Design is regarded as a practical activity with empathy, creativity and responsibility. This study discusses how to cultivate social responsibility in the course of design education. The designers in the study were third-year university students, and the key design literacy was reflected in the rural planning and design projects submitted by the students. Responsible design comes from the construction of empathy and positive responses to real needs, and the active development of solutions to problems.
Rural Planning and Design is a compulsory course in the third year of undergraduate studies. The countryside is a regional complex with natural, social and economic characteristics, with multiple functions of production, life, ecology and culture. Rural areas need a coordinated development of economic prosperity, ecological protection and abundant living. In China, “rural revitalization” is an influential development strategy proposed by the government and an essential design theme faced by designers.
The course requires students to grasp the basics of rural planning and design, the design process and design methods. In 2021, I worked with a local design agency to carry out a practical design for a specific village. The project requires students to thoroughly consider the ecological environment, land use, industrial development, layout of residential settlements, improvement of living environment, ecological protection and historical and cultural inheritance of the selected villages. The future development path of the village is planned, and the specific rural public activity space is designed.
The project leads students to design for real “needs”, which are frequently accompanied by a game of multiple interests, such as “developing additional houses for further economic benefits or maintaining a more ecological environment”. “Rural public activity spaces mainly serve local villagers or display more agricultural products for foreign tourists”? The students brought issues of economic development, ecological balance and social maintenance to their final design concept.
In this project, I think the cultivation of design responsibility is reflected in three stages.
Research stage. Because the research involves a lot of content, it needs to be done by teams. The class was divided into four groups, with 5-6 students in each group. The students realized the research task through field interviews, questionnaires, relevant case analysis and other methods. This process cultivated the spirit of teamwork, mutual help and win-win among students. Their survey content is comprehensive and true, including economic survey (agricultural planting category, area, etc.), social villagers (the needs of various rural groups such as the elderly, children, poor households, children who work outside, etc.), and ecological environment (the distribution and area of mountains, rivers, forests, residential houses, etc.).
Composite design stage. Students made mind maps, clarified the design ideas and design processes, and conducted SWOT analysis on the survey content. For rural areas, they learn ecology, economics, geography, sociology and other related knowledge, examine the game relationship between interest demand and ecological interest from a systematic and critical perspective, and put forward the design concept of sustainable development.
Design expression stage. Student final submission of digital results, including pictures, models, dynamic display. Considering that the recipients of the results were many villagers who had not received design education, the students designed multi-form visual results that presented the design concepts logically and clearly, so that people could intuitively observe and touch the abstract concepts, which was helpful for villagers to understand and see the design scheme and participate in the discussion together. Finally, the project team, villagers in the project location and the village committee jointly convened a “report + feedback” meeting.
