Can design be used as a pedagogical approach: as tools of observation, conversation, analysis, reflection, interpretation
and storytelling, in order to foster and strengthen a critical understanding of sustainability? This paper explores
critical questions around the relationship between processes in design education and a contextual holistic examination
of ‘sustainability’ using narratives. This is done by inquiring and reflecting upon case-studies of students of design,
through a pedagogical lens. Mediated by orality, the design of learning in these cases, delved into the socio-cultural-
historical-ecological dimensions of a context. How did one question one’s own ways of seeing a place and its
people, while unpacking multiple forms and structures of narratives to understand aspects of sustainability? How
did they learn how to connect the practices of communities with personal and collective histories, identify the many
relationships and interactions that bind lives together in a place and therefore understand the changing role and
state of communities and their practices in order to create a regenerative culture? This paper argues on how a critical
understanding and examination of the notion of ‘sustainability’ can be achieved, through almost any course in ‘design’
irrespective of whether the objectives consciously articulate sustainability as a desired outcome or not.

Authors: Sudebi Thakurata