Students contribute to GIDE to feeding the planet

Published On Mon 24 Feb 2014 by Grant Hill

Interior Environmental Design students from the University of Dundee will next week travel to Belgium to take part in an international symposium exploring design, urbanism and sustainability and how the three can combine to feed the planet.

Third-year students from the BDes (Hons) Interior Environmental Design programme at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), part of the University, will be taking part in GIDE 2014 in Mechelen from February 24th-28th.

The Group for International Design Education (GIDE) is an international research consortium of which DJCAD is a member. GIDE brings together higher education design institutions across the EU in order to enrich the experience of students and researchers across the areas of industrial/interaction design, interior architecture, and art and design interdisciplinary practice.

Nine nations will be represented at the symposium, and the DJCAD contingent will collaborate with 140 students and 35 professors from the fields of industrial design, communication and interior architecture.

Andy Milligan, Interior Environmental Design Course Director, said, 'Over an intensive week, our students will present at a symposium, show recent work at an international exhibition and develop interdisciplinary responses to the workshop theme of 'Feed The Planet'.

'This is a unique cultural and educational experience, which will give them valuable experience of presenting at a symposium and in working in an interdisciplinary context.'

The symposium will also feature keynote speeches that will set the tone for the workshop that follows. Carolyn Steel, architect and author of author of 'Hungry City', will explore the relationship between food and the city while Mechelen City Architect, Barbara Adriaensen, will discuss sustainable urban development.

GIDE comprises art & design schools from England, Switzerland, Belgium, Slovenia, Germany, Italy and Scotland. The symposium is now a decade old and this year's event takes place at the Thomas More University College Mechelen.

More information is available at http://gidegroup.wordpress.com/.

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