trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

There probably are professional differences: stereotypically the “social scientist consults the naturalscientist about what to implement and the natural scientist consults the social scientist about how toimplement” (Pohl 2005, 1171). These disciplinary cores must be sustained to not loose "what thedifferent parties actually care about in that system” (Hukkinen 2008, 45). Therefore, in parallel with theiterative co-creation of the design aim – on several scales and perspectives – there should be also aprofessional loop, in which the focus is on specialist and profession-specific tools.Metadesigning collaborative frameworksThe integration of knowledge through an iterative process happens on the "metadesign" level thatfocuses on "conscious awareness, value systems, worldviews, and aspirations" (Wahl & Baxter 2008, 73).To further improve this type of blending, reflexive processes that build “value-consciousness” amongresearchers are required (Wiesmann et al. 2008, 438). Similarly, transdiciplinary design process isaiming also into higher contextual level: on mediation between value systems and visions, and onexpanding stakeholder collaboration. Thus, it should also promote the merging of knowledge, valuesystems, problem-setting and goals.There should exist a collaborative framework to design process, which would support suchintegration, and which would expand on solution level from details to the whole, and on value level fromthe whole towards the details. While the emphasis for multi-professional collaboration has to be on theprofessional skills and expertise, in sustainable design the complex problems always also require atransdisciplinary approach. This calls for a problem assessment process that is done iteratively,integrally and within a shared problem space, but with the predefined disciplinary competences.Material and MethodsThis paper looks into how students in design, architecture, engineering, real estate and economicsapproach the concept of sustainability and the collaborative design process, and explores the differencesbetween disciplinary approaches and understanding. Data is gathered with questionnaires from studentsof a new multidisciplinary Masters' programme in Aalto University called Creative Sustainability (CS),which started recently in Fall 2010. CS master students have backgrounds in several professional fields,and the programme's curriculum has a strong emphasis on collaborative courses and real-life cases.During the academic year (2010-2011) these students attended introduction courses that aimed toprepare them for multi-professional collaboration (5 ECTS), and then to complete modules (up to 15ECTS), which were engaging several professions and involved the students in multidisciplinary teamswith specific design cases. As such, these students represent a good sample group to studytransdisciplinary knowledge building.Research dataThe research data is gathered with questionnaires from students of two study-modules in CSprogramme, of which the other was organized in Fall 2010 by the Department of Design (14 answers),and the other during Spring 2011 by the Department of Architecture (14 answers). Courses had students266