Sustainable Consumption Institute Seminar - Dr Lenneke Kuijer - Practices as a unit of design: a home heating example
| Dates: | 26 November 2014 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Dr Lenneke Kuijer |
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Abstract
With the winter at our doorstep, UK household energy consumption is about to enter its yearly peak season. Main contributor to this peak is home heating. Because of its great appetite for energy, domestic heating has been a popular topic in sustainable consumption research and policy intervention. This presentation will use the example of keeping warm at home to illustrate what it can mean to take practices as a unit, not only of analysis, but also of design. Using this example, it will illustrate (1) how a practice-oriented view sheds a different light on the issue of domestic heating, and (2) how a design approach can reveal and flesh out radical, yet plausible avenues of change and opportunities for intervention. Drawing on recent experiences in the DEMAND Centre, the presentation aims to develop the practice-oriented design framework originating from a product design context into a set of tools and provocations that has relevance to a broader agenda in sustainable consumption.
Biography
Dr Lenneke Kuijer is a Research Associate at the Geography Department of the University of Sheffield where she works with Dr Matt Watson as part of the DEMAND Centre. Lenneke has a background in Design Research – a relatively young field of research that has as its primary topic and audience the design disciplines. After completing a bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering and a master in Innovation Management, Lenneke has focused her PhD research on the relations between consumer product design and household resource consumption. Through her thesis, titled ‘Implications of Social Practice Theory for Sustainable Design’, she has engaged with social practice theory and thus set foot in the world of social sciences. Still wearing her designer glasses, she is currently working on a local case study that aims to gain understanding of the long term dynamics of complexes of infrastructures, appliances, practices and rhythms in the domestic everyday (with a focus on keeping warm, laundering and getting around).
Please book your place by emailing Katrina Farrugia at katrina.farrugia@manchester.ac.uk.
Speaker
Dr Lenneke Kuijer
Role: Research Associate
Organisation: University of Sheffield
Travel and Contact Information
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Conference Room
Manchester Museum
Oxford Road
Manchester
