Doctor Abby Lopes
SENIOR LECTURER,
Design (SoHCA)
Personal
Qualifications
- BA University of Sydney
UWS Organisational Unit (School / Division)
- Design (SoHCA)
Professional Memberships
- Learning Network on Sustainability (LeNS) (2012-01-01)
Contact
| Email: | A.Lopes@uws.edu.au |
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| Extension: | 5024 |
| Mobile: | |
| Location: | BB.1.60 Penrith (Werrington South) |
| Website: |
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Biography
Abby Mellick Lopes is a Senior Lecturer in Design with 15 years' professional and academic experience in the field of design for sustainability. Her research and teaching activities demonstrate design leadership in promoting socio-cultural change for more sustainable ways of living, working and learning. She was a key team member of the groundbreaking research and educational consultancy the EcoDesign Foundation from 1996-2004 (See for example Design for Sustainability Guide: http://www.changedesign.org/DfSGuideWebsite/HomePage/Home.htm). Her research at the Foundation focused on design strategies for adaptation to climate change, and the ecological impacts of information technology. Her PhD was a philosophical investigation of image ecologies and their material effects, and she continues to have a keen interest in how visual communications design can enhance ecological literacies and support more sustainable social practices.
Her current research explores how design can contribute to socio-cultural change in relation to water, sanitation and urban agriculture; user-side practices of care, repair and creative modification; design research strategies and design for sustainability education. She has been involved in a number of interdisciplinary research projects. In 2006-2007 she was a member of the CRC Irrigation Futures investigating sustainability in urban irrigation, and in 2006-2008 was Joint Chief Investigator on a Partnership Program with Penrith City Council researching universal design and cultural context in public parklands in Western Sydney. She has most recently collaborated with researchers and industry partners on the project Transitioning to Sustainable Sanitation Futures with the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS. She has a particular interest in strengthening the research and teaching nexus and in each of these projects has actively involved student cohorts.
Abby holds a number of leadership roles within her field. She is a committee member of the Society for Responsible Design, a member of the UWS Sustainability Taskforce and a member of the international Learning Network on Sustainability (LeNS Oceania: http://lensoceania.org/). Abby collaborated with Jonathon Allen and Tara Andrews on the Futures West initiative, an engagement strategy to generate forward-thinking responses to climate change for the region of Greater Western Sydney. She was also a Team Leader on the 2011 international hothouse Design Action, Leadership and the Future led by Dr. Tony Fry at Queensland College of Art. Abby has supervised a number of HDR students to completion and is currently supervising PhDs and DCAs in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at UWS. Abby has published widely on sustainable design issues and has presented her research at conferences in China, Spain, Holland, Cyprus and the UK as well as Australia.
This information has been contributed by Doctor Lopes.
Interests
- Consumption and Everyday Life
- Cultural Theory
- Design Futuring
- Design Research Methodologies
- Design for Sustainability
- Material Culture Studies
- Redirective Design
Committees
- UWS Sustainability Task Force
- SoHCA School Research Committee
Publications
Books
- Lopes, A. (2009), 'Ecology of the Image: the matter of ideas in design', : VDM Verlag 9783639128062.
Journal Articles
- Lopes, A., Fam, D. and Williams, J. (2012), 'Designing Sustainable Sanitation: Involving design in innovative, transdisciplinary research', Design Studies, 20.
- Allen, J., Andrews, T. and Lopes, A. (2012), 'Industrial Design is Dead. Long Live Industrial Design: Adapting Industrial Design Curricula in Response to a Climate-Changed Future and the Current University Environment', Industrial Design Educators Network Journal, 8.
- Shumack, K., Lopes, A., Shumack, K. and Mellick Lopes, A. (2012), 'Please ask us - conversation mapping as design research : social learning in a verge garden site', Design Philosophy Papers, .
- Lopes, A. (2012), 'Recoding abandoned products : student visual designers learn to sustain product lives and values', Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, 21.
- Lopes, A. and Gill, A. (2011), 'On Wearing: a Critical Framework for Valuing Design's Already Made', Design and Culture, 21.
- Fam, D., Lopes, A., Willetts, J. and Mitchell, C. (2009), 'The Challenge of System Change: an historical analysis of Sydney's Sewers', Design Philosophy Papers, .
- Lopes, A. (2003), 'Televisual Anaesthesia', Design Philosophy Papers, .
Conference Papers
- Gill, A. and Lopes, A. (2011), 'Recoding Abandoned Products: student visual designers experiment to sustain product lives and values', Experiential Knowledge Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society, Farnham, Surrey, UK.
- Huda, S., Campbell, S., Allen, J., Sinclair, C., Andrews, T., Lopes, A., Duarte, F., Bambrick, H., Craig, D. and Jeffery, M. (2010), 'Climate Change: Building Leadership Capacity within a Higher Education Institution', International Farming Systems Association Europe Group Conference, Vienna.
- Ramirez, M., Campbell, G., Marosszeky, A., Lopes, A. and Campbell, C. (2010), 'SRD Change: showcasing graduate projects that provoke sustainable changes in design thinking', CONNECTED 2010, UNSW, Sydney.
- Andrews, T., Lopes, A. and Allen, J. (2010), 'Design and the University: a partnership for sustainable design', CONNECTED 2010, UNSW, Sydney.
- Lopes, A., Fam, D. and Williams, J. (2010), 'Designing Sustainable Sanitation through transdisciplinary research: a pilot project of nutrient recovery and reuse', Cumulus Shanghai Conference 2010: Young Creators for Better City, Better Life, Shanghai, China.
- Allen, J., Lopes, A. and Andrews, T. (2009), 'Futures West: A Design Research Initiative Promoting Sustainable Futures for Western Sydney', Cumulus 38? South 2009: Hemispheric Shifts Across Learning, Teaching and research, Melbourne, Australia.
- Mitchell, C., Abeysuriya, K. and Lopes, A. (2009), 'Distributed wastewater management in Melbourne, Australia: A case study of transition in practice', KSI Conference: Dynamics and Governance of Transitions to Sustainability, Amsterdam 4-6 June.
- Lopes, A. (2008), 'Designed Inquiry: The Significance of Research Education for Industrial Designers', 10th Engineering and Product Design Education International Conference, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya Barcelona Spain.
- Lopes, A., Andrews, T. and Clune, S. (2007), 'Future Scenario Planning as a tool for Sustainable Design Education and Innovation', Connected 2007 International Conference on Design Education, University of NSW, Sydney.
- Lopes, A. (2004), 'Research through Design: observational research for sustainability', Futureground, Monash University, Melbourne.
Research
Previous Projects
| Title: | The social and environmental benefits of urban irrigation in open public spaces and the economic value associated with these benefits |
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| Years: | 2007-01-15 - 2007-12-01 |
| ID: | P0015623 |
| UWS Researchers: | Abby Lopes and Basant Maheshwari |
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| Title: | Universal Design and Cultural Context: Accessibility, diversity and recreational space in Penrith |
| Years: | 2007-03-09 - 2008-03-08 |
| ID: | P0015345 |
| UWS Researchers: | Zoe Sofoulis, Michael Bounds, Abby Lopes and Tara Andrews |
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| Title: | Challenging the irrigation industry (urban and rural) to measure its sustainability |
| Years: | 2004-08-01 - 2006-06-30 |
| ID: | P0014529 |
| UWS Researchers: | Basant Maheshwari and Abby Lopes |
| Funding: |
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Supervision
Doctor Lopes is available to be a principal supervisor for doctoral projects
Current Supervision
| Title: | Temporal Space; An Investigation of Sydney's Irregular Performance Spaces |
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| Field of Research: | |
| Title: | Fashion Footprint: A Documentary about Clothing Use and Change for Sustainability in the Fashion Industry |
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| Title: | Envisioning Design: The Role of Visual Communications in Place-making |
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| Title: | A History of Ontoligically Designing (Post) Colonial Australia |
| Field of Research: |
