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IDE RESEARCH THEME

Sustainability

The world needs radical change. How does IDE drive sustainability transitions through design?

We face an environmental emergency: extreme weather, oceans polluted by plastic, a loss of natural habitats and biodiversity. At the same time, the world’s resources are unequally consumed: some communities apparently have it all, while others have far too little. We need radical change.

At the TU Delft Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, we want to approach sustainable living not as a lifestyle choice but as the smart and logical choice, hard-wired into the design of products, services and systems. This means clever designs with scarcity, pollution, and reuse in mind to eliminate waste and minimise pressure on the environment.

We think about planet-friendly approaches throughout the design process - from defining and researching problems to delivering solutions. Researchers at IDE develop tools, strategies, and methos to help design teams, communities and decision makers to develop sustainable products, services, and systems.

Reach out to our Sustainability program
Rendering by Adriaan Przespolewski

Design like there's a climate crisis.

Conny Bakker, Professor of Design Methodology for Sustainability and Circular Economy

Sustainability Projects

LICHEN-BLADES

While contributing to the growth of renewable energy, wind turbines also contribute to landfill waste and emissions upon decommissioning. It is estimated that 325,000 tonnes of wind turbine blade waste will be produced annually in Europe until 2050. This unsustainable material sourcing and waste problem needs to be tackled with transdisciplinary strategies that take the end-of-life of the blades into consideration from the design stages.

ShaRepair Practices

How can we co-create sharing and repairing practices, so they become embed into people’s daily lives? How can designers create products and services that support new sharing and repairing practices? These are core questions the NWO KIC project ShaRepair Practices aims to answer, in collaboration with municipalities, businesses, NGOs, and universities.

TULIPS

There is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, aviation generates 14% of the EU's greenhouse gasses from transportation. Thus airports can play a major role in making aviation climate neutral. This includes addressing CO2 emissions by enabling shifts in travel modes (e.g. replacing short-haul flights by rail), using lower-emission aircrafts, and reducing the amount of material waste exiting airports.

The Operator of the Future

Many companies in the manufacturing industry are already transitioning towards a digital, smart industry paradigm, and more will do so in the near future. This transition will have a great im-pact on production processes and on the people who are part of these processes. Newly adopt-ed technologies will increase the demand for employees with the necessary knowledge and skills. The Operator of the Future project addresses this challenge and aims to contribute to a ‘smart’ collaboration between humans and technology.

Designing Rhythms for Social Resilience (DRSR)

The Designing Rhythms for Social Resilience (DRSR) project explores rhythm as a new methodology for policy-making, which aims to enhance the sharing of culture and increase the social resilience of neighbourhoods. This project investigates how people process their life experiences within cities and examines how these experiences are increasingly being documented with urban data. Through the participation of residents, civil servants and creative industries, we are able to analyse physical and digital data rhythms in Amsterdam.

RELEASE

The energy transition is one of the most significant societal challenges of the coming decades. It requires a profound transformation of the power sector, the industry sector, the mobility sector, agriculture and the built environment. Decarbonization of these sectors can only be achieved by extensive electrification, based on renewable sources instead of fossil sources.

ReCiPSS

How can we create circular products and services that are attractive to users? And how can we help designers develop products that are remanufacturable and fully circular? This what the EU project ReCiPSS explores by looking into the success factors for circular business models. Two large-scale pilots, one automotive and one white goods, are in development through close collaboration with Bosch and Gorenje.

Energe

With the ageing of the existing post-primary school building stock there is a need for low-cost solutions that enable long-term resource efficiency in schools and reduced greenhouse gas emission (GHG). Building energy directives and climate actions to 2020 – 2030 by the European Union underpin this necessity. ENERGE addresses this need using targeted physical interventions that combine a data-enabled platform and building sensors with behavioural and social studies as well as new educational approaches that enable schools engage in energy and GHG mitigation.

TRANSFORM-CE

Design researchers from TU Delft work together with the municipalities of Almere and Manchester to investigate how to increase the recycling rate of single use plastic (through injection-extrusion moulding and 3D printing), as well as to enhance uptake of recycled plastics by business and consumers.

PROMPT

Waste from electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has become one of the fastest growing waste streams in the EU. Lengthening products lifetime can help reduce this waste. The PROMPT project, a H2020 project funded by the European Commission, aims to tackle this issue by preventing premature obsolescence.

ENRGISED

In the research project ENRGISED we explored the use of social contagion towards the energy transition. We devised a three-stage strategy for the energy transition, based on social contagion theory: identify, activate and accelerate.

SHAREPAIR

How do we stimulate people to repair their devices, instead of throwing them away? How can we make repair easier and more attractive? In the European Interreg project SHAREPAIR, design researchers from TU Delft work together with neighborhood repair cafés to find answers to these questions, especially investigating how 3D printing can facilitate repair.

Latest stories on sustainability

Including residents in energy hubs could solve energy poverty

Wind turbines, solar panels, batteries. We are producing, consuming and distributing energy more locally. This offers opportunities to solve challenges like energy poverty. “But if we want to create just, fair, and successful energy hubs, we must make them understandable and relevant for everyone," says researcher Abhigyan Singh.

Interview with Jan-Carel Diehl: “TU Delft is one big research playground”

Professor of Design for Inclusive Sustainable Healthcare Jan-Carel Diehl combines healthcare solutions with care for our planet. His many projects make an impact from Rotterdam to Sub-Saharan Africa. Where does he want to make a difference? What is he most proud of? And where lies the added value of a designer in the healthcare sector? Find out in this interview. Prof Diehl gives his inaugural lecture at TU Delft's Aula on Friday 11 October.

Sustainability scores could boost green travel

How do we gently push travellers to explore more sustainable travel methods, such as trains? IDE alumnus Jenske Gosens dedicated her graduation project to figuring this out. Her recommendation? A neutral booking platform that assigns sustainability scores to different travel methods. “This platform both motivates and facilitates different kinds of travellers.”

The holistic textile design research of Holly McQuillan

As a fashion and textile design engineer, IDE researcher Holly McQuillan wants to change the fashion industry by introducing it to the woven textile-form technique, a kind of 3D weaving which involves creating three-dimensional form by using the weaving process. Through this she wants to make the industry more sustainable by providing realistic tools. “Automated 3D weaving increases control and flexibility, and may make production more cost efficient.”

Long live the refurbished product

Products designed for a single life cycle have a huge impact on the environment. In the transition to a circular economy, designing products that go through multiple lives and retain their value could make a big difference. For her PhD, Theresa Wallner explored how designers can make it easier for consumers to choose refurbished products.

Disassembly: Essential to repair

Legislation can stimulate repair. But screws hidden so deeply in a product that they are nearly inaccessible are a repair nightmare. Bas Flipsen encourages circular product design by developing tools for designers and engineers.

Discover our research themes

We are shaping our digital future by exploring how digital technologies are transforming our work practices, social life and society.

Artificial Intelligence
As we live longer, we face huge health challenges. Our research focuses on prevention, innovation and human well-being.

Health
We embrace the inherent complexity of mobility systems and develop practical and actionable solutions that have a tangible impact on our society.

Mobility
We want to make sustainable, repairable, and recyclable products and services the norm, and empower people to contribute.

Sustainability

Departments

IDE is comprised of three departments: Design, Organisation and Strategy (DOS), Human-Centered Design (HCD), and Sustainable Design Engineering (SDE). Each investigates and uses the design domain for innovation and knowledge creation from its own perspective.

Department of Design, Organisation and Strategy (DOS)

We support designers who create impact through knowledge of emerging technologies in sustainable, measurable, scalable ways.

Human-Centered Design (HCD)

We develop knowledge that enables design researchers to engage in systematic and ethical design research and practices.

Sustainable Design Engineering (SDE)

We investigate the role, methods, and impact of strategic design within organisations and ecosystems that focus on societal transitions.

IDE Researchers with a focus on Sustainble Society

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