Ergonomics and Sustainable Design: A Case Study on Practicing and Teaching

摘要

This paper, which stems from a larger research project, focus on the important role played by ergonomics within the conceptual design process, through the case study Daciano da Costa. We intend to disseminate among the international scientific community Daciano's developed work underlining the importance he conferred to ergonomics in design process, throughout his teaching career and his professional practice. Daciano conceived numerous interior and product design projects of outstanding quality from the early 60's onwards until 2003. His work made him one of the most relevant figures of the twentieth century Portuguese Design. We'll focus not only on his studio work, but also on his work as a teacher at Lisbon Technical University where Daciano created, in 1991, the first undergraduate Design degree in Portugal. As a professor, one of his main concerns was the student's recognition of the importance of ergonomic factors when designing, developing and supervising the exercises he set. In those days, Daciano brought innovation to the practice and teaching: a modernization of processes, a new perspective on the emerging themes of design such as ergonomics and sustainability. He believed that designing was providing a service. This task was understood as the building of arelationship between the object and the users. Throughout his carrier, both as a designer and as a teacher, he contributed for a holistic approach to ergonomics implementing a broad understanding of its full scope in order to design safe, effective and productive work systems. He implemented a design process which deals with sustainability and social commitment, searching for simple long-term solutions that could last and fulfil human needs, causing minimum material waste.