Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Application

An Analysis of Sustainable Design Education Gaps in Indian Architecture Programs

The global furniture industry generates approximately 300-450 million tonnes of waste annually, directly undermining UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities) and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption). The Circular Economy offers a structured response to this problem by prioritizing material loops that reduce extraction and extend value. For design education and practice, this translates into Circular Design Principles that operationalize circularity at the scale of furniture, material assemblies, and interior fit-outs. Despite their significance, architecture and interior design education programs inadequately prepare students to address these challenges through circular spatial strategies. This study presents a comprehensive three-component investigation examining circular design integration in Indian design education. First, a curricular analysis of 30 leading architecture and interior design programs was conducted to establish the instructional context for circular design in India. This was followed by a detailed examination of 17 studio briefs using content analysis to assess how sustainability is being incorporated in the learning objectives. Lastly, an empirical study with 23 third-year architecture students using sequential mixed-methods was conducted to evaluate knowledge-practice gaps in circular strategies integration. The findings reveal critical deficiencies across all stages. While sustainability terminology appears in 93% of architecture programs, no institution explicitly integrates circular design as a core competency. Studio brief analysis reveals that sustainability appears in some learning outcomes but remains operationalized through material substitution only. Student assessment shows only 28% naturally incorporate sustainable strategies, achieving 34.8% accuracy in identifying circular principles, with 65% demonstrating severe perception-reality gaps. The study demonstrates that current educational approaches treat sustainability as secondary, rather than integral. These findings necessitate systematic curriculum integration of circular design principles to develop specialized competencies in future designers. These systemic deficiencies, triangulated across curriculum, pedagogy, and student outcomes, orient this research to identify specific leverage points for reform.It offers a replicable framework for examining student understanding and provides curricula designers, educators and policymakers with evidence-based recommendations for effective circular design integration.