Design as a catalyst for positive change

For Associate Professor and industrial designer Ranee Lee 郭恩琳, “design is a tool that can take us into any field and lead to better outcomes. With a world in flux, design can serve as a catalyst for a better and more equitable future, one that moves us toward life-centered design.”

Throughout a career that spans more than three decades, Lee has continually redefined the role of design in society and views studio courses as laboratories of life, where students engage in participatory research with the community. She sees this first-hand in the Industrial Design program where she teaches at OCAD University.

The award-winning associate professor often iterates on her ideas, continuously building upon them through learning, making and research. She believes “we have a role to play in responding to the world around us, especially in face of the current climate crisis and widespread inequality.”

And Lee turned that belief into action when she presented a proposal to Cadillac Fairview (CF) asking them to be a partner in creating an innovation lab at the intersection of social and environmental sustainability.

As a result, DESIGNwith was established in the CF Eaton Centre, one of Canada’s busiest shopping centres – an example of the pivotal role that corporations can play in advancing social good within communities.

INNOVATION LAB: CARING DESIGN PRACTICE

“DESIGNwith is an innovation lab for circular economy and social change that sits the intersection of business, academic and community. It brings design knowledge to the public – beyond the corridors of academia,” says Lee who founded the lab in June 2022 with CF and OCAD U as partners.

Through its products and programming, the lab demonstrates how meaningful impact can emerge when design, community and sustainability come together, driving positive change for both people and the environment.

One of the lab’s goals is to employ skilled sewists from Regent Park Sewing Studio and use their skills to create something out of materials otherwise destined for the landfill, leveraging overlooked skills and materials in society.

One such example has been the transformation of discarded marketing banners from The Power Plant into a collection of zero-waste products, including one-of-a-kind tote bags, pouches and wallets.

Available for sale, these products have been handcrafted by the women sewists from the Regent Park Sewing Studio, a program run by the Toronto Centre for Learning and Development in Regent Park.

“This evolving collaboration with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery reflects our commitment to circular design, transforming materials with intention and embedding social and environmental care into every step of production,” explains Lee.

The underlying ethos of DESIGNwith is the thoughtful approach that Lee calls a “caring design practice.”

“This ethos – of caring for both people and the plant at the same time – reflects my vision of industrial design and what I teach in the classroom: finding design opportunities in everyday problems and focusing on solutions that serve humanity,” she says.

The lab also offers accessible workshops that provide immersive, hands-on experiences that empower people to explore and apply circular design principles in their personal and professional lives.

One example has been the lab’s sneaker-making workshops. Through the process of designing and making sneakers, participants learn about disassembly and repair, which are core principles of circular design.

Building on these DESIGNwith workshops, a new research question emerged for Lee: What if, at the end of their life, our shoes could simply be buried in our gardens and become regenerative?

This question attracted like-minded students, including current Industrial Design student Becca Wakefield who began experimenting at DESIGNwith with cooking up recipes for biomaterials.

SHORT-TERM RESEARCH PROJECT ON BIOMATERIALS

“After several months of development, we created a recipe for a flexible and durable biomaterial suitable for making sneakers. This project was taken to São Paulo where local plants were incorporated into the process, resulting in a truly regional biomaterial,” explains Lee.

Lee partnered with Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo in Brazil, where she was invited by Professor Maria Carolina Garcia to conduct a short-term research project on biomaterials, engaging faculty, students, and industry alike.

“As part of this project, I taught a workshop on biomaterials using research developed from DESIGNwith. I also brought patterns from our sneaker-making workshop and together at Belas Artes. We made our own biomaterials, cut the patterns and the students made their own sneakers,” says Lee.

The project was funded by the Faculty Mobility for Partnership Building Program grant from Global Affairs Canada. It was supported by research assistant Beatriz Tiemi Iegawa, a student at Belas Artes who also focuses her research on biomaterials.