Bringing Characters To Vitality: Enhancing Credibility Of Original Characters In Narrative Works By Making The Oc A Generative Ai Agent,
2026
School of New Media Art and Design, Beihang University
Bringing Characters To Vitality: Enhancing Credibility Of Original Characters In Narrative Works By Making The Oc A Generative Ai Agent, Xiaozhan Liang, Ling Zou, Yong Hu, Siyu Luo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study examines how generative AI can transform original characters (OCs) into interactive agents that improve character believability in design contexts. We propose a human–AI co-creation workflow that integrates dialogue, image, and context modalities, stabilizing style and behavior through structured prompts and expert feedback. In a mixed-method evaluation with five expert creators and a general audience, the approach increased perceived realism and emotional authenticity, while psychological complexity changed little—indicating the need for longer-horizon design. Dialogue contributed most to credibility, with context reinforcing coherence and images showing limited gains. We distill design principles for cross-modal alignment, style stability, and progressive complexity, …
The Spectral Right To The City: Cartographies Of Care Through Ethnographic Projection,
2026
Technion, Israel
The Spectral Right To The City: Cartographies Of Care Through Ethnographic Projection, Roni Mero, Jonathan Ventura, Eliyahu Keller
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The smart city paradigm operates on data representation, meaning that communities not included in official datasets are not represented and therefore do not exist politically. This condition of systemic exclusion demands an ethical design intervention, mixing cartography, visual communication and graphic design. Our paper presents a dual methodological approach that constitutes a cartography of care. This methodological framework visualises undocumented functional dynamics, providing a data-driven basis for urban planning that reflects the actual, lived usage of the city. First, we introduce ethnographic projection, a participatory design methodology that creates protected representation within existing GIS systems. Second, we present chorematic visualisation, …
Where Regenerative Design Theory Meets Ground: A Case Study Of Xreef On Weizhou Island,
2026
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Where Regenerative Design Theory Meets Ground: A Case Study Of Xreef On Weizhou Island, Chengjun Li, Valentina Rognoli, Fuqing Xu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As the Anthropocene increasingly undermines natural systems, there is an urgent need for design to move beyond harm reduction toward active ecological restoration. Regenerative Design (RD) has emerged as a promising paradigm to complement sustainable design; however, fragmented knowledge and inconsistent terminology hinder designers’ systematic understanding. To bridge the gap between theory and practice, this study first reviews the philosophical stances and key approaches of RD, then examines its implementation in a coral reef restoration project on Weizhou Island. Reflection on the project revealed three major challenges: limited capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration, insufficient tools for stakeholder engagement, and inadequate dynamic …
Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare,
2026
Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom
Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare, Anne Schiffer, Anthony P. Cooper
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Recent years have seen an acceleration in efforts to secure global supply chains of ‘critical minerals’ for defence, digital technologies, energy and transport. However, this rapidly evolving geopolitical context also impacts other sectors including healthcare which rely on some of the same resources. In orthopaedics, metals including titanium and medical grade stainless steel are used for implants. Supply chain disruption and rising costs therefore pose risks to product performance in the body, affordability and quality of patient care. Firstly, this paper shares findings from a content analysis of grey literature by leading orthopaedic manufactures. Secondly, it presents an illustrative re-use …
Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels,
2026
Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels, Amy Hyewon Lee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design is conceptualised within design and policy literature in public-sector contexts, contributing to the expanding discourse on design for policy. Despite the growing adoption of design approaches in governance, robust evidence of their contribution remains limited. Using a qualitative meta-synthesis of 24 publications spanning design studies, policy design, and public administration, the study identifies four interrelated logics through which design is conceptualised in policymaking: systems learning and reflexivity; legitimacy and relational effectiveness; structuring and coherence; and adaptation and delivery. These logics are reframed as epistemic, relational, systemic, and operational dimensions of contributive capacity that describe how …
Design Education Leadership As Constellation Practice: Moving Beyond The Heroic Leader,
2026
Heriot-Watt University Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Design Education Leadership As Constellation Practice: Moving Beyond The Heroic Leader, Louise Valentine, Joanna Bletcher
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design education is increasingly engaging with global challenges that extend beyond its traditional scope. This study adopts a constellation perspective to explore leadership as a pluralistic, relational, and interpretive practice suited to navigating complexity. A selective literature review spanning 25 years across design education, leadership, management, and research reveals six key provocations: systemic disruption, institutional constraints, commercial pressures, universalising narratives, dominant Western paradigms, and limited critical engagement. These highlight tensions that shape contemporary leadership discourse. The findings invite reflection on leadership as a capacity-building process, one that encourages abductive reasoning, material inquiry, evidentiary thinking, financial awareness, and ethical reflection through …
Mapping The Identity Design Process For Ai Co-Creativity: Interviews With 20 Graphic Designers,
2026
Abadir Academy, Catania, IT
Mapping The Identity Design Process For Ai Co-Creativity: Interviews With 20 Graphic Designers, Melani De Luca, Sebastian Berns
DRS Biennial Conference Series
With the increasing insertion of AI tools in creative work in recent years, concerns about misinterpreting creativity and rendering designers obsolete are growing. Moreover, progress in AI predominantly comes from computer science, often resulting in misconceptions about graphic design. In particular, when it comes to highly specialized practices like identity design, the use of AI often remains too generic and fails to reflect the diversity employed by designers in their practice, propagating the homogenization of trends in graphical artefacts. This paper aims to bridge the discourse and methodological gap between computer science and graphic design by presenting a detailed exploration …
Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation,
2026
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation, Hoi Wah Chan, Christopher J. Parker, Darren J. Southee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
To innovate stakeholder value, designers, business strategists, and marketers rely on shared understanding to co-create value. While co-creation is established in strategic design, practitioners use related terms interchangeably, including co-creation and Mass Customisation (MC). While conflicting terminology enables stakeholder participation, resources and knowledge are fragmented, obstructing a unified practice and limiting shared understanding of value creation. This paper clarifies co-creation and MC terms, explains why practitioners interchange terminology, and examines how stakeholder value and disciplinary perspectives shape their usage. We analysed 828 academic papers across the design, business, and innovation disciplines, focusing on commonly confused lexicons. We reveal that designers, …
Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection,
2026
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection, Jenny Long, Caroline Gausden, Tara Capel, Uta Hinrichs
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how slow design and care can inform reflective data physicalization practices. Physicalization has been recognized to widen participation in data exploration, but how can it serve communities with varied relationships to power, access, and exclusion? We explored this question through a case study that aimed at supporting a long-term community project through physicalization activities. We found that language around data and representation created barriers to participation, even when demonstrated through established physicalization activities. Centering design processes around participants’ reservations we arrived at Build & Connect, a constructive, participatory physicalization activity and toolkit which, based on the analogy …
Mediating Material Transitions. A Digital Library For Circular Upholstery Material Selection.,
2026
University of Bologna, Italy
Mediating Material Transitions. A Digital Library For Circular Upholstery Material Selection., Ludovica Rosato, Patrizia Bolzan, Laura Succini, Michele Zannoni
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In Made in Italy products, the material dimension represents a distinctive element, capable of expressing both the quality of the product and the heritage of craftsmanship embedded in the territory. In the upholstered furniture sector materials generate significant environmental and supply-chain impacts, making their selection a strategic leverage point for sustainability and circularity. This study investigates how a digital material library can support designers and SMEs in navigating this transition by integrating sustainable innovation with industrial feasibility. Grounded in the Advanced Design framework, the research adopts a four-step methodology to analyse the current supply system, identify circular alternatives, review existing …
Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice,
2026
TU Delft, Netherlands, The
Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice, Olga Ioannou
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines biobased materials as agents of creative and systemic transformation within design practice. Drawing from a university course on circular building product design, several graduation theses, and two research projects -one focused on food waste valorisation and another on load-bearing mycelium composites- it investigates how engagement with biobased, regenerative materials reconfigures the designer’s role across the value chain, from sourcing to post-use reintegration. By situating material experimentation within ecological and socio-technical transitions, the paper argues that biobased materials enable a re-materialisation of design knowledge, where making becomes a mode of inquiry into interdependencies between nature, technology, and culture. …
Proximity Ruff: Rehabilitating Relationality Through Postdigital Bodies,
2026
Università degli studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy
Proximity Ruff: Rehabilitating Relationality Through Postdigital Bodies, Michela Musto, Marzia Micelisopo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Proximity Ruff explores embodied interaction and social care through a wearable device that translates human proximity into light. Designed within The Spark Design Research Studio (Naples, Italy), it reinterprets the historical ruff as a postdigital interface that re-educates the body to closeness after the pandemic. Generated through evolutionary algorithms and 3D-printed in bioplastic PLA, the piece embeds 72 LEDs and proximity sensors that visualize interpersonal distance. Beyond quantification, the luminous feedback materializes affective data, transforming social gestures into somatic awareness. Grounded in somaesthetic design and critical materiality, the project investigates how sensing systems and computational materials can mediate care, empathy, …
Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity,
2026
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America
Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity, Kaicheng Zhuang, Minghao Du
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This thesis reimagines the aging U.S. suburb as a site of transition, where single-family housing can evolve into distributed care infrastructure supporting longevity and community well-being. Through onsite research in Sacramento and collaboration with local care providers, the project develops a scalable framework for retrofitting suburban homes into neighborhood-based care hubs connected by shared food, mobility, and caregiver networks. Integrating architectural transformation, service design, and participatory co-design methods, it proposes a systemic approach that bridges individual housing adaptation with urban-scale resilience. Rather than pursuing technological “smartness,” the model advances a human-centered LongevityTech vision,where design mediates between housing, health, and social …
Reorienting Design Futures With Hope,
2026
Politecnico di Milano, Design Department
Reorienting Design Futures With Hope, Manuela Celi, Victoria Rodriguez Schon
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reorients Design Futures through hope as a situated, anticipatory, and actionable practice for working within postnormal conditions marked by uncertainty, systemic crisis, and defuturing. Bringing together futures studies, feminist epistemologies, and decolonial perspectives, it argues that design can help imagine and enact alternatives through situated interventions. The paper develops a conceptual and reflexive methodology that synthesizes three strands of literature; hope, hope and design, and hope and futures, and formulates three tactics for operationalizing hope in design practice: hoping as present-tense praxis, hoping otherwise, and projectual hope. Together, these frame hope as an ethical and political orientation that …
Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy,
2026
Virginia Tech, United States of America
Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Voice loss after total laryngectomy disrupts identity and quality of life yet current assistive technologies reproduce techno-ableist assumptions, prioritizing speech mimicry over identity restoration while systematic marginalization excludes laryngectomees from research and innovation. This paper presents a care-centred participatory design agenda bridging a propositional approach “Singing Without a Larynx”, a vowel-based vocal interface for singing, with cross-cultural photovoice research in the United States and Argentina. Grounded in care ethics, we operationalize attentiveness, responsibility, and relational accountability, positioning participants as co-designers whose embodied knowledge shapes technological imaginaries, and community challenges and assets. We propose: (1) a critical framework integrating care ethics, …
Material Driven Design Education: Exploring Circularity And Regeneration Through Waste-Based Experimentation,
2026
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Material Driven Design Education: Exploring Circularity And Regeneration Through Waste-Based Experimentation, Ziqian Yu, Chengjun Li, Mei Yang, Hongwei Li, Valentina Rognoli
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In light of the escalating climate and resource crises, design education must reconsider its role in shaping circular and regenerative futures, particularly with regard to emerging materials from waste. This paper presents the results of a pedagogical study conducted at the Joint School of Design and Innovation of Xi’an Jiaotong University and Politecnico di Milano. In this study, 120 students transformed local food and textile waste into new materials through hands-on experimentation, based on the Material Driven Design (MDD) approach, in a Chinese educational context. A comparative analysis of six student projects across toy and accessory applications reveals a synergy …
Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd,
2026
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd, Çağla Şen, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jos J. Kraal
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by executive dysfunctions that disrupt the initiation and maintenance of everyday behaviors, making habit formation challenging. As a result, many individuals with ADHD struggle to sustain healthy routines. Conventional behavior change approaches overlook the complexity and variability of ADHD, highlighting the need for adaptive and personalized methods such as Self-Experimentation (SE). This study explores the potential of SE in supporting individuals with ADHD to change health behaviors. Using a Research through Design approach, stakeholders were involved across three iterative phases. The process resulted in two prototypes that facilitated SE while generating insights on how individuals …
Service Design-Driven Formation Of Dynamic Capabilities For International Service Innovation: A Case Study Of A Chinese Nev Firm,
2026
School of Design, Hunan University, China
Service Design-Driven Formation Of Dynamic Capabilities For International Service Innovation: A Case Study Of A Chinese Nev Firm, Chengbo Li, Jun Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Amidst the acceleration of internationalization, service innovation has emerged as a critical pathway for New Energy Vehicle (NEV) firms to attain sustainable growth. Adopting a dynamic capability view (DCV), this paper investigates how service design contributes to the development of service innovation dynamic capabilities (SIDCs) within firms undergoing internationalization. Drawing upon a case study of the BYD New Energy Vehicle firm, the findings indicate that the functional, systemic, and iterative characteristics of service design facilitate the construction of micro-foundations for SIDCs. This is achieved through the integration of user insights, the fostering of cross departmental collaboration, and the reconfiguration of …
Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures,
2026
ENS PARIS SACLAY, France
Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures, Emile De Visscher, James Auger
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Each material production entails an ecosystem of interrelations linking geopolitical, economic, technological, cultural, social and sanitary dimensions, sometimes on a global scale. As designers, we are rarely conscious of these realities, and limit our actions to material selection at the scale of the artefact in constrained industrial and cultural settings. However, at a time of ecological crisis, tracking, revealing and understanding these complex systems is becoming an imperative if we are to transition towards resilient futures rooted in socio-economic realities. This article will present a pedagogical approach developed with Design Research MA students, where investigation and speculation stem from a …
Exploring Everyday Heritage Futures: Co-Creating Urban Narratives Through Cultural Probes,
2026
Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Exploring Everyday Heritage Futures: Co-Creating Urban Narratives Through Cultural Probes, Guo Chen, Robert G. Harland, Michael Wilson
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Narrative has long been used in cultural heritage for interpretation and communication, primarily within institutions and historic sites. Everyday heritage, however, foregrounds seemingly modest places and is constituted through routine interactions and practices, emphasising a continuing narrative between place and everyday life. Ubiquitous digital technologies make multi-layered narratives possible and bring underrepresented stories to light in situ. This pilot study in Loughborough’s Market Place, UK, explores narratives rooted in lived experiences that convey cultural-heritage significance. We designed and deployed cultural probes (a set of creative and speculative tasks) to prompt and record place-based stories. The analysis identified four themes: spatiality, …
