Redefining the Relocatable: Multidisciplinary design for a wicked problem

Abstract

This paper centres on a three-year Australian Research Project that has sought to redefine an important component of Australia’s education infrastructure, the relocatable classroom, as high performance and design-led through a multidisciplinary research process. Our focus has been to encourage conversations between educators, designers, government procurement teams and manufacturers. This has been more difficult than expected as we speak different epistemological languages and see the world through different lenses. The paper will track some of the obstacles and strategies for carrying out a multidisciplinary research process. There are tipping points occurring worldwide in prefabrication, s..