Designing For Radical Renewal: Innovation Outcomes Across Circular And Regenerative Approaches,
2026
Aarhus University, Denmark
Designing For Radical Renewal: Innovation Outcomes Across Circular And Regenerative Approaches, Belinda Nors, Louise Møller Haase, Sara Nielsen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper defines regenerative design in relation to current collaborative, sustainability-oriented innovation. Production and consumption patterns are largely linear, with circular economy efforts largely focused on recycling. Regenerative approaches are emerging but underdeveloped. Literature describes the Regenerative worldview and theoretical framework, and the few papers on methodology and practice highlight a need for greater definition of the field. An actionable design- and innovation methodology for the regenerative field is lacking. We conduct a scoping review and define the Regenerative design approach in relation to the current Circular Oriented Design approaches. We present the characteristics of the Value Preserving and Regenerative …
Designing Algorithmic Infrastructures For Environmental Regeneration: Autonomous Systems In Marine Contexts,
2026
Izmir University of Economics
Designing Algorithmic Infrastructures For Environmental Regeneration: Autonomous Systems In Marine Contexts, Oğul Görgülü, Ahmet Can Özcan, Anders Berglund
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In an era shaped by autonomous systems, designers increasingly confront a central question: how should responsibility and decision-making be distributed when environmental action is partially delegated to algorithms? This article explores how AI infrastructures in marine environmental operations reshape relations between human intention, machine autonomy, and ecological care. Drawing on posthuman design theory, Actor–Network Theory, and explainable AI, the study proposes an Ethics of Autonomy framework that positions design as a mediator between human oversight and algorithmic agency. Using a case-informed analysis of three marine robotic systems—FloatyBoats (coral restoration), Seaswarm (oil spill mitigation), and the autonomous surface vessel Vatoz (marine …
Enhancing Social Connections Through Co-Illustration Workshops Among Solo-Living Young Adults,
2026
School of Arts, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Enhancing Social Connections Through Co-Illustration Workshops Among Solo-Living Young Adults, Jueshuang Wang, Emma Rose, Mirian Calvo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The rising prevalence of social loneliness among solo-living young adults indicates an urgent need for support. However, research addressing this issue, especially in Asia, is limited. This study aims to bridge this gap by introducing co-illustration workshops as a novel method to enhance social connections and wellbeing in this demographic. Employing a participatory action research (PAR) methodology, the study engages participants in five iterative co-design cycles to enhance social connections. The findings suggest that temporary co-illustration workshops serve as a conduit for conversation and facilitate the formation of high-quality weak ties, thereby alleviating social loneliness. This paper provides guidance and …
Motivation And Reflective Processes In Service-Learning Design Projects: Insights From A Visual Communication Design Studio,
2026
Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, Chile
Motivation And Reflective Processes In Service-Learning Design Projects: Insights From A Visual Communication Design Studio, Alejandra Poblete Pérez, Emilio J. Castro-Navarro, Alfredo Mora Briones, Pilar Del Real Westphal, Marcela Cabello Mora
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study examines structured self-reflection as a formative assessment tool within a Visual Communication Design Studio incorporating the service-learning (S-L) methodology, analysing motivational dynamics experienced by twenty undergraduate students. Using Thematic Analysis of 420 weekly responses, the study draws on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to map reflections on strengths, weaknesses, and intentions against needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The analysis revealed a consistent pattern: strengths centred on competence and relatedness, while weaknesses highlighted motivational tensions and emotional blockages regarding self-regulation and project management. The dominant dynamic was the interplay between autonomy and relatedness, with “teamwork” emerging as the most recurrent …
Modes Of Being Amid Anthropocene: Living Through The 2024 Rio Grande Do Sul Floods,
2026
Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - UNISINOS, Brazil
Modes Of Being Amid Anthropocene: Living Through The 2024 Rio Grande Do Sul Floods, Natalia Dai Prá Penteado, Guilherme Meyer
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper situates the 2024 Rio Grande do Sul climate disaster within the intertwined crises of the Anthropocene, arguing that those impacted developed situated practices to preserve identities and sustain life amidst collapse. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirteen individuals directly affected by the floods, the research identifies Modes of Being that illuminate strategies of adaptation, care, and continuity rooted in Latin American ontologies. Through the interpretive lenses of Anna Tsing’s concepts of ghosts, monsters, and ruins, these modes reveal how to endure life in the Anthropocene and reconfigure identities and relations to persist. The study proposes a framework of …
Exploring How Llms Shape Collaborative Decision-Making In Service Design,
2026
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Exploring How Llms Shape Collaborative Decision-Making In Service Design, Yaoqi Li, Hyunyim Park
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The increasing integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) into design workflows is reshaping how designers make decisions. This study examines the influence of LLMs on design decision-making during the early stages of service design, through a diary study with service design practitioners. By analysing usage logs and conducting post-intervention focus group interviews, we examine collaborative decision-making across three interaction dimensions: designer–designer, designer–LLM, and LLM–LLM. The findings reveal that LLMs reshape the internal decision logic and collaboration mode within service design teams. Across different stages of collaborative decision-making with human, LLMs take on varying roles as apprentice, collaborator, advisor, expert, co-creator, …
Bias Reconsidered: Ecologically Rational Heuristics In Design Cognition,
2026
Purdue University, United States of America
Bias Reconsidered: Ecologically Rational Heuristics In Design Cognition, Paul Parsons, Srishti Agrawal, Phuong Bui, Prakash Shukla, Ali Baigelenov
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design cognition is often described through a heuristics-and-biases lens that foregrounds systematic errors such as anchoring, fixation, and premature narrowing. Yet in professional practice, the same patterns may function as adaptive strategies for coping with ambiguity, constraint, and ill-defined problems. This paper examines how bias-like tendencies appear in expert data visualization work using a multi-phase qualitative study with 11 professional designers. We analyze situated episodes through two contrastive interpretive lenses: a bias lens that highlights potential distortions, and an adaptive-expertise lens that treats the same tendencies as resource-rational strategies. We situate these interpretations within a broader design cognition perspective, drawing …
More Than Weeds: Thickening Designer-Plant Relations In The Sonoran Desert,
2026
Arizona State University, United States of America
More Than Weeds: Thickening Designer-Plant Relations In The Sonoran Desert, Andrew James Whitcomb, Marysol Ortega Pallanez
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Affective relations among humans and more-than-humans are full of shifts, subtleties, and complexities. Yet, design research often treats feelings as stable instruments to utilize for making sustainable climate futures. Through reflection-on-practice, we untangle impressions and gestures in the field during a design research project in the Sonoran Desert titled Gifts for Tempe. Our reflections focus on shifts in our attention and attachments with an ‘invasive’ plant commonly known as Stinknet. The impressions and gestures reveal designer-researchers’ thick tensions in designing for climate futures. By showing how affective relations with more-than-humans change over time, we identify that climate futuring involves learning …
Fostering Emergence In Behavioral Public Policy: A Systemic Behavioral Design Framework,
2026
Institute of Design, Illinois Tech, United States of America
Fostering Emergence In Behavioral Public Policy: A Systemic Behavioral Design Framework, Ruth Schmidt
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Behavioral public policy design tends to take a top-down, evidence-based approach to prompting behavioral change through mechanisms like ‘nudges.’ Yet behavioral responses to evolving conditions in complex systems—such as the recent No Kings rallies and anti-ICE activities in the US—often manifest as emergent, self-organizing movements, representing a powerful ‘bottom-up’ form of behavioral change that provides an alternative to traditional behavioral policy. This paper proposes a behavioral systems framework to explore the dynamic of behavioral emergence in a systemic context, composed of two matrixed dimensions: 1) micro, meso, and macro system levels; and 2) mechanisms that support behavior, ranging from targeted …
Learnings From Peruvian Gastronomy For The Transculturalization Of Design Practices,
2026
Socionatural, Peru
Learnings From Peruvian Gastronomy For The Transculturalization Of Design Practices, Laura Salcedo Miranda, Juan Montalván Lume
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In recent decades, Peruvian gastronomy has experienced a higher exposure and production of culinary creations manifesting practices of transcultural mixture entangling diverse cultural influences. Nevertheless, there still remains a need for studies that discuss such cultural amalgamations, which could also inform strategies for transculturalization in other culturally sensitive practices like design. This paper analyses multiple variations of well-known Peruvian dishes to understand the historical and contemporary processes of cultural mixture that have fostered the current landscape. For this, a conceptual framework that draws from Latin American Transcultural Design Studies and Gastronomic Theory is proposed to enable transdisciplinary learnings entangling both …
Beyond Situated Ethics: Towards A Practice-Based Understanding Of How Designers Do Ethics,
2026
The Open University, United Kingdom
Beyond Situated Ethics: Towards A Practice-Based Understanding Of How Designers Do Ethics, Samantha Osys
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As discussions about AI and its societal impacts grow, questions about how to practise design responsibly and ethically have become more prominent. This paper examines how designers do ethics in practice, focusing on the relationship between universal frameworks and situated, lived experiences. Conversations with design practitioners reveal that while universal ethical frameworks provide consistency, they often overlook the everyday negotiations designers face in the workplace. Practitioners report that current governance systems, influenced by external regulations, are overly ‘top-down’ and narrowly focused on specific technologies. This approach leaves designers to identify and fill ethical gaps themselves, often through subtle, even covert, …
Mechanical Jewellery As Epimethean Practice: Staying With The Trouble Of Human–Machine Entanglement,
2026
School of Design, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Mechanical Jewellery As Epimethean Practice: Staying With The Trouble Of Human–Machine Entanglement, Zhiyang Ding, Guang Dai, Beverley Hood, Sarah Kettley
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how mechanical jewellery can serve as an Epimethean design practice that rethinks human–machine relationships through care, hesitation, and affective engagement. Drawing from post-anthropocentric design discourse and new materialist theory, the research investigates how low-tech, playful, and speculative prototypes can undo conventional narratives of technological progress. Through a practice-based workshop conducted at Fringe Arts Bath 2025, the study examines how wearable artefacts exhibiting unpredictable motion provoke emotional response and relational awareness in participants. The findings suggest that mechanical jewellery can operate as a modest yet generative medium for staying with the trouble of human–machine entanglement, foregrounding absurd materiality, …
Towards More-Than-Human Inclusion: Designing Artefacts That Cultivate Attentiveness For Engaging With More-Than-Human Worlds,
2026
University College London, United Kingdom
Towards More-Than-Human Inclusion: Designing Artefacts That Cultivate Attentiveness For Engaging With More-Than-Human Worlds, Jorge Luis Siesquén Deza
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This research explores how Inclusive design can be expanded to recognise nonhuman stakeholders by engaging perspectives from the More-than-Human turn. Using Research-through-Design, the study combines literature, semi-structured interviews, and case studies to identify barriers to designers’ responsible engagement with nonhuman entities. The findings reveal that while designers are open to widening inclusion, current practices remain centred on human empathy, usability, and evidence, leaving nonhuman concerns unaccounted for. Instead of expanding the repertoire of prescriptive tools, what is needed is the cultivation of attentiveness and care that enables designers to engage meaningfully with nonhuman agencies. This research offers two contributions: (1) …
Bridging Macro Sustainability And Everyday Life: Developing A Meso–Micro Indicator Framework For Sustainable Design In Historic Districts, The Case Of Laomendong, Nanjing,
2026
School of design, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214100, China
Bridging Macro Sustainability And Everyday Life: Developing A Meso–Micro Indicator Framework For Sustainable Design In Historic Districts, The Case Of Laomendong, Nanjing, Chen Liu, Yuwei Wu, Weimin Guo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper develops a multi-scalar indicator framework that bridges macro sustainability goals with the realities of historic district regeneration, focusing on the Laomendong Historic District in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. The study translates top-down policies into meso to micro level design indicators that capture the spatial, social, and cultural dimensions of sustainability. Using a mixed-methodology approach, it combines policy content analysis to identify macro-narratives with grounded theory-based social media analysis to reveal bottom-up perceptions and everyday experiences. The resulting framework demonstrates how sustainable design can move beyond macroeconomic and environmental metrics, embracing a broader range of considerations. Findings suggest that while …
Youth As Cultural Agents: Facilitating Cultural And Civic Engagement Through Game Design,
2026
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands
Youth As Cultural Agents: Facilitating Cultural And Civic Engagement Through Game Design, Carlo De Gaetano, Maarten Groen, Sabine Niederer, Susannah Montgomery
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper analyzes four Cultural Game Jams (CGJs) in the Netherlands, conducted within EPIC-WE, a European project exploring how game-making can become a tool for both cultural reflection and dialogue between youth and cultural, educational and creative stakeholders. The jams connected cultural heritage organisations, creative industries, higher education, and young people (15–25) in a Quadruple Helix framework. Across two years, youths designed games that addressed societal issues, cultural heritage, and European values, while their roles evolved from participants to members of a Youth Advisory Board acting as co-designers, research contributors, and co-facilitators. Through cross-case analysis of jam formats, game outcomes, …
Interdependencies Of Art History And Design History Curriculum In Indian Undergraduate Education,
2026
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Interdependencies Of Art History And Design History Curriculum In Indian Undergraduate Education, Srutinwita Roy, Saurabh Tewari
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This research investigates the interdependencies between the subject of Art History and Design History within undergraduate programs across five prominent institutions in India. The study draws upon the experiences, perspectives, and reflections of both teachers and students and through interviews, curriculum mapping, and classroom observations, explores how these two disciplines influence, overlap, and inform each other in both content and pedagogy. The findings reveal that these subjects are deeply interconnected, with each contributing significantly to the understanding and evolution of the other. The research also highlights institutional variations among curriculum development. It is observed that the absence of a defined …
Revisiting Kansei Engineering Through Japanese Scholarship: Toward Field Kansei Engineering,
2026
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Revisiting Kansei Engineering Through Japanese Scholarship: Toward Field Kansei Engineering, Liang Dong, Hong Zhang, Chun-Hsien Chen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Japan, as the birthplace of Kansei Engineering (KE), has played a pivotal role in shaping this field, building a solid research foundation and accumulating extensive scholarly experience. A substantial body of valuable Japanese-language studies has been published in academic conferences and journals in Japan. However, current English-language review articles in KE rarely include these Japanese works. To address this gap, this study provides a preliminary attempt to compile and analyse Japanese publications that propose new concepts, theories, models, and frameworks within KE. The review highlights distinctive perspectives developed by Japanese scholars, revealing contextual and situational sensitivity, collective and social understanding, …
Inclusive Co-Learning In Transnational Design Classrooms: Bridging Linguistic And Cultural Gaps Between Chinese Students And British Curricula,
2026
Beijing Jiaotong University, CN
Inclusive Co-Learning In Transnational Design Classrooms: Bridging Linguistic And Cultural Gaps Between Chinese Students And British Curricula, Linli Zhang, Jinze Hao, Yaqi Wang, Liang Xiao
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores inclusive co-learning strategies in transnational design education, focusing on Chinese students enrolled in a joint program jointly delivered by Beijing Jiaotong University and Lancaster University within China. These students complete their entire undergraduate studies domestically, without the opportunity to immerse themselves in an English-speaking or multicultural environment. As a result, they often rely on translation tools to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers when engaging with British pedagogy. Drawing on classroom observations, student interviews, and reflective teaching practices, the study proposes an Inclusive Co-Learning Framework that integrates linguistic scaffolding and cultural mediation to foster language development, cultural understanding, …
Design Research Laboratories: A Historical Review,
2026
Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU)
Design Research Laboratories: A Historical Review, Lynn Harles
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In recent decades, Design Research Labs have proliferated across design educational institutions worldwide, emerging as dynamic spaces that challenge traditional pedagogical models. However, understanding this contemporary phenomenon requires contextualizing it within the historical origins of the laboratory metaphor in design—a concept repeatedly reimagined over nearly a century. Building upon Hasenhütl's (2018, 2023) identification of two historical generations from the early to mid-20th century, this research extends the genealogy to encompass contemporary developments, with particular attention to socio-ecological themes. The analysis reveals four distinct generations of Design Research Labs that do not follow strictly linear chronological progression but represent "expanding parameters" …
Relational Embodiment: Rethinking Artifacts As Mediators Of Being-With-Others,
2026
School of Industrial Design, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
Relational Embodiment: Rethinking Artifacts As Mediators Of Being-With-Others, Yufei Zeng, Junjie Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Grounded in theories of embodied cognition, extended mind, and mediating artifact, this paper proposes a human–artifact–human perspective to explore the relational mediation of artifacts in social interaction. Through a systematic review of 30 key studies published between 2010 and 2025, a four-dimensional analytical framework is constructed—embodied cues, interaction modes, mediating artifact features, and affective outcomes—to reveal how embodied design generates relations among the body, artifacts, and society. The analysis shows that embodied interaction is shifting from functional control toward relational generation, presenting four tendencies: micro-intimacy, ambient co-presence, culturally embedded bodily rituals, and slow relational rhythms. Building on these insights, the …
