ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the productive potentials of intercultural design collaboration for sustainability in terms of teamwork, communication, and creative innovation. Sustainability is an emotionally loaded concept that provokes both positive and negative reactions from students and nonstudents alike. The term sustainability is used within the chapter to describe the well-being of humanity and the planet: environmental, social, and economic. Without becoming myopic, revelatory problem solving for global change requires unified goals and diverse perspectives characteristic of teamwork and collaboration. Intercultural Design Collaboration (IDC) at the university level provides students with the opportunity to produce collaborative projects with cross-cultural partners, using virtual communication tools. Whereas international partnerships increase respect for cultural diversity as a problem-solving tool, learning to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty is also part of the process. University design curricula that incorporate intercultural design collaboration for sustainability into generalized and specialized courses set the stage for multifaceted design opportunities from many angles.
