ABSTRACT
Considering Creativity, the capacity that human beings have to create, to invent, to face and to solve problems by original means, we analyse two examples of design practice in Portugal from the seventies to the present, both in industrial and handicraft areas. Creative projects that focus on sustainability with fixation of the local population and even constitute a form of local attraction with the ability to give visibility to the distinctive values of the territory.
Throughout this chapter, we try to understand the way how Design, as a creative discipline with transdisciplinary skills, may become a useful instrument in the promotion of new practices based on artisans and industrial workers skills. Perhaps we do not need specialised technological know-how to achieve sustainable design, we just need to look with creativity at ways that have worked in the past and adapt them to current needs and conditions.
We intend to conclude from this research that we need to cross over the new ideas that the designer’s creativity can bring, to the skills of workers and artisans and find new forms of sustainable design artefacts. The goal is to contribute, through Design Creativity, for the construction of a partnership model between design, handcraft skills and industrial techniques that may lead to an increase in the value of local identities, achieving sustainability, social integration and regional development.
