Prof. Martin Kuban

Professorship Transformative Design

»We don't have a technology problem, 
we don't have a material problem, 
...
We have a consumption problem.

The combination of technology and behavior creates sustainability,
future viability requires sufficient behavior.«

Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 7, room 109
99423 Weimar

phone +49(0)3643 / 58 33 42
e-mail martin.kuban[at]uni-weimar.de

office hour: by appointment

The issue of sustainability is a pressing one: our current standard of living is taken for granted and is worthy of expansion, yet the environmental costs threaten our very existence. There are more and more unanswered questions: How do we avoid the rebound effect? How do we define a new growth philosophy? Do people and society need a completely new self-understanding?

Consumption optimisation (efficiency/consistency) and corresponding changes in use (behaviour) are complementary; only the equal combination of both strategies can be effective. Changing individual consumption sustainably is linked to the vision of learning and practising sufficiency as a collective economic and action strategy. Such a fundamental mind shift falls within the core competence of artistic design expertise – awareness is conveyed to a large extent aesthetically, as Lucius Burckardt noted.

The Professorship of Transformative Design deals with the aesthetic and conceptual design of mindshift-enhancing products in the context of social, cultural and psychological conditions. An experimental and speculative way of working with a focus on everyday functional artefacts enables design to shift the transformation of our consumer culture from the root and to inspire a consecutive reorientation of our economic structure. The planning, design and realisation efforts focus on the idea of using product design to offer access to unfamiliar possibilities for perception, thought and action and to encourage users to adopt a sufficient lifestyle via multiple approaches.

The relevance of personal action is based on the viral effect of everyday behavioural changes and consumer decisions: Many small steps multiply in the process and, in sum, act as a catalyst for the transformation of legislation towards behaviour-centred sustainability. Smoking in public places, speed limits in city centres and environmental protection as a human right are examples of such longterm effects.