While we are moving forward with engineering education @ TU Delft, it is important for designers, planners and engineers to understand that their designs are not, and should not be ‘neutral’: It is important to recognize first, that we are all influenced by our own value systems, and second that we have a responsibility to take into account the values of clients and users, and, preferably, to co-design with them. Although there is already some theory and applications of designing for values, this project aims to develop and discover methods to foreground the discussion of values in design and engineering education, and to find innovative ways to include the voices of students and stakeholders who are underrepresented. With this project, the researchers aim to enable other teachers to include values as a core part of their teaching methodologies. Although many teachers already might think they (teach) design for values, it is important to be able to articulate and spell out values explicitly, so students can have clarity about how to discuss values in their education and practice. Sometimes, important values such as inclusiveness, wellbeing or fairness are implicit, but we need to speak about them clearly. Consequently, the researchers are bringing together and stimulating conversations between teachers within and beyond TU Delft about how to teach designing for values.

Beginning with a workshop, the researchers aimed to learn and gather from other teachers the range of creative and innovative ways that they experiment with teaching design for values. The process of identifying, interpreting, and implementing values in university education is an essential part of responsible innovation and designing for equitable, inclusive and sustainable cities and communities.