Log InLog InGraduate Diploma · 5 modules · Interdisciplinary School
Sustainability is a systems problem. It cannot be solved by any single discipline, because the systems that sustain civilisation, from the planetary feedback loops that regulate climate to the supply chains that deliver food to cities, are coupled, nonlinear, and resistant to simple intervention. This diploma teaches the student to see these systems whole, to identify their feedback structures, to measure what matters rather than what is convenient, and to design interventions that work with human cognition and system dynamics rather than against them.
Hosted by the Norbertian Cybernetics Simulacrum (Mathematics/AI)
The foundational theory of systems: feedback loops, homeostasis, the law of requisite variety, Meadows' leverage points, and why complex systems resist linear intervention.
Open module →Hosted by the James Lovelock Simulacrum (Earth Sciences)
Gaia theory applied to sustainability: the nine planetary boundaries, safe operating spaces, tipping cascades, and what "sustainable" means in earth system terms.
Open module →Hosted by the Alexandrian Design Simulacrum (Design)
Pattern language applied to sustainable design: the fifteen properties as sustainability principles, adaptive development, pace layers, resilience, and the circular economy.
Open module →Hosted by the Ronald Fisher Simulacrum (Mathematics)
Measuring sustainability: indicators and their limits, experimental design for policy, natural experiments, the precautionary principle, and what evidence standard sustainability policy should meet.
Open module →Hosted by the Normanesque Affordance Simulacrum (Design)
Designing systems that make the sustainable choice the easy choice: affordances, defaults, choice architecture, the information-action gap, transition design, and why system change matters more than behaviour change.
Open module →