The Centre for Design promotes sustainability through research, consulting, and capacity building through active dissemination and professional development.

We are recognised internationally for our innovative design methods and tools to support sustainable design of products and services – everything from packaging and consumer products to buildings, suburbs and cities.

As Australia’s key node of activity in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the Centre is dedicated to all aspects of achieving environmental sustainability outcomes, and undertakes fundamental research to inform policy and practice to this end.

The Centre for Design (CfD) is based in the portfolio of Design and Social Content at RMIT’s city campus in Melbourne. RMIT is one of Australia's largest and most respected technical and design universities.

CfD has a long history dating back to 1988. Our reputation as a national and international leader in eco-design was established in the 1990s, and our research interest in sustainable built environments grew in the latter part of the decade.

A research project examining the sustainability of building materials and interiors led to EcospecifierTM, widely regarded as pivotal in assisting designers and specifiers to develop green office buildings across Australia over the past 5 years.

CfD now has a worldwide reputation as a key provider of Ecologically Sustainable Design (ESD) and LCA expertise to the building design and construction sectors, and related policy makers.

CfD’s ‘Ecohome’ Australian Research Council Linkage grant project won ‘Energy Efficient Project Home’ award in the Victorian Housing Awards, and Ecospecifier partners (Centre for Design and Natural Integrated Living) received the 2004/05 HIA National GreenSmart ‘Partnership Award’ and a further commendation under the ‘Towards Sustainable Communities’ category of Australia’s Year of the Built Environment 2004 National Awards.

The last 18 months has seen expansion, with the addition of several new staff and a wider range of major research projects than ever before. CfD is also collaborating actively with researchers and partners across a wide range of disciplines – essential in the search for effective, sustainable solutions and their successful implementation. An example is the coordination of the Reimagining the Australian Suburb – a cluster of research projects involving researchers across RMIT.

Currently, research is concentrated into four main clusters:

• Sustainable Built Environments
• Sustainable Materials
• Sustainable Products and Packaging
• Life Cycle Assessment

From traditional discipline areas such as architecture and design, projects branch out into planning and urban design, environmental management and policy, greenhouse emission reduction and behaviour change. Inevitably, interdisciplinary research threads also cross-cut the four main clusters.

The Centre for Design also offers training courses and teaching, which have become key sources of information for design professionals. Our training courses include:

• Green Building and Design (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth),
• Water and Sustainability (for Victorian Water Authorities staff in conjunction with the Victorian Water Association sustainability task force),
• Life Cycle Assessment
• Headstart (half day course on sustainable design in conjunction the Design Institute of Australia, Product Ecology Pty and EcoRecycle Victoria).

CfD also produces educational materials to assist teachers, trainers and a variety of learning and information agencies. See our training and development page for more infomation on our courses.

The Centre for Design aims to:

• develop and demonstrate new design strategies, decision support tools and processes aimed at improving the environmental performance of products, built environments and services
• assist industry to design and use greener products, buildings and services and to develop more strategic environmental directions
• advise government agencies on policy and programs to reduce environmental impacts through design
• explore new concepts, scenarios, actions, strategies and policies for a sustainable future; and
• maintain a national and international network of research and information exchange in environmental assessment and design.

Areas of activity

• Research and consulting in new design methods and tools, sustainable product and building design, innovation, transition and change processes, product stewardship strategies, life-cycle assessment (LCA), and policy development
• Training and professional development—short courses, seminars and workshops
• Knowledge transfer—web sites, published research, articles, conferences and presentations

The Centre for Design team

The Centre for Design is a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with backgrounds including architecture, industrial design, interior design, environmental science, engineering, arts and cleaner production:

Director

Assoc Prof Ralph Horne

Managers

Dr Usha Iyer-Raniga, Assistant Director and Manager, Sustainble Built Environments & Materials

Dr Karli Verghese (nee James), Manager Sustainable Products & Packaging and Life Cycle Assessment

Research Consultants

Tim Grant, Research Consultant, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Andrew Carre, Research Consultant, LCA and Sustainable Products & Packaging

Glenn Di-Mauro Hayes, Research Consultant, LCA and Sustainable Products & Packaging

Scott McAlister, Research Consultant, LCA

Nicholas Johns, Research Consultant, LCA and Sustainable Products & Packaging

Leyla Acaroglu, Research Consultant, Sustainable Products & Packaging

Trivess Moore, Research Consultant

Margaret Bates, Research Consultant, Sustainable Built Environments & Materials

Helaine Stanley, Research Consultant, Sustainable Built Environments & Materials

Nicola Willand, Research Consultant, Sustainable Built Environments & Materials

Paul-Antoine Bontinck, LCA trainee

John Morrissey, Post-doc, Sustainable Built Environments & Materials

Cecily Maller, Post-doc, Sustainable Built Environments & Materials

Susie Moloney, Research Assistant, Carbon Neutral Communities

Phd Candidates

Areli Avendano, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Packaging

Chris Taylor, PhD Candidate, Building materials specification

Kel Dummett, PhD Candidate, Product Stewardship

Joe Hurley, PhD Candidate, Reimagining the Australian Suburb

Caroline Speed, PhD Candidate, Reimagining the Australian Suburb

Tim O'Leary, PhD Candidate

In addition, two key CfD staff support the research and act as first points of contact:

Rose Scasni, Business Manager

Nicole McGrath, Administration Officer

The Centre for Design is also supported by a wider network of Associates, Advisory Board members and strategic partners.

Strategic Partners

In addition to research consulting partnerships with a range of national and international organisations, CfD also partners with local and state governments and a number of local organisations on research, consulting and capacity building projects. These include:

• Sustainability Victoria
• Building Commission of Victoria
• Sustainable Packaging Alliance (SPA)
• Product Ecology Pty Ltd
• EcoBalance
• CERES
• VicUrban

Street address

Centre for Design
RMIT University
Level 2 Mezzanine, Building 15, 124 La Trobe St (Behind Bowen St)
Melbourne 3000 Victoria, Australia

Mailing address

RMIT Centre for Design

GPO Box 2476V
Melbourne 3001 Victoria
Australia