Tag: sustainability
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Design Museum: designs of the year 2018
On Saturday, a group of 22 Design and Innovation students (and their friends and family) joined the Qualification team and two Associate Lecturers on a tour of the Design Museum’s permanent exhibition ‘Designer Maker User’ and the Beazley’s Designs of the Year 2018 exhibition. Andy, a U101 student, gives a good summary of the rundown […]
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Joining designerly dots
This is a post by Stephen Potter, Professor Emeritus at Design and Innovation This Thursday a one-off return of the BBC programme Tomorrow’s World is appearing on BBC4. As a kid, in the 1960s this programme really stimulated my interest in design and technology. Each week a set of potentially life-changing gizmos and gadgets were demonstrated […]
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PhD Fellowship Opportunities at the Energy DTA
Energy research opportunities at The Open University (OU) through the DTA3 COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellowship Programme. The OU is a partner on the successful bid for the ‘Extended University Alliance Doctoral Training Alliances (DTA) in Energy, Applied Biosciences for Health and Social Policy called The DTA3 COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellowship Programme. This is […]
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A fairground of ideas in Milton Keynes
Sometimes, you just have to do it – get everyone in one place and bounce ideas, share inspirations and motivations. So what was the Milton Keynes Design Fair like? Three tutors, three central academics, seven students across the Design Innovation Qualification and two visitors made their way to the Open University Campus on a rainy […]
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The Leaning Chimneys of Stewartby
Back in the 1930s, the London Brick Company established the largest brickworks in the world across Bedfordshire. Over 2,000 people were employed here at this time. At its peak, there were as many as 162 chimneys, built on the clay soils across Marston Vale, linking 8 villages including Stewartby. Stewartby itself had 32 chimneys each […]
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Designing successful consumer products
I have always been interested in design, and as a child I was fascinated by the old washing machines, cookers and lamps in London’s Science Museum. As a teenager I wanted to be an architect, but decided to do engineering, which spanned my interests in design and science. This led me to study mechanical engineering […]
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Disruptive Innovation Festival: global and all online
*** Our very own Emma Dewberry live on the Disruptive Innovation Festival at 10:15 on 10/11/17 talking about Design for Longevity: Business as Unusual*** This year’s Disruptive Innovation Festival, ask: What if we could redesign everything for the circular economy? The festival has been an initiative created by THE ELLEN MACARTHUR FOUNDATION together with several partners and is […]
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Designing Sustainable Higher Education Teaching Models
The Open University takes sustainability seriously! In addition to establishing carbon reduction measures to meet Government targets, the OU is interested in how the design of different higher education (HE) systems impacts on the environment. How do the distance education systems used by the OU, as a leading provider of creative open learning, compare with conventional campus-based […]
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Reimagining design and manufacturing
These visions for future manufacturing emerged from a 2-day event, ‘RECODE International Symposium – Future Visions of Manufacturing: Customisation, Redistribution and Technology’, held in May this year at IMechE, London. You can find details about the RECODE project here RECODE is an EPSRC funded network made up of a number of projects. Our project explored the impact of […]
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On the Fringe
Stephen Peake, a member of the Design and Innovation group at the OU is currently appearing in a two man show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show,”The Hero Who Overslept”, is a dialogue about climate change; a playful piece which sees a dour professor from Bolton with a head full of statistics about climate […]