Department of Design
Do you want to use design to make a difference in the world? Then this is the right degree for you. At the Department of Design we work with students interested in making change in the world through design.
The Department of Design is made up of four programs: the Bachelor’s program in Design+Change, the Bachelor’s program in Visual Communication+Change, the Master’s program in Design+Change and the Master’s program in Innovation through Business, Engineering and Design. The programs are delivered in English and we welcome students from all over the world.
In shaping our futures, designers will face unprecedented challenges compared to what conventional designers faced during the twentieth century. In fact, the role of the designer will and should change. Our programs focus on making sustainable change through design to prepare you for a number of emerging and established careers in the world where you can use your creative skills in relation to your understanding of the complexity of sustainability.
Recent graduates from our programs work in design companies, artistic and cultural organisations, human rights organisations, NGOs, political parties, publications and with initiatives run by local communities or municipalities. Students have also gone on to start their own companies and many are currently attending graduate studies at prestigious Swedish universities.
Why + Change?
Doesn't design already imply change? Yes, through design we give form to new products (and books, campaigns, services, systems and much more). Through these we also shape and change behaviour, attitudes and even worldviews.
Today the critical state of our ecological and social systems is globally recognised. We also know that human activities, especially the overconsumption often associated with design, drives unsustainability. In our + Change programmes we want to emphasise the very potential for design to affect and create change through approaches of adaptation, evolution and revolution. To affect change through design can be about initiatives directed at products, systems or worldviews. We can choose to use design to affect change locally, regionally or globally, and with a focus on ecology, economy, human health and equality, or all of this simultaneously. Altogether + Change means purposefully using design, and its inherent creativity, in order to build towards a more sustainable future.
Education
Our programs are highly international. As one of the 150 students you are part of a group characterised by diversity and are well prepared for an international design career. Students will meet international teachers and practitioners during their studies in these programmes, and we also facilitate student and teacher exchange through a number of international agreements.
You can find out more about our programs and the application processes for each by clicking on the links to the programs that interest you. Students are accepted through a specific admissions process which involves portfolios and sometimes also interviews. Upon successful completion of studies, students receive a Degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design or a Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Design (one year & two wears).
+ Change Societal Collaborations+
Change Societal Collaborations is a selection of projects within the + Change programmes at the Design Department, Linnaeus University in Växjö, Kalmar, Sweden. The projects put critical questions forward in society and have been conducted throughout the years in reciprocity with a variety of societal actors. Learn more about the project.
More information about the
Department of Design
The teaching staff at the school consists of about 30 designers, art historians and artists. The department also has a large number of guest lecturers, specializing in fine arts, design, the history of art, sustainable development, ecology, media and technology, sociology, ethnology, philosophy, history, engineering, economics, marketing and other subjects.
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Collaborations
+'Change Societal Collaborations is a selection of projects within the bachelor, master and doctoral +Change programmes. The projects set knowledge in motion for sustainable societies in collaboration with a broad range of societal actors.
+ChangeCollabSeriesBooklet22.pdf
Urban sustainable transitions:
Controversy mapping Sege Park, Living Lab Sege Park , The Transitioners in Sege Park
Green LEA for Brf Ida – neighbourhood mobilization for sustainable urban transitions
Through three collaborative design projects, this PhD-research investigate the Swedish discourse of sustainability in urban planning and explore possibilities for strong(er) practices of sustainability, both from the perspective of the planners as well as the residents of specific places and as a design researcher. The research is conducted at two residential sites in Malmö, the sustainable houing project in Sege Park in Kirseberg and together with the tenant-own association Brf Ida in Rosengård. Both sites work as examples of contemporary process of sustainable urban transition. My research draws on approaches from participatory and collaborative design as well as sustainability studies. These fields overlap in research approaches that advocate for holistic, transdisciplinary, collaborative, participatory and action-oriented research, aimed at meeting the highly complex challenges that sustainable transitions of society imply.
Controversy mapping Sege Park, Living Lab Sege Park , The Transitioners in Sege Park
Sege Park is an urban development project and a testbed for sustainable urban planning and housing, located in Kirsegård, Malmö (southern Sweden) and planned to be finished in 2025-26. The ambition is to make the site exemplary of sustainable urban planning on a European level. Sege Park is a former hospital area, and the project includes the rebuilding of existing houses as well as building new ones, and a partial re-purposing of the existing park. Since 2020, I have been following and mapping processes within the project in the project Controversy Mapping Sege Park. The environmental department of Malmö City council is in the making of setting up a Living lab in Sege Park. The living lab is planned to be up and running in spring 2023 and aims to develop five strategic areas which all involve the future residents: mobility, sharing, gardening, circularity and building community. Since autumn 2021 I have been part of the living lab team, consisting of civil servants from Malmö council environmental department and two social innovation entrepreneurs from Drevet. A fourth study, The Transitioners, is planned for spring 2023. The focus will be on how small communities can be supportive in sustainable transition.
More about the sustainable urban planning project in Sege Park, Malmö: https://malmo.se/Stadsutveckling/Stadsutvecklingsomraden/Sege-Park.html
Collaborative partners: Miljöförvaltningen Malmö Stad (the Environmental Department of Malmö City Council), Dreveet
Green LEA for Brf Ida – neighbourhood mobilization for sustainable urban transition
Brf Ida is Malmö´s third largest tenant association, with about 1700 tenants. In 2017, the association became well-known in the media because of economic fraud, committed by members of the sitting board at the time. Today the association has a new board which has worked hard to recover the finances and develop the area. Currently the association runs several projects to improve with the ambition of becoming a role model for other tenant associations. My research has been part of a project run together with a local NGO, Malmö Tillsammans. Malmö Tillsammans runs project focusing on reinforcing local bottom-up initiatives and to build socio-economic sustainability. Together with Brf Ida we have used the method Green Local Economic Assessment (Green LEA) as tool to give external input to the association’s development process. My specific role in the project has been to elaborate and expand the focus on environmental aspects as part of the method. The working group consisted of a group of tenants, representatives from the board, Malmö Together and me.
Collaborative partners: Brf Ida, Malmö Tillsammans, Malmö Ideella
Contact info: Sara Gottschalk, sara.gottschalk@lnu.se, 076-132 27 62
This research programme is part of the research environments of K3 (School of Art, Culture and Communication) at Malmö University, and Design + Change at Linnaeus University (Lnu), supported by The Bridge.
Staff within Design
Staff within Design
- Anna-Karin Arvidsson Senior lecturer
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- +46 72-703 99 95
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- Anthony Wagner Associate senior lecturer
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- Åsa Ståhl Senior lecturer
- +46 470-76 78 33
- +46 70-256 28 35
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- Cassandra Troyan Senior lecturer
- +46 480-44 61 43
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- Christina Zetterlund Senior lecturer
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- Daniel Gustafsson Workshop educator
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- Eric Snodgrass Senior lecturer
- +46 470-76 72 09
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- Göran Fafner Senior Lecturer
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- Helga Steppan Senior lecturer
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- Ivar Jung Senior lecturer
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- Johan Ahlbäck Senior lecturer
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- Juliana Restrepo Doctoral student
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- Katarina Bonnevier Researcher
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- Lena Håkanson Senior lecturer
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- Louise Swärdshammar Senior lecturer
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- Mariana Alves Silva Researcher
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- Marie Sterte Senior lecturer
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- Mathilda Tham Professor
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- Miguel Salinas Senior lecturer
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- Mikael Blomqvist Senior lecturer
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- Ola Ståhl Senior lecturer
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- Petra Lilja Senior lecturer
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- Sara Gottschalk Doctoral student
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- Sara Hyltén-Cavallius Senior lecturer
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- Stephan Hruza Workshop educator
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- Stephanie Carleklev Senior lecturer
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- Susanne Bonja Westergren Senior lecturer
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- Thérèse Kristiansson Researcher
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- Tobias Svensén Lecturer, Deputy Head of Department
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- Vera Maeder Senior lecturer
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- Yan Ki Lee Adjunct senior lecturer
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- Zeenath Hasan Senior Lecturer, head of department
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Programme coordinators
- Cassandra Troyan Senior lecturer
- +46 480-44 61 43
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- Zeenath Hasan Senior Lecturer, head of department
- +46 470-70 88 17
- +46 70-210 48 76
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- Miguel Salinas Senior lecturer
- +46 470-70 87 48
- +46 72-703 82 48
- miguelsalinaslnuse
- Anthony Wagner Associate senior lecturer
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- Louise Swärdshammar Senior lecturer
- +46 470-76 78 34
- +46 70-532 05 18
- louiseswardshammarlnuse
- Vera Maeder Senior lecturer
- +46 470-70 87 41
- veramaederlnuse