts, scenarios, actions, strategies and policies for a sustainable future
Maintain and expand a national and international network of research and information exchange in environmental assessment, design and social context
Training
The Centre for Design also offers training courses and teaching, which have become key sources of information for design professionals. Our training courses include:
- Green Building and Design
- Life Cycle Assessment
- Headstart - half day course on sustainable design in conjunction with the Design Institute of Australia, Product Ecology Pty and EcoRecycle Victoria
CfD also produces educational materials to assist teachers, trainers and a variety of learning and information agencies.
Documents
Centre for Design brochure (PDF 416 KB 4P)
Centre for Design 2008—2009 Review (PDF 673 KB 35P)