Becoming Designers: Studio Instructors As Catalysts Of Designerly Identity Formation,
2026
Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Türkiye
Becoming Designers: Studio Instructors As Catalysts Of Designerly Identity Formation, Beril Gök
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Embodiment, affect, and symbolic modelling remain underexplored dimensions of designerly identity formation, despite its recognition as a central outcome of design education. While existing research emphasizes cognitive-skill acquisition, little is known about how studio instructors shape identity through aesthetic, relational, and performative means. This study examines the influence of instructors within the socio-aesthetic ecology of the design studio. Using abductive thematic analysis of focus group interviews with teaching assistants across architecture, industrial design, interior design, and fashion design, the study highlights shared cross-disciplinary patterns across international contexts. Findings reveal that instructors shape designerly becoming not only through teaching but also …
Participatory Place-Shaping Through Collaborative Counterstorying,
2026
Elon University, United States of America
Participatory Place-Shaping Through Collaborative Counterstorying, Danielle Lake, Sandy Marshall, Berenice Sanchez-Rosaldo, James Shields Jr.
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how the Power+Place Collaborative — a participatory placeshaping design partnership — reflects, reinforces, and resists the dominant educational, political, and social systems it seeks to transform. Since 2018, the Collaborative has been working with historically and systematically marginalized communities to critically examine the power-laden place-design processes of a diverse, semi-urban county in the Southern United States. Through oral history interviews, digital and place-based storytelling, and community gatherings, the Collaborative aims to construct a more inclusive narrative of our county and cultivate opportunities for systemic transformation. Reflecting the call to consider the ethics of participation in systemic design, …
Cultivating Careful Design Responses To Homelessness Through Practice, Theory And Education,
2026
University of Twente, Netherlands, The
Cultivating Careful Design Responses To Homelessness Through Practice, Theory And Education, Jodi Sturge, Charlotte Persijn, Lynn Wens, Noor Fleerackers, Dotte Van Den Elshout, Stephanie C.J. Kohnle, Timon J.H. De Groot
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Homelessness is a public health problem worldwide. System-wide failures often hinder solutions to this complex issue. In design and architecture education, the issue of homelessness is rarely brought into the curriculum. This paper describes how practice and theory related to homelessness can be applied to design education. First, a practice-based workshop was developed to enhance student reflexivity through exploring biases toward homelessness and applying trauma-informed theory to redesign products, services, and systems for homeless populations. Secondly, two case studies applied the theory deductively and critically reflected upon trauma-informed principles to housing and homeless design projects in hindsight and foresight. Our …
Reimagining Materiality: Responsible And Experiential Vr Design For Fashion E-Commerce In India,
2026
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, United Kingdom
Reimagining Materiality: Responsible And Experiential Vr Design For Fashion E-Commerce In India, Prajwala Dasari, Min-Ji Seo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This research explores how fashion brands can replicate touch and garment materiality through digital design strategies to engage Gen Z shoppers in India, addressing the sensory absence in e-commerce. Using an interpretivist, qualitative, multi-method approach involving eight semi-structured interviews and five participant observations, the study investigates how Virtual Reality (VR) can enhance emotional engagement and responsible consumption in fashion retail. Guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), findings show that gamification, interactivity, and personalisation—combined with transparency and brand trust—drive consumer acceptance. The study highlights the importance of inclusive and …
We Found Planet B. What Does This Mean For Design?,
2026
Independent Researcher, Barcelona, Spain
We Found Planet B. What Does This Mean For Design?, Candela Guyot, Victoria Rodriguez Schon
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Planet B emerges as a practice-based-fiction responding ironically to the slogan “There is no Planet B.” The project speculates on the discovery of an alternate planet and the task of replicating Planet A under the principle “if it looks the same, it is the same.” Through absurd protocols for selecting the perfect rock, flower, and stick, the experience enacted a satire of technoscientific control. Developed within the School of Materialist Research’s exploration of Nature and Artifice, it asks: what sensory, political, and aesthetic implications would the discovery of a Planet B bring to the design practice? Children spontaneously took over …
Exploring Designing For Dignity In The Context Of Digital Community Platforms,
2026
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology
Exploring Designing For Dignity In The Context Of Digital Community Platforms, Fatima-Zahra Abou Eddahab-Burke, Katharina Bauer
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Digital community platforms have transformed civic participation, enhancing social belonging and shared responsibility. Yet, they intensify the digital divide between people. This can be a risk to their fundamental human value of dignity. This paper explores designing for dignity within digital community platforms through a qualitative study conducted in South Holland, The Netherlands. Twenty citizens participated in semi-structured interviews to investigate their understanding, experiences, frustrations and expectations of dignity in digital interactions. The study confirmed dignity’s multifaceted nature (14 distinct definitions), varied expectations of respectful treatment, and common challenges in using government digital services. Only 30% of participants felt these …
Reframing Design Through Events: Generative Events As Ontological Units In Object-Oriented Design Ontology,
2026
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Reframing Design Through Events: Generative Events As Ontological Units In Object-Oriented Design Ontology, Fengjin Yu, Qiaozhi Zhao
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study confronts the theoretical challenges arising from the increasing practical overlap of Participatory Design (PD) and Co-Design. Existing research, largely confined to method comparisons, lacks an ontological perspective capable of explaining its underlying integrative mechanisms. To address this critical gap, this paper argues for a fundamental ontological shift. We introduce the concept of 'generative events' as the basic ontological unit of design, a concept constructed by synthesising Object-Oriented Design Ontology (OODO) with Process Ontology. This framework reframes design as a dynamic generative process where humans and non-human objects collaboratively construct relationships and meaning within specific contexts. The contribution of …
From Commodity To Commons: Creating Local Eco-Systems For The Design Of Sustainable Nhs Garments In Scotland,
2026
University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
From Commodity To Commons: Creating Local Eco-Systems For The Design Of Sustainable Nhs Garments In Scotland, Lewis Urquhart, Paul Rodgers, Niki Taylor, Euan Winton, Lucy Welsh, Sophia Murden
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates the transformation of NHS Scotland garment systems through a design-led, commons-based localist framework that challenges prevailing globalised procurement models. Drawing on co-design methodologies and sustainable material innovation, this project repositions garments - specifically surgical caps and scrubs - as relational artefacts embedded within systems of care, identity, and ecological responsibility. Collaborations with healthcare professionals, designers, and regional manufacturers have yielded prototypes utilising regenerative fibres such as lyocell and linen, made locally within Scotland. These interventions demonstrate the potential of commons-design to foster civic engagement, decentralised production, and circular economies. By embedding garment systems within local ecologies and …
Minamata’S Ecological Encounters Codesheet: Designing Remembrance Lenses Through More-Than-Human And Media Archaeology,
2026
Keio University
Minamata’S Ecological Encounters Codesheet: Designing Remembrance Lenses Through More-Than-Human And Media Archaeology, Lucas Ogasawara De Oliveira, Kouta Minamizawa
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Consumer media devices routinely expose humans and environments to sensing and data capture while obscuring their own operations, supply chains, and ecological impacts. This paper asks how such devices might instead support planetary awareness with care and transparency. Working with Minamata, Japan, as a paradigmatic case, we combine more-than-human design, media archaeology, and research-through-design evidence-based fieldwork to develop the Ecological Encounters Codesheet (EEC): a granular method for coding encounters across temporal strata, containment forms, risk regimes, opacity sources, and care practices. Applying the EEC to Minamata’s infrastructures, memorials, archives, and tourist ecologies, we derive a set of Remembrance Lenses that …
Democratizing The Newsroom: A Participatory Design Approach To Empower Citizen-Participatory Journalism And Civic Knowledge,
2026
Department of Design, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Republic of Korea
Democratizing The Newsroom: A Participatory Design Approach To Empower Citizen-Participatory Journalism And Civic Knowledge, Sangyun Lee, Kyungho Lee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Local news sustains democratic life by connecting citizens to community issues and fostering public deliberation. Yet the global phenomenon of Local News Desertification—the decline of trustworthy local media—has weakened civic discourse, civic knowledge, and collective belonging in local areas. Citizen-participatory journalism enables citizens to report and interpret local issues; however, conventional newsroom hierarchies and insufficient support for community participants without formal journalistic training hinder its democratic potential. This study frames that tension as a Participatory Design (PD) problem concerning power and imbalanced agency in sociotechnical news systems. Through a PD process, the study develops a citizen–AI participatory journalism model that …
Human-Centred Digital Twin Design For Elderly Care: Addressing Comorbidity And Wellbeing,
2026
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China;Lancaster University, United Kingdom
Human-Centred Digital Twin Design For Elderly Care: Addressing Comorbidity And Wellbeing, Nan Sheng, Emmanuel Tskeleves, Paul Cureton, Qi Chen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
China's rapidly ageing urban population faces complex mental health challenges, particularly with comorbid conditions. Current elderly care is nonpersonalised and unresponsive to support holistic wellbeing. To address the challenges of inclusive, responsive, and adaptable senior care, this study suggests a human-centred digital twin framework that incorporates service ecosystem design. This study employs a human-centred digital twin design methodology based on service ecosystem theory, focusing on how digital twins can mediate between users’ lived experiences and service innovation. The findings from the literature review and design practice indicate that digital twin technology has potential foster older adults’ life experience, social inclusion, …
Redefining Design Practice As A Sensory And Decentred Experience,
2026
Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia
Redefining Design Practice As A Sensory And Decentred Experience, Azeem Hamid, Umar Hameed, Kristi Kuusk, Nithikul Nimkulrat
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how sensory focused practice can decentre the role of the design educator-researcher within design education, reframing learning as a relational and embodied form of practice-led design research. Drawing on a sensory workshop with foundation-year design students in Lahore, Pakistan, it explores how listening, movement, and tactile engagement foster reflective awareness and co-creation. Informed by theories of embodied cognition and relational pedagogy, the study considers how agency in learning environments extends beyond the educator to include materials, atmospheres, and collective experiences. Sensory practice is presented not as an adjunct to design but as integral to it, cultivating attentiveness, …
Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad,
2026
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad, Soyoun Jang, Jay David David Bolter
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper introduces and applies Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad model, grounded in critical media studies, as an interpretative framework for analysing corporate concept videos as design fictions. Through a close reading of seven videos, we identify three recurring themes: present as future, the rhetoric of the new and socio-economic utopia. In parallel, the two diagonals of the Tetrad reveal contrasting orientations: the enhances-obsolesces diagonal reflects a corporate anticipatory (non-radical) future, whereas the retrieves-reverses diagonal is more critical and disruptive. We discuss figure-ground reversal as a key strategy for historicising corporate concept videos and suggest how the Tetrad can foster historical reflexivity …
Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries,
2026
DePaul University, Chicago, IL, United States
Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries, Jess Parris Westbrook, Coraline Ada Ehmke
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Queer(ing) is a practice of questioning, unsettling, and liberating that resists normative ways of knowing. This paper advances a Queer(ing) epistemology for intersectional data science and offers TMI (Too Much Information)-WEB as a working case. This open source, theory-driven qualitative data analysis ecosystem treats identity, lived experience, and power as relational, contextual, and co-constructed. Built on a human-centered graph data model, it reimagines databases as dynamic knowledge systems rather than neutral containers. Authentic, identity-driven personas emerge from participants’ own narratives, while affective queries invite researchers to explore (and experience) patterns of harm, coping, joy, and self-acceptance across intersectional lives and …
Investigating The Embodied Aesthetics Of Kinetic Structures At Biennales And World Expos,
2026
Middle East Technical University, Türkiye;
Karabuk University, Türkiye
Investigating The Embodied Aesthetics Of Kinetic Structures At Biennales And World Expos, Hatice Hilal Topuz, Güzin Şen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In biennales and world expos, where creative ideas, cultural values, and technological developments in art and architecture are exhibited, kinetic systems are increasingly used in installations and pavilions. This paper frames kinetic structures in relation to embodied aesthetics and investigates how such kinetic structures go beyond mere display to offer visitors a holistic aesthetic experience. It introduces a selection of kinetic structures presented in diverse biennales and expos by utilizing publications, commentaries, and curatorial statements; deconstructs and analyzes their designs regarding types of movement, body-space-time relations, participation modes, embodied metaphors, and conceptual narratives. Thus, the paper shows how kinetic structures …
Images Of Humans In Public Sector Design,
2026
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Images Of Humans In Public Sector Design, Mieke Van Der Bijl-Brouwer, Jennie Winhall
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Human-centred design is an essential element of the application of design in public and social sectors. What has remained largely unexpressed in the field is the way in which design is influenced by how we see humans, and how that is informed by our worldviews and dominant paradigms. In this conceptual paper, we investigate five common views on humans – user, worker, fallible individual, consumer, and whole and social being - based on four dimensions. The dimensions include 1) depth, 2) personal focus, 3) social focus, and 4) level of agency. Based on a case study of youth unemployment, we …
Resilient Design Pedagogies: Examining Sustainability's Translation Into Contemporary Design Education,
2026
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Resilient Design Pedagogies: Examining Sustainability's Translation Into Contemporary Design Education, Flavia Alice Mameli
DRS Biennial Conference Series
What is the status quo of contemporary design education in the context of sustainability as a holistic and timely training, a binding professional ethos, and materialised everyday practice for future designers? This research investigates how contemporary tertiary design education is responding to polycrisis discourse and the multilaterally demanded paradigm shift towards sustainability. This includes a critical reflection on the political dimension of the term itself. A mixed-methods approach, combining systematic programme mapping, discourse analytical case studies of tertiary design education, and interviews with educators, investigates the translation of sustainability rhetoric into pedagogical practice across design and architecture education worldwide. A …
The Ecology Of Effort: Aesthetics Of Resistance In The Age Of Frictionless Design,
2026
Istituto Marangoni, Italy
The Ecology Of Effort: Aesthetics Of Resistance In The Age Of Frictionless Design, Stefano Caggiano
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design can restore cognitive and sensory depth within a culture shaped by frictionless digitality. The dominance of frictionless design—defined by speed, ease, and seamlessness—has optimized usability but diminished the experiential conditions that make meaning possible. Meaning emerges through resistance: the effort, uncertainty, and interpretive engagement that activate attention and reward. Drawing on embodied cognition and semiotic theory, the paper argues that cognitive effort and sensory resistance are essential to perception and value. Physical and spatial artefacts, through material texture, spatial articulation, and perceptual complexity, can reintroduce friction into everyday experience, inviting interpretive participation rather than passive …
Research Through Game Design,
2026
School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University, UK;
fractals co-op, UK
Research Through Game Design, Oliver Bates, Ben Kirman, Marcia Tavares Smith, David Philip Green
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Games are common artefacts and systems for design research, appearing as engagement tools with publics or specific audiences, expressions of ideas, and as tools for speculation. Games have proven value as instruments or outputs supporting this work, but the process of designing games is rarely centered as a moment of production of new knowledge and understanding. Taking inspiration from Research through Design more broadly, we position Research through Game Design as an approach that delineates space to challenge systems, break from norms, provoke, critique, explore, experiment, critically design, and reflect on the frictions and boundaries of ideas, artefacts, and systems. …
Cultureaction! An Interaction And Experience Design Project To Explore San Marino’S Historic Center As A Living Archive.,
2026
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Italy
Cultureaction! An Interaction And Experience Design Project To Explore San Marino’S Historic Center As A Living Archive., Silvia Gasparotto
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This research explores how design-driven approaches can boost engagement with cultural heritage and archives, centering on an experimental initiative in San Marino's historic center. The project envisions the city as a dynamic archive brought to life through interactive installations. A system featuring an interactive device called Iride and six site-specific installations was created to reveal the hidden historical and meaningful layers within the urban landscape. These installations use multisensory components to craft experiences that enhance visitors' cognitive and emotional connections with local cultural stories. This method illustrates how design and digital technology can connect tangible and intangible heritage, institutional archives …
