In this unit we explore materials from a design perspective - their properties, qualities, typical applications, their cost and the environmental impact associated with their extraction, use and disposal. We also look at how they can be formed using contemporary and emerging processing techniques - from sand casting to rapid prototyping. Lectures are supplemented with live demonstrations of materials processing techniques and students undertake materials research and a design for manufacture project.

Designers prescribe the use of our limited materials resources with every product that transpires from their work. With an informed approach to design, based on a sound knowledge of materials from their origins to their disposal as well how those materials are utilised in existing contexts of use, a designer can maximise the positive impact of their designing on local and global communities. In this unit students will develop an understanding of the central importance of design in developing a more sustainable world on both production and consumption sides. They will reflect critically on their role as both designers and end-users and will exercise their creative intuition to confidently generate and present designs for sustainability. The aim of the unit is to enhance students’ ecological literacy and perception of sustainability as a creative opportunity.

If science and planning march under the banner of “everything is possible”, design culture must know how to point out a path for these potential possibilities, a path that can be completely opposed to that which technological – scientific development has followed up to now. This unit explores the challenges facing design culture in which the designer must now provide scenarios that visualise some aspects of how the world could be and, at the same, time, present it with such characteristics that can be supported by complex ecological equilibria, which are acceptable socially and attractive culturally.

The aim of this unit is to provide an introduction into the fundamentals of manufacturing operations, automation and control technologies including numerical control and industrial robotics. In addition, material handling and identification technologies will be discussed as well as manufacturing systems. The latter will examine single-station manufacturing cells, manual assembly lines, automated production and assembly lines as well as flexible manufacturing systems. Mechanical behaviour of common materials used in manufacturing will be studied, and their suitability for various manufacturing processes including metal cutting, sheet-metal forming, bulk deformation and abrasion. Other processes such as rapid prototyping and rapid tooling will also be included.