BDes Design for Health and Wellbeing

at Glasgow School of Art

BDes/MDes Design for Health and Wellbeing at GSA's Innovation School provides a unique, future-focused perspective on the role of design in shaping individual, collective, societal and planetary health and wellbeing. If we want to live in a healthy world and be well, we must design and create the conditions under which this becomes possible, for our society and our ecosystem. To this end, the BDes and integrated MDes programme covers a broad spectrum of design-led innovation practices associated with organisational, systemic and social change as they relate to the domain of Health and Wellbeing. This includes design of products, interactions, services, experiences, systems and strategies. The programme shares many classes and projects with BDes/MEDes Product Design, particularly in the early years. This equips students with a diverse range of contemporary design skills, methods and approaches – with a key difference being the focus on how we apply these to explore and create new ways of living to promote health and wellbeing for people and planet.
 

Students will explore complex social, ethical, environmental, political and technological issues as the focal points for design projects. The programme goes beyond a conception of medical, physical or psychological health to ask – instead – how might we reimagine ‘health’ and ‘wellbeing,’ and what will this mean to us in a world shaped by social, environmental and technological change? How can design help us to explore and consider these changes in the world, and how will it help us imagine our response? You will work beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries and engage with specialist expertise from other domains, such as science, medicine, ecology, technology and politics, to create future visions of our health and wellbeing. As a result of this approach, our graduates will have a unique professional and transdisciplinary perspective that prepares them for a diverse range of creative opportunities and career destinations.
 

Through a combination of studio-based learning, project-based exploration of ideas and work placements, you will acquire a wide range of visualisation, prototyping and communication skills. You will learn how to apply research methods and analytical skills to identify needs, synthesise opportunities for change, and to design outcomes with citizens, professionals, organisations and governments. The programme offers opportunities for student placements as well as the possibility to participate in live projects with independent, public and third-sector organisations – supporting our graduates to shape their future careers and design practice through creative and collaborative working across diverse contexts to drive real-world impact.