Material In Transition: Rethinking The Value Of British Wool In Sustainable And Circular Futures,
2026
University of the Arts London, United Kingdom
Material In Transition: Rethinking The Value Of British Wool In Sustainable And Circular Futures, Veronika Kapsali, Nicci James
DRS Biennial Conference Series
British wool (BW), once central to the UK economy, is now economically marginal yet ecologically regenerative, revealing deep tensions between sustainability rhetoric and material practice. This paper reframes BW as a transitional material, whose value, meaning, and use are shifting across ecological, infrastructural, and discursive systems. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 stakeholders across the BW supply chain, combined with policy and industry analysis, the study applies reflexive thematic analysis to examine how value is produced, diminished, and potentially restored. these findings are situated within new materialist and posthuman theory and emerging sustainability regulation (ESPR and Digital Product Passports), the …
People-Centred Public Innovation: A Co-Design Model Between University And State,
2026
Department of Design, Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM), Chile
People-Centred Public Innovation: A Co-Design Model Between University And State, Maria De Los Angeles Ferrer-Mavarez, Erwin Robert Aguirre-Villalobos, Macarena Valenzuela-Zubiaur, Ronald Enrique Mendez-Sanchez, Hector Torres-Bustos
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This article presents a methodological model for innovation in public services centred on a deep understanding of service users’ expectations and needs. The model was developed through a University–State co‑design process involving the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana and Chile’s Government Lab (Laboratorio de Gobierno). An applied research and collaborative design methodology was employed, using a mixed‑methods (qualitative and quantitative) approach. Data were collected through semi‑structured interviews and documentary review, complemented by co‑creation workshops and expert validation sessions. The resulting model enables the identification and closure of gaps between institutional perceptions and the public’s actual needs. Although its application is still at …
Meaning At A Distance: Redefining Aesthetics In The Age Of Intelligent Objects,
2026
Istituto Marangoni, Italy
Meaning At A Distance: Redefining Aesthetics In The Age Of Intelligent Objects, Stefano Caggiano
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how the aesthetics of design is being redefined by the embodiment of intelligent and interactive technologies within the framework of cognitive semiotics. Interpretation—understood as semiosis—is conceived as the fundamental process of meaning-making, through which user and artifact dynamically co-produce sense. Two modes of semiosis are distinguished: motor interpretation, grounded in the embodied incorporation of objects as extensions of the body, and cognitive interpretation, based on inferential and cooperative meaning construction. In traditional design, aesthetics either supports functional embodiment or serves decorative representation. In AI-equipped artifacts, however, function becomes distal, executed at a cognitive distance. Consequently, affordance shifts …
Made To Misfit: Critical Design As A Tool For Pluriversal Thinking In Design Education,
2026
University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Science, Department of Product Development
Made To Misfit: Critical Design As A Tool For Pluriversal Thinking In Design Education, Kaat Kenis, Maud Gruyters, Stine Moons, Kristof Vaes, Leni Van Goidsenhoven
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates how critical design can challenge universalist frameworks in design education and open up space for pluriversal perspectives. We explore the use of provocative probes as a concrete pedagogical method for cultivating pluriversal thinking and critical reflection. Our theoretical reflections are empirically grounded in a one-week workshop in which design students created and deployed provocative probes to surface experiences of those who ‘misfit’ and to initiate public interactions around these lived experiences. The notion of misfitting was used to introduce complexity and reflexivity. Findings show that while students began to delink from solutionist thinking and engage with plural …
Asymmetric Vr Design To Support Connected Care For Older Adults With Amd,
2026
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
Asymmetric Vr Design To Support Connected Care For Older Adults With Amd, Soyoun Jang, Huijia Huang, Bryce E. Hanna, Xinran Wang, Susan Primo, Michael Nitsche
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Immersive technologies can assist older adults with visual impairments, but they require meaningful, context-specific design. In collaboration with an eye care provider, we present Macular Mailbox, an at-home Virtual Reality (VR) system that connects clinicians and family members in supporting older adults with Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The prototype combines Preferred Retinal Locus (PRL) vision training and monitoring (patient–clinician) with playful acts of making and sharing artefacts (patient–family) designed to foster emotional engagement and self-efficacy. Within an asymmetric VR environment, participants hold distinct yet interdependent roles that contribute to a shared outcome: connected care. We conclude by outlining directions for …
Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design,
2026
Syracuse University - School of Design;
Cornell University - Department of Human Centered Design
Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design, Michael C. Kowalski, Jungkyoon Yoon
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While academic research on design for sustainability and design for subjective well-being has grown for decades, application of these perspectives in professional practice remains underdeveloped. Professional designers often struggle to translate these objectives into their work due to conflicting demands, including tight project timelines, cost targets, and manufacturing constraints. Tools and methods developed in academic contexts have faced criticism for failing to consider these practical concerns, resulting in limited professional adoption. Studies indicate professional designers could benefit from concrete case-studies for existing products and systems that clearly demonstrate both processes and outcomes. This paper addresses this need through an artifact-analysis …
Embracing Complexity: Reimagining Design For Health Education,
2026
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Embracing Complexity: Reimagining Design For Health Education, Stephen Reay, Ivana Nakarada-Kordic, Cassie Khoo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design for health (D4H) has emerged as its own context for practice, with a corresponding rise in universities offering courses and activities that implement D4H projects in various ways. For the most part, these tend to expose design students to health-related contexts and problems or facilitate interdisciplinary collaborative opportunities. This paper presents an overview of 10 years of D4H curriculum interventions in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. This culminated in the justification and development of a four-paper D4H minor as a strategic offering within a Bachelor of Design programme. The paper presents the theoretical and practical underpinnings of the D4H minor, …
Embedding Design Capability In Growth-Oriented Smes In China: A Multiple-Case Study,
2026
Central Academy of Fine Arts, China
Embedding Design Capability In Growth-Oriented Smes In China: A Multiple-Case Study, Shiyi Li
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This multi-case study of seven Chinese growth-oriented manufacturing SMEs explores how design capability is integrated and stably embedded within organizational innovation systems. Through analysing the dynamic process of sensing-seizing-reconfiguring and integrating the RPV framework, four stable embedding patterns are identified: Supporting, Rooted, Cognitive, and Instrumental. Findings reveal that embedding patterns are jointly determined by value creation logic, value chain position, resource conditions, and managerial cognition. Design capability embedding is not a linear maturity process but depends on continuous dynamic adaptation and organizational adjustment. Market validation feedback loops linking design investment to business outcomes play a crucial role in sustaining embedding …
Understanding Power At The Doorstep: Examining Interpersonal Power Of Smart Doorbells Through Speculative Design,
2026
TU Delft, The Netherlands
Understanding Power At The Doorstep: Examining Interpersonal Power Of Smart Doorbells Through Speculative Design, Sofie-Amalie Torp Dideriksen, Silke Snijder, Nazli Cila
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While Smart Home Surveillance Products (SHSPs), such as smart doorbell cameras, promise safety and convenience, they also reproduce asymmetrical power relations, privileging residents while exposing neighbours, visitors, and service workers to unconsented monitoring. Existing legal and technical responses focus on compliance and system design, yet overlook the interpersonal and affective dimensions of being watched. This paper presents a design-led inquiry into speculative re-imaginings of smart doorbells, aimed at surfacing and reflecting the hidden power dynamics embedded in everyday domestic interactions. We base this inquiry on an understanding of interpersonal power from the feminist theory of Matrix of Domination, allowing us …
Cut It Out: Reframing Hand Paper-Ripping As A Collage Method For Wellbeing And Care,
2026
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Cut It Out: Reframing Hand Paper-Ripping As A Collage Method For Wellbeing And Care, Danielle Vaughan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Hand-based paper-ripping collage-making (PRCM) promotes wellbeing through circular engagement with re-purposed papers as transitional materials, demonstrating a threephased framework (apprehension, confidence, co-creation) that is potentially transferable to bio-based materials and other substrates. The study introduces paperpeutic, a neologistic term describing the therapeutic value arising from mindful, improvisational engagement with manual ripping in PRCM contexts, drawing inspiration from Japanese Chigiri-e and Western collage traditions. The practice fosters mindfulness, creativity, and community through direct, hands-on engagement, providing an accessible alternative to the abstraction and precision of digital design. Salvaged paper is reframed as an active collaborator in the processes of meaning-making and …
Designing Emotionally Resonant Thermal Interactions For Public Speaking Support,
2026
School of Design, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Designing Emotionally Resonant Thermal Interactions For Public Speaking Support, Guanhua Sun, Wei Wang, Ruixiao Zheng
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores how thermal interaction can support emotional expression and regulation in socially anxious contexts. Using participatory and body-mapping methods, participants recalled and visualized temperature-related experiences of comfort, which were translated into six emotionally resonant thermal patterns. These insights informed the design of TempReso, a sleeve-type wearable that delivers dynamic thermal cues on the forearm. A series of design experiments examined how warmth and coolness evoke affective memories, redirect attention, and foster emotional comfort during public speaking. The study highlights temperature as an expressive and emotional material, revealing how embodied experiences can inform the design of affective haptic interfaces …
Care Through Ambiguity: Findings From Participatory Health Design,
2026
School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Care Through Ambiguity: Findings From Participatory Health Design, Xiran Mi, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Shujie Xie
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how ambiguity can function as a condition for care in participatory health design. Through patient-centred interviews and a participatory workshop, it examines how uncertainty and emergent understanding shape the relational and ethical dimensions of care. The study finds that ambiguity enables participants to remain responsive within unequal structures and to negotiate care through hesitation, metaphor, and embodied expression, highlighting how relational sensitivity operates within asymmetrical power relations. Care is reframed not as a stable act of giving, but as a social process of continual adjustment and mutual dependency. By embracing indeterminacy in design practice, this research shows …
Unmaking Ai’S Classificatory Ontologies: Situated Annotation As Design Inquiry In Human–Ai Assemblages,
2026
Institute of Design (IDe), University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Mendrisio, Switzerland;
School of Design, RMIT Melbourne, Australia
Unmaking Ai’S Classificatory Ontologies: Situated Annotation As Design Inquiry In Human–Ai Assemblages, Antonella Autuori
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design research can unmake AI's classificatory ontologies through situated and embodied annotation practices. Drawing on feminist, queer, and critical data epistemologies, it reframes bias not as a technical flaw but as a generative condition that reveals how knowledge is produced and negotiated within human–AI assemblages. An autotheoretical experiment grounds the inquiry. The researcher creates and annotates a dataset of self-representations using subjective, affective, and relational labels, training a small-scale model to probe classification as an interpretive encounter shaped by embodiment, ambiguity, and positionality. Building on the shift from debiasing toward reflexive data practices in design and …
Navigating Ai In Design Leadership: Insights On Emerging Competencies And Cultural Challenges In China,
2026
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, United Kingdom;
School of Arts, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Navigating Ai In Design Leadership: Insights On Emerging Competencies And Cultural Challenges In China, Xuan Gao, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores current challenges of and competencies in design education through an industry lens, highlighting both the opportunities and obstacles arising from the growing integration of AI. Drawing on the interviews with design leaders, scholars and students, the findings reveal diverse perspectives and challenges related to AI, including four main aspects: (1) AI can serve as an assistive tool in design practice; (2) AI creates new requirements and needs for designer roles and affects job displacement; (3) AI can improve work efficiency and reshape organisational structures; and (4) AI raises ethical issues such as plagiarism. Moreover, two AI-related cultural …
Quilt: Designing A Values-Driven Toolkit For Surfacing Participant-Led Impact Assessment Of Participatory Design And Making Experiences,
2026
Arts University Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Quilt: Designing A Values-Driven Toolkit For Surfacing Participant-Led Impact Assessment Of Participatory Design And Making Experiences, Emma Shercliff, Asha Ward
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Conventional impact assessment tools can overlook subtle sensory, cognitive and interpersonal transformations experienced in participatory design and making interventions by focusing on metrics, often retrospectively, rather than facilitating shared dialogue-based learning. The process of designing the QUILT toolkit discussed in this paper is anchored in a values-based approach that aims to prioritise participant-led narratives of discovery and change. Working with seven researcher-practitioners undertaking active projects in varied interdisciplinary and socially engaged design and making contexts, and their participant groups, we designed and tested questions, presented as a set of cards, for prompting dialogue and co-reflection. Findings highlight a) the significance …
From Passive List To Active Script: Menu Design As A Strategic Agent For Restaurant Sustainability Transformation,
2026
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
From Passive List To Active Script: Menu Design As A Strategic Agent For Restaurant Sustainability Transformation, Huiyi Zhang, Keren Zhang, Yijia Jiang, Kin Wai Michael Siu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Restaurants face the challenge of lacking systematic integration pathways in their sustainability transition (ST), struggling to fully incorporate sustainable principles throughout their operational systems. In this context, menu design demonstrates significant potential as a strategic tool to drive comprehensive ST. This study employs Goffman's dramaturgical theory to conceptualize restaurants as "social theaters," examining how menus function as "scripts" to systematically drive ST. Through analysis of eight representative cases, the research: 1) develops an integrated framework comprising three strategic dimensions, including nine key design intervention tactics that provide concrete implementation pathways for restaurant ST; 2) reveals three agency mechanisms of menus, …
Sticky Vitalities: Developing Play Design Sensitivities Through Material-Affective Practices,
2026
University College Absalon; Denmark
Sticky Vitalities: Developing Play Design Sensitivities Through Material-Affective Practices, Jennifer Ann Skriver, Helle Marie Skovbjerg
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While design for play has shown how materials invite and shape engagement, less attention has been given to how material encounters may hold participation over time. This article examines how participation is sustained through material–affective dynamics in early childhood play. Drawing on Spinoza’s (1985) concept of potentia, Ahmed’s (2004a, 2010a, 2010b) notion of stickiness, and Slaby et al.’s (2019) affective arrangements, the study explores how capacities and orientations unfold in situated encounters. Based on design-based research in Danish daycare, the analysis centers on a vignette in which a child remains in shared play through engagement with tape. The analysis shows …
Reflective Practices For Esg: A Framework For Organisational Learning And Transformation,
2026
Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering - Design and Manufacturing, Aarhus University
Reflective Practices For Esg: A Framework For Organisational Learning And Transformation, Kamila Kunrath, Devarajan Ramanujan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) in organisations is often reduced to metric-driven compliance, overlooking the collective sensemaking required for systemic transformation. Through a longitudinal case study, we traced the evolution of ESG strategy and sensemaking processes across organisational layers. The study highlights (i) the nature of reflection determined by role, (ii) three recurring types of reflection, and (iii) the key transitions that marked the ESG journey in the case company. The results indicate that structured reflection can connect measurement with meaning, transforming ESG into a co-created learning system. These findings inform the Reflective ESG Learning Framework (R-ESG-LF), a learning infrastructure …
Care-Full Co-Production — An Aotearoa Case Study,
2026
Massey University of New Zealand, New Zealand
Care-Full Co-Production — An Aotearoa Case Study, Anjuli Clare, Anna Brown
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Embedding an ‘ethics of care’ into relational and collaborative design research practices benefits from a reflexive and reflective iterative approach. Through this process new ways of elevating multiple forms of knowing are developed, power asymmetries are disrupted, and inclusivity can be expanded. While care may often be included in our mindsets and principles for design research, care itself is often invisible or under talked about. Using the example of our project — Care-full Co-production — a practical perspective on co-producing research is taken. Through a case study of women’s health in Aotearoa New Zealand, this perspective highlights the everyday acts …
From Tool-First To Intention-First Pedagogy: A Framework For Evaluating And Selecting Empathy Tools In Design Education,
2026
MADA, Monash Univeristy, Australia;
IDC, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
From Tool-First To Intention-First Pedagogy: A Framework For Evaluating And Selecting Empathy Tools In Design Education, Akanksha Singh, Ilya Fridman, Purba Joshi, Daphne Flynn
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design education has embraced empathy, developing a diverse repository of tools and methods for cultivating empathic engagement. Yet guidance on how or why these tools should be selected remains limited. Current practices often conflate availability with appropriateness, with tools chosen based on familiarity or convenience rather than empathic fit or contextual suitability. This leads to shallow engagement, limiting the empathic understanding needed for effective design outcomes. This paper proposes a criteria-based framework for evaluating empathy tools, grounded in psychological theory and established empathic design frameworks. The proposed criteria offers a structured lens to assess how tools operate, for whom, and …
