A New Design Hope: Designing Sustainability for All and the LeNS world open network

The concept of sustainable development has entered the international scene since the beginning of the 90s. Most of the authors agreed that we are “beyond all limits” and close to the collapse of the eco-system. Indeed, the system is about to collapse, which implies it is required a system discontinuity, i.e. an urgent radical change, and to act in preventive terms and not after the damage have been created. It is far obvious, and it is recognised that this calls for an active role of the designers, to envision and design radically new sustainable solutions for all. It is in this framework that the LeNS – the Learning Network on Sustainability, was funded in 2007 and has expanded since then not only with the financed partners of the 3 consecutive EU projects, but also with many other institutions joining the LeNS Network without a financial support. Such growth was supported and facilitated by a very inclusive strategy and vision of the LeNS community that allows new members to join, without any cost and any obligation, as well as by the following win-win opportunities: • knowledge-building as open access resources speed up the learning-by-sharing for researching and teaching i.e. through allowing remix/reuse of others’ resources; • improved opportunities for public fundraising of a new established regional LeNS due to being part of such a wide and successful international network. The incredible growth of the LeNS network could be explained with the following main drives: • as sustainability is being incorporated in the worldwide agenda, and in all levels, there is a clear perceived growing demand of design for sustainability; • and as open access education is increasingly being adapted in the education system throughout the world, and it is increasingly accepted as being vitally important to tackle the many issues the humanity is facing now. LeNS is characterised by being open (because its contents are freely available for teachers, students, designers, companies, NGOs and interested persons; and they can be downloaded, altered and reused), multi-polar (because there is no hierarchy and any person can talk with anyone belonging to the network, interconnected (because there is a continuous exchange and sharing of contents and didactic materials), and regenerative (because the same web-platform can be downloaded and reconfigured to meet specific needs). LeNS allows a process of mutual learning, facilitating a readily access, exchange, review and update of knowledge. In this sense, LeNS is intended as a sort of cross-learning mechanism among design researchers and educators. For this reason, LeNS can potentially speed up the achievement of research results on one hand, and their dissemination on the other. LeNS, fostering a new generation of design researchers and educators, resulted over the years of its evolution and expansion, in being an effective project to contribute to the promotion of a new generation of designers effectively capable of having a role as catalysers and enablers of the transformation of our consumption and production patterns, with consequent positive implications for the whole society. LeNS, envisioning a new ethos for the HEIs of design worldwide, and reaching nearly 140 universities in 29 countries form all the continents since its foundation in 2007, represents a “New design hope”. For a sustainable society that is OPEN, MULTI-LOCAL and FOR ALL.