This article presents an innovative Social Design project that transformed participants and delivered legislative change at a state government level. Through this project, students engaged with community members, advocacy groups, and peers around the issue of homelessness. They produced a social change campaign that enriched the lives of disadvantaged homeless people. Students and staff who participated in this project found that the experience had a significant impact on how they engaged with social issues in academia. The Human Rights Campaign Studio (HRCS) was a unique project that used interdisciplinary collaboration in an intensive studio environment to simulate a communications consultancy. Students from diverse backgrounds and skill sets engaged with social change theory, providing a meaningful context to community engagement and participatory design processes. This project shows that it is possible to make a positive contribution to the community when social movement theory is integrated into studio-based learning. When students are placed in an interdisciplinary context, intense interactions happen that lead to personal growth and innovative solutions to social problems such as homelessness. The results of this project have implications for educational environments that wish to engage with bigger problems faced by society. This project serves as an educational model that could be replicated in order to facilitate real world social change lead by academic institutions. The model of the HRCS placed the community at the heart of the educational experience and delivered social design in practice.
8th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices
8th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices
