The contemporary world and the immediate menace to its nature and climate brings new aspects of environment and sustainability to design too, becoming an essential part of contemporary production across disciplines. Two-semester cycle of lectures "In Harmony with Nature: Tendencies of sustainability in design of the 20th and 21st centuries" deals with the topics of environment protection and sustainability in the context of historical and contemporary designer production. It returns to the pioneers of the discipline who were considering environmental aspects as early as more than a century ago, explores the radical and alternative tendencies in design of the second half of the last century responding to the transformation of society, the crisis of socialism and the crisis of capitalism, and finally, it focuses on the diverse present-day approaches understanding sustainability as an inherent part of creating objects that surround us. The profile of the study programme graduate will be, in the form of innovation of the subject, enriched with deeper interdisciplinary perception of design, based on a gradually developed awareness of history and theory of applied art and design, in contextualization and correlation with environmentally sustainable practice and the fact it is conditioned by contemporary social priorities. A series of lectures on ethical and moral aspects of designer work, production procedures and related social impacts will allow students to sensitively respond to the challenges of the outside world and to predict further development in the branch, and discuss the conditionality of designer practice due to social expectations and environmental friendly procedures. The subject is part of the innovated portfolio of subjects of the Design Master?s programme of study.
The student has a notion of the selected areas of theoretical disciplines complementing the frame of knowledge of art history and theory from other theoretical subjects. They have comprehended the necessary procedures on the subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and objectivity levels, which inevitably occur when interpreting an artwork. The student is able to distinguish basic theoretical terms: denotation, exemplification, context, situation, structure, metaphor, concept, icon, and index and can apply them when analyzing the meaning of an artefact from the visual sphere.
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