Untangling Design Purpose
A DESIGN SYMPOSIUM HOSTED BY
ISTITUTO MARANGONI LONDON and MACROMEDIA UNIVERSITY MUNICH
Wednesday 17th APRIL, 2024, online
Jonathan Chapman is Professor & Director of Doctoral Studies at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design where he leads the PhD in Transition Design—a research leadership program for designers committed to making positive change in the world.
He is the author of five books at the intersection of industrial design, human experience, and sustainability. His most recent book, Meaningful Stuff: Design that Lasts (MIT Press, 2021) calls for an “experience heavy, materials light” design sensibility that increases the quality and longevity of our relationships with products, and demonstrates why design can—and must—lead the transition to a sustainable future.
Chapman is a consultant and strategic advisor to global businesses and governmental organizations from Puma, COS, and Philips, to the House of Lords, the United Nations, and NASA. His Op-Ed for The Guardian outlining his research agenda received 1,000+ comments within hours of going live.
He is a Visiting Professor in Design at the Politecnico di Milano, and graduate student advisor at MIT, Cambridge University, Royal College of Art, and KAIST. He holds a PhD in Design (2008), MA in Design Futures (2001), and BA (Hons) in Industrial Design (1997).
At the age of 38, he became the youngest person in the UK to achieve the rank of Full Professor in Design. New Scientist described Chapman as “a mover and shaker” and a “new breed of sustainable design thinker.”
Caroline Hummels is Professor of Design and Theory for Transformative Qualities at the department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her activities concentrate on designing and researching transforming practices. With her team and external stakeholders, including the Provence of North-Brabant, Philips Design, RISE, Rijkswaterstaat, Enpuls and ZET, she leverages emerging technologies through which they jointly change practices to navigate transforming societies towards sustainable futures. Doing so, she focuses on being-in-the-world theories, embodied and aesthetics interactions, imagination, data-enabled design and participatory sensemaking. Her research questions questions practices and societies through theoretical lenses, including design-philosophy correspondence, in which philosophy informs design practice and design practice is used to philosophise, in order to tackle imminent societal challenges.
Caroline is founder and member of the steering committee of the Tangible Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI) Conference, editorial board member of the International Journal of Design, member of the Dutch Design Week sounding board, and ambassador of CLIKCNL for the Key Enabling Methodologies related to ‘Participation and co-creation.’
PANEL 1
Learning from the Pluriverse
Moderated by Kirsten Scott
Meeting in Difference: Reflecting on Responsibility when Exchanging Across the Colonial Difference
Presented by Jennifer Whitty, Associate Professor, School of Design, Victoria University of Wellington; Richa Sood, Associate Professor, Fashion Design, IIAD, Delhi; Angela Jansen, director of the Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion; Alua Duisenbeck, Kazakhstan.
Fashioning Pluralities of Praxis in Harmony with Nature Through Chinese Indigenous Knowledge
Presented by Oli Dong, Yan Yuan, Jennifer Whitty, Associate Professor, School of Design, Victoria University of Wellington.
Relinquishing control, liberating design pluriversalism
Presented by Marie Williams, founder and CEO of Dream Networks, and Camille Kramer-Courbariaux, YUX Co-founder and YUX Academy Director.
Designing for Manas (Mind): The Indian Idiom of Purposeful Creation
Presented by Sachin Sachar, Exhibition Designer, Archivist, Pedagogue, Storyteller, Delhi.
Lilli Gänsbauer and Peter Langwieser - Unveiling Loneliness: A Design Perspective on Emotional Health (Macromedia University Munich)
Simone Stubblefield - Trauma-Informed Design (Istituto Marangoni London)
PANEL 2
Learning from Complexity
Moderated by Oliver Szasz
Current, Industrial Design and Innovation Practices: Use Case Generation and Anticipation Facing Societal Expectations
Presented by Dr Niklas Hermann Henke, Scientific Work Package Leader at Capgemini Engineer- ing (Toulouse). Non-Permanent Research Member of the GRESEC laboratory (Grenoble).
Future Makers: brands in a changing global landscape
Presented by Scott Frankum, independent technology and strategic advisor, and Robert Meeder, professor of practice and global leader in fashion and sustainability
Design and Complexity
Presented by Dan Vlahos, Assistant Professor of Visual and Performing Arts at Merrimack College (Boston), and of Dan Vlahos Design.
PANEL 3
Learning from Connection
Moderated by Kirsten Scott and Oliver Szasz
Decolonizing Design: Abandoning The False Promise of Modern Progress
Presented by Dr Ricardo López-León, Design Sciences Center, Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Sensory Design: Broader modes of engagement for liberatory design
Presented by Sugandha Gupta, Assistant Professor, Fashion Design and Social Justice, Parsons School of Design, New York.
Regenerative Design Futures: De-institutionalising learning and disentangling from extractive narratives
Presented by Dr Pavel Cenkl and Dr Mona Nasseri, Regenerative Learning Network and Schumacher College.
CONTEXT TO THE SYMPOSIUM
In an era characterized by unprecedented complexity and interconnectedness, the role of design has never been more vital or challenging. Our world is a tapestry of intricacies, where design permeates every facet of our lives, shaping our interactions, environments, and experiences in profound ways. However, design has become deeply tied to the extractive practices of unchecked market capitalism. Whether in urban planning, product, architecture, interiors, service, fashion, user interface design, or even the design of systems and innovation, the decisions that designers make can have profound consequences. Designers must first do no harm.
As design has progressed from a traditional craft to an advanced professional field and an academic discipline, it has consistently encountered barriers and obstacles, only to evolve and adjust in response to the demands and opportunities of the times. Design can either perpetuate existing problems or offer innovative solutions and be a force of change; it can be a catalyst for sustainability, or inadvertently harm the environment; it can be a bridge between cultures and foster inclusivity, or carelessly perpetuate inequality.
The Untangling Design Purpose symposium will delve profoundly into the core essence of design today, all in pursuit of answering fundamental questions. Our overarching goal is to envision new potentials of design for a hypercomplex world, transcending its origins and problematics, and harnessing its capacity to evolve into a potent, pluriversal catalyst for the regeneration and transformation of people and planet.
Keywords: design futures, symbiocene, global citizens, responsibility, critical design, commoning, pluriverse, regeneration, interconnection.
LINKS TO ALL THE PRESENTATIONS IN HEADINGS BELOW:
Questions:
What is design for now?
Who is it for?
Who benefits?
Who loses?
Why do we design?
What is the role of designers in the Anthropocene?
Do we even need designers?
What sacrifice zones does design contribute to?
How might design disentangle from an extractive capitalist system that creates and perpetuates consumerism, environmental degradation and North-South asymmetries?
How might the Earth want us to design?
Key dates:
Abstracts to be submitted by 15th January, 2024
Notification to authors: 15th February, 2024
Symposium date: 17th April, 2024