Designing for a better future – students showcase creative solutions to sustainability issues

MA Design students have displayed their unique approaches to solving waste and climate change problems
Display by Ines Munday at the MA Design Show, Take the Hint
MA Design Show - Ines Munday 
Postgraduate students from the University of Plymouth have displayed their unique approaches to solving waste and climate change problems at a showcase event. 
From a windable, non-battery torch to a game encouraging businesses to think more sustainably, the MA Design students exhibited their work at an event called Take the Hint, held at Market Hall in Devonport last week in conjunction with the Real Ideas Organisation. Read more about the projects below. 
Ines Munday's UnEarth card game
Ines Munday's UnEarth card game 

A card game to underpin sustainable thinking 

Ines Munday has designed UnEarth – a card game that highlights the environmental impact of everyday business activities, from paper usage to packed lunches. 
By understanding, and challenging, how such things affect the world around us, players are encouraged to think about the small changes that could feed into wider business activity, culminating in a step-by-step guide that crafts a personalised, actionable plan for each organisation.

Tackling waste consumption in the theatre industry 

Eleanor Bruce has created a 3D software that allows theatres to come together as a community to share their unwanted costumes. The circular system is known as Stitch and Render, and sees designs collected into the software database for costume makers to access, creating new costume designs there and then onscreen. 
The system, which is currently in visual representation format ready to take to a developer, is designed to help lower theatres’ material waste and increase the longevity of material within the whole theatre community. 
Eleanor Bruce's visual representation of Stitch and Render
Eleanor Bruce's visual representation of Stitch and Render
Rudra Patil's Bits and Pieces design
Rudra Patil's Bits and Pieces design 

Making working from home more efficient

In light of the changes in working habits brought about by COVID-19, Bits and Pieces by Rudra Patil explores sustainable and ergonomic designs to make working from home – especially in small spaces – more efficient. 
The final ‘bow tie’ bench piece was designed with multimedia artists in mind.

Designing inclusive hospital entrances for paediatric patients

Sam Thomas’s project creates a healing and supportive interior environment for young people and their families through creating more sustainable design practices built for the user. 
The project aims to enhance the physical, emotional, and psychologicaI welIbeing of patients by incorporating new materials and thoughtful space planning. 
Sam Thomas's hospital entrance design
Sam Thomas's hospital entrance design
Temidayo Alonge's Slang, Extinct words and Abbreviations (SEA) Dictionary
Temidayo Alonge's Slang, Extinct words and Abbreviations (SEA) Dictionary 

Conserving and explaining our words in new slang dictionary

Temidayo Alonge has created the Slang, Extinct words and Abbreviations (SEA) Dictionary – putting together a vocabulary combining aspects of modern youth vernacular with established, well-known phrases and terms. 
It explores how vocabulary has evolved over time, and aims to underpin words’ authenticity in a digital age. 

Windable torch – low tech, high impact 

Chris Fronebner has created a hand-powered wind-up torch, a more sustainable solution to the battery-powered equivalents. It is a low-tech solution in a high-tech world, and its sustainability is born out of its simplicity. 
Chris also designed a 3D-printed beach cleaning tool to help clear fishing nets from our beaches. This work has seen him named as one of the UK’s Green Grads, a national initiative that celebrates graduates with ‘ideas to heal the planet’. 
Chris Fronebner wind-up torch
Tamika Loftie-Eaton's project, Threads
Tamika Loftie-Eaton's project, Threads

Threads – tradition and modernity in furniture design

Tamika Loftie-Eaton has devised a project called Threads, which marries up cultural heritage crafts with contemporary design, all inspired by her South African heritage. 
The piece she exhibited is a first prototype to creating a collaborative collection, where in the future she plans to work with South Africans to create a range of furniture that teaches craft skills and lets people express themselves through making. The project seeks to create dialogues on identity, culture and heritage through the medium of craft, and showcases how the processes and products of traditional and contemporary craft serve as catalysts for exploration and preservation.
MA Design - Ignite show - Alex Carr

Sustainability with the University of Plymouth

Plymouth is making a powerful, positive difference to individual and collective futures, and striving for excellence in financial, environmental and social responsibility across all our activities.
Our sustainability ambitions stretch across campus operations, teaching and research in a unique institutional approach.
 
Global sustainability network concept, Vector illustration