“We can not hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls” - Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vol 1: The Problem of Civilization

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The LeNS Lab at Srishti Manipal is aimed at the development and dissemination of knowledge and practices on Design for Sustainability (DfS) by promoting research activities, developing interdisciplinary projects, teaching modules and working with global and regional networks of higher educational institutions and organizations.
The lab is an interdisciplinary platform for engaging with concepts of sustainability both for systems and practices in real world situations through sustained engagements of students, researchers and faculty members with communities, governments, designers and implementers.

The LeNS Lab was founded in 2010 as part of a EU funded project LeNS (Learning Networks for Sustainability) with an aim to promote a new generation of designers, design educators and researchers capable of developing effective and contextual practices of sustainability. A subsequent three year Erasmus Plus funded project- LeNSin (2015-2018) contributed towards the development of a maker space at Srishti as part of the LeNS Lab and the project brought together universities from Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, China, India and Europe as a multi-polar network.

The LeNS Lab at Srishti also initiated the LeNS India Chapter in 2016. LeNS –India is a regional network of institutions across India that aims to drive sustainability thinking and critical reflection in academic institutions.

Unpacking the Sustainability Development Goals at a workshop to make it relavant to our context

Achievements and on-going focus areas

The LeNS Lab at Srishti, along with the LeNSin network has developed

• Research and practices of sustainable product service systems and distributed economies
• Open source teaching and learning modules and resources for design schools to include sustainability into their curriculum which is available at http://www.lens-international.org/. These resources are complemented with textbooks and guidelines for implementing curricular courses.
• Regional networks of higher educational institutions to work towards gathering research and context specific knowledge on Design for Sustainability.

• Organizing regional and international conferences

  The LeNS Lab at Srishti organized the LeNSin World Distributed Conference, India Region in April 2019 at Srishti Bangalore. The conference was also used to bring together academicians, practitioners and researchers to develop the LeNS India Sustainability for All Manifesto which was released in September 2019.

• The LeNS Lab works with faculty and student groups to develop and test implementable services and systems to encourage institutional practices of sustainability. It also encourages the incorporation of the LeNS Manifesto as an approach to developing curricular courses, institutional practices and design development.

Dr. Geetha Narayanan’s message at the LeNS World Distributed Conference at Srishti

Opportunities at LeNS Lab Srishti Manipal

The LeNS Lab at Srishti aims to

• Document, interpret, articulate and analyze local and traditional practices and systems in the contemporary language of sustainability.
• Develop implementable practices and systems for more effective use of resources within institutions and organizations in order to reduce their ecological impact.
• Develop modules and resources to include sustainability as an integral part of educational curriculum and design practice.
• Initiate real world projects spearheaded by faculty and brought into classrooms in the form of studios, theses and researches.
• Develop and expand the regional network with an aim to collectively adopt and build on the LeNS Manifesto.

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