The Fold as a Living Lab for innovative, materials-led, transdisciplinary teaching and learning

About this initiative

Innovation and creativity are fundamental to quality outputs in research, teaching and learning across higher education. In order to contribute to innovations in teaching, learning and research across and within disciplines, in 2023 and 2024, we successfully implemented ‘The Fold Living Laboratory (LL) programme’ to lead, generate and inspire new ideas and approaches in teaching, learning and research. Our aim is to break new ground through co-design of learning, as influenced and informed by engineering, design thinking, arts-based practices, philosophy, education and architecture. No previous experience of any of these subjects is required, but rather an open mind and willingness to experiment and learn from others. By using the Fold as a Living Lab tool, we aspire to establish an exploratory/pilot teaching infrastructure that could ultimately become integrated within a broader college program and therefore promote research, innovation and SDGs within the UCC community. ‘The Fold’ metaphor reflects the development of new systems of knowledge that recognise how things come into being, enfolding information from the various fields they emerge from (Bryant 2016).