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Charrette 2024: What is Sustainable?
For the 2024 edition of the KEA Charette, the theme was inspired by KEA's interdisciplinary research project, The Industry and Sustainability Analysis, which explored the question: "What is sustainable?"
In recent years, the number of sustainability terms and labels has skyrocketed. At the same time, both consumers and government agencies are increasingly focused on environmental and social responsibility. This has made sustainability a growing priority for businesses—big and small—as it becomes more integral to their success.
But what does sustainability really mean? Should all companies be sustainable in everything they do? Is it even possible, or are we at a point where we must acknowledge the limitations and dilemmas of sustainability?
The Industry and Sustainability Analysis research project addresses these questions by examining how different industries define sustainability and how they present themselves as sustainable. Drawing from this project, students were tasked with creating their own sustainability concepts.
They worked closely with local businesses, analyzing their practices within the New European Bauhaus framework, which incorporates not just environmental responsibility but also inclusion and aesthetics. The framework prompted the students to continually ask: What is truly sustainable?
The Process and the Results
To inspire the students, the first few days featured talks on how to engage with and challenge sustainability concepts. Christina Melander from the Danish Design Centre introduced the New European Bauhaus framework, while Bodil Sofie Espersen from Havhøst spoke on integrating sustainability into all aspects of business, from product design to work environments.
The students were divided into 10 groups, each collaborating with a local business that presented them with a sustainability dilemma. These challenges ranged from finding ways to reuse beer kegs to activating an underused space in front of a concert hall. Working through these challenges, the students developed solutions that met the needs of their collaborators while maintaining sustainability.
The students pushed their creativity to the limit, producing projects such as repurposed beer kegs turned into mobile bars, modular urban furniture, and mushroom growing kits.
View some of the concepts below, developed and presented by the students
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This article was published on KEA before KEA and Cphbusiness merged to form EK. Names and job titles may therefore have changed. However, this does not affect the research and knowledge on which the article is based.