Feeling As Raw Knowledge: A Method For Designing Future Experience,
2026
Design school, Hunan University, China;
Transport Safety Research Centre, School of Design and Creative Arts
Feeling As Raw Knowledge: A Method For Designing Future Experience, Peiwen Luo, Zhengyu Tan, Ziang Chen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
At the early design stage, users’ verbalized thoughts lack in-depth analysis due to technological and cost constraints, hindering designers' creative future design. This study presents the results of a co-creation workshop with eight designers. Taking autonomous eVTOL flight as an example, this study developed the VR eVTOL cabin—an immersive experiential space where participants experienced story scenarios spanning boarding, flight, and landing. Participants’ verbalized thoughts about safety are collected through the think-aloud method. Subsequently, this study presents the reflective inference card to help participants comprehensively analyze the triggers behind these thoughts, their mental mechanisms, and propose design strategies for enhancing perceived …
Bridging The Community-Institution Divide: Multi-Level Community-Based Participatory Design For Migrant Health In China,
2026
ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University
Bridging The Community-Institution Divide: Multi-Level Community-Based Participatory Design For Migrant Health In China, Linfu Zhang, Emmanuel Tsekleves, David Pérez Ojeda, Zhangfeng Chen, Jingyuan Tan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Co-design with marginalised communities in developing settings —and their experiential knowledge—often collides with expert rationalities and hierarchical logics in public health institutions, undermining power-sharing, sustained participation, and institutionalisation. This paper explores how co-design mediates these competing logics to bring structurally produced health injustices back into the formal institutional field of vision. Based on seven months of immersive fieldwork in Shenzhen, China’s largest migrant city, the paper analyses a social design case addressing rural–urban migrants’ psychological well-being in an informal settlement. It integrates community-based participatory research (CBPR) and co-design to initiate the process of returning public health concerns to the institutional …
Using Design Artefacts To Transform Doctor-Parent Communication In Neonatal Care,
2026
Lincoln Institute for Rural and Coastal Health, University of Lincoln, United Kingdom
Using Design Artefacts To Transform Doctor-Parent Communication In Neonatal Care, Peiqi Wang, Laura Ferrarello, Tongyan Han
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper presents a design intervention study, conducted at Peking University Third Hospital (PUTH), which developed artefacts to support doctor-parent communication during neonatal care. Through a series of design interventions, a set of design probes and toolkits were developed to understand the current doctor-parent communication context within local care settings, and to prompt incremental changes in these communication practices. Field observations and evaluation interviews, based on these artefacts, demonstrated that the artefacts helped to change patterns of communication from consultative mode information delivery to collaboration by partner mode. They also increased parents’ confidence in their ability to maintain the health …
The Who Cares? Approach: Materializing Values In Community-Based Participatory Research,
2026
The Health Design Lab at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Canada
The Who Cares? Approach: Materializing Values In Community-Based Participatory Research, Logan Wilkinson, Collen Reid, Caylee Raber, Jon Hannan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Emerging from a three-year arts-based participatory design and research collaboration, the Who Cares? Approach is a framework for social change developed to understand how a community in rural British Columbia could cultivate a system of support for aging. Through iterative cycles of team retreats, including creative engagement and group interviews, project members developed a framework grounded in values of trust, presence, creativity, storytelling, relationality, and acknowledgement of the unknown. By transforming value statements into diagrams, installations, and participatory events, the project demonstrated how design artifacts can act as mediators of shared meaning and catalysts for ethical reflection. The resulting visual …
Reconfiguring Industrial Heritage: Human-Centered Narrative Design For Reconciliation And Inclusive Storytelling,
2026
Hunan Normal University, China;
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Reconfiguring Industrial Heritage: Human-Centered Narrative Design For Reconciliation And Inclusive Storytelling, Yiling Fu, Marco Borsotti
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This article takes the Shenyang China Industrial Museum as an example to expose the interpretation and design of China's representative industrial heritage museums dominated by authoritative narratives and technocratic biases. Through the case study of the “Steel Home Still” exhibition, explore how narrative design can reconstruct industrial archives and challenge their power structure. This article conducts a comparative analysis of two cases based on three parameters: narrative themes and strategies, representation of individuals and workers, technology narratives and human engagement, discussing how human-centered exhibition narratives reposition human memory at the core of industrial heritage, transforming it from static representations of …
Is This The “Me” They Want To See? Exploring Near-Future Adaptations Of Ai For Professional Visibility And Self-Presentation,
2026
Delft University of Technology, Department of Human-Centered Design
Is This The “Me” They Want To See? Exploring Near-Future Adaptations Of Ai For Professional Visibility And Self-Presentation, Forouzan Ebrahimi, Mahan Mehrvarz, Nazli Cila
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As professional collaboration increasingly shifts to digital and asynchronous modes, workers use collaboration technologies not only to coordinate tasks but also to manage their professional visibility and reputation. To examine how these practices could evolve as AI becomes more embedded in the collaboration environment, a speculative design approach was adopted to make near-future scenarios experiential. We prototyped speculative AI systems that support visibility through employee self-report reflection, performance scoring, AI-enhanced meeting appearance, communication delegation, and AI-use disclosure as probes for a series of immersive and interactive scenario-based interviews. The findings uncover selective disclosure of AI use to manage professional image, …
A Slow Ethos In A Fast World: Persistence And Compromise In Craft Commercialization,
2026
Graduate School of Creative Industry Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taiwan
A Slow Ethos In A Fast World: Persistence And Compromise In Craft Commercialization, Shih Chieh Shen, Yueh Hsiu Giffen Cheng
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores how a micro craft brand sustains its original sincerity toward craftsmanship while confronting the challenges posed by industrialized production processes and economic constraints. Based on a fifteen-year practice-led case of craft entrepreneurship, it analyzes reflective negotiations between persistence and compromise, ideal and capital, craft and industry. Employing the Double Diamond model and Aristotle’s Four Causes, the research interprets the process of craft commercialization and examines the underlying motivations that sustain the existence of micro craft brands. The findings reveal that practical limitations can be transformed into drivers of creativity. “Compromise” no longer signifies failure but, when approached …
Imagining Speculative Design Tools With A Capability Approach,
2026
Independent researcher
Imagining Speculative Design Tools With A Capability Approach, Olga Barbara Lackner
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While the more-than-human is often made visible on the individual, contextual level, it is nevertheless vital to shape sustainable practices at policy and industry level to create sustained change. If it was a necessity to include non-human stakeholders in the creation of new buildings, in the manufacturing of new products and more, what could the needed design tools look like? This paper envisions design practices shaping a world where the more-than-human is already accepted and anchored in law through narration. Subsequently, an attempt is made to create tools that find practical application in this speculative scenario, creating a more-than-human practice …
Designations Drift: Exodesign And The Epiphylogenesis Of Practice,
2026
Australian National University, Australia
Designations Drift: Exodesign And The Epiphylogenesis Of Practice, Chris Sutevski
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As design becomes increasingly automated and abstracted, the act of designation, once tied to human intentionality, appears to be lifting away from the human. In the era of exocapitalism, defined by Poliks and Trillo as a system unbound from the human condition and driven by self-replicating logics of value extraction, design too is being reconfigured through machinic and algorithmic processes. This paper introduces the concept of exodesign to describe this shift: the deterritorialisation of design’s human-centred agency amidst the rise of software stacks, machine learning, and cybernetic optimisation systems. Drawing on Bernard Stiegler’s notions of epiphylogenesis and general organology, alongside …
Supporting Deep(Er) Engagement With Site Through Blended Resources: A Case Study Across Two Design Studios,
2026
The University of Melbourne, Australia
Supporting Deep(Er) Engagement With Site Through Blended Resources: A Case Study Across Two Design Studios, James Thompson, Sidh Sintusingha, Dennis Prior
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reports on the evaluation of a funded teaching initiative for two undergraduate studios, one architecture and one landscape architecture, within an Australia-based design school. The initiative funded the expansion of a virtual site visit, as well as production of detailed digital and physical models. This suite of resources was meant to reduce demand on students related to searching for contextual and historical background, thus allowing them to grapple with the site’s complexities in a deeper fashion than they might otherwise. Students reported satisfaction across a range of criteria, including engagement, interaction, and feedback. Teaching staff reported more sustained …
Winds, Sand, Companions, Humans: Attuning Bodies For Post-Antropocentric Worlds,
2026
Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Winds, Sand, Companions, Humans: Attuning Bodies For Post-Antropocentric Worlds, Eliana Sánchez-Aldana, Laura Novik, Pablo Hermansen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This Laboratorio de Futuros held in Mar del Plata (Argentina), brought together architecture and design professors and master’s students from Argentina, Chile, and Colombia to explore an Epimethean approach to design—acting after rather than ahead of action, embracing delay, reflection, and care. Rooted in voices and material practices from the Global South, participants engaged in embodied exercises fostering inter-learning through reciprocity and complementarity. We explored the territory holistically with our whole bodies, attuning to wind, sand, sea, and insects, and reframing design as the enactment of relational infrastructures through affective attunement and planetary excesses. Our bodies became sensors, registering the …
Craft As Experiential Knowledge: Designing Workshops And Record-Keeping Practices For Cultural Transmission Among Young Generations,
2026
Kyoto Institute of Technology & University of the Arts London
Craft As Experiential Knowledge: Designing Workshops And Record-Keeping Practices For Cultural Transmission Among Young Generations, Kai Kishita
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study demonstrates the potential of an experiential learning approach combining craft production experiences, dialogue with craftsmen, and record-keeping activities for young people. An ageing workforce and declining demand contribute to the loss of cultural identity and intangible value that craftsmanship culture provides to contemporary Japanese society. However, opportunities to engage with crafts beyond mere consumption remain limited. Using Kyoto roof tiles (京瓦 / Kyō-gawara) making as a primary case study, this research examines how experiential knowledge can promote cultural transmission and education through workshops and record-keeping (聞き書き / kikigaki). Through hands-on making and record-keeping, participants gained technical skills and …
The ‘Cuteness Matrix’: Mapping Cuteness As An Affective Strategy For Purpose-Led Communication Design,
2026
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London;
Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Singapore
The ‘Cuteness Matrix’: Mapping Cuteness As An Affective Strategy For Purpose-Led Communication Design, Guo Yi Xian Yix, Mimi Nguyen, David Preston
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Cuteness is often dismissed as trivial or decorative. Yet research across neuroscience, psychology, and cultural theory reveals it as a powerful affective force that captures attention, evokes empathy, and encourages prosocial behaviour and well-being. Cute’s affective potency also renders it ethically ambivalent, capable of manipulation as much as comfort. Despite its ubiquity, cuteness remains under-theorised in design research, a notable gap for a discipline concerned with communication, emotion, and human connection. Addressing this gap, this study conducts an interpretive systematic literature review of publications from 1943 to 2025, identifying 65 key scholarly sources. Interdisciplinary insights are synthesized into the ‘Cuteness …
Making-With Biomaterials: Attuning To More-Than-Human Temporalities In Growth And Decay Practices,
2026
RMIT, Australia School of Design
Making-With Biomaterials: Attuning To More-Than-Human Temporalities In Growth And Decay Practices, Javier De Urquijo Isoard, Joshua Riesel
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how design practices involving biomaterials can promote attuning within more-than-human temporalities. Drawing on two comparative case studies working with decomposing organisms to make and unmake materials, it examines how growth and decay unfold across different ecological timescales. Through concepts of noticing, pace, and rhythm, the studies explore how designers negotiate when to pause, accelerate, or distribute agency within multispecies collaborations. Rather than treating biomaterials as substitutes for synthetics, the paper positions them as temporal components of ecosystems shaped by humidity, temperature, and microbial diversity. Attuning emerges as a practice of more-than-human coordination and care. The findings contribute …
Designing Within The Clinic: A Situated Co-Design Approach For Healthcare Provider Engagement,
2026
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA
Designing Within The Clinic: A Situated Co-Design Approach For Healthcare Provider Engagement, Neda Barbazi, Ji Youn Shin, Gurumurthy Hiremath, Carlye Anne Lauff
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Healthcare providers’ participation in the design process is essential for developing effective care interventions. However, engaging them through traditional design methods is challenging due to heavy workloads, unpredictable schedules, and hierarchical roles within care teams. Traditional co-design approaches, such as synchronous workshops, are often less effective in capturing clinical realities and may not fully embody participatory principles of collaboration and shared ownership. Our study addresses these challenges through a situated, self-paced co-design approach created with provider input and embedded within clinical workflows. Conducted in a pediatric cardiology clinic, fifteen providers participated over one month to refine a hybrid educational intervention …
Speculative Socially Engaged Design Interventions In Menopause Health And Post-Extractive Environmental Regeneration,
2026
University of New South Wales, Australia
Speculative Socially Engaged Design Interventions In Menopause Health And Post-Extractive Environmental Regeneration, Chantelle Baistow, Katherine Moline
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Rarely does speculative socially engaged design reflectively compare different approaches. This paper reflects on two speculative socially engaged design projects that employ materials-based participatory methods to explore the supports and barriers to the continuity of healthcare and the remediation of environmental pollution. The first project, TheChange@Work, engaged hospital staff and outpatients in exploring menopause-related workplace stigma through colour, collage, and textiles, to reflect on diverse experiences of dynamic hormones. The second project, From Waste to Care, involved communities in 3D-printing ceramics from coal ash waste, addressing the remediation of toxic materials remaining from energy production. We analyse the blind spots …
Producing Knowledge For Whom? Parallel Knowledge Worlds In Chinese Doctoral Education In Design And International Design Research,
2026
North Carolina State University, United States of America;
Cornell University
Producing Knowledge For Whom? Parallel Knowledge Worlds In Chinese Doctoral Education In Design And International Design Research, Linghao Li, Wangda Zhu, Tingxin Zheng
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Since the first programs were established in 2011, China's design doctoral education has expanded to 37 institutions by 2024, yet Chinese scholars remain marginalized in international venues like DRS (3.6% of papers, 2012–2024). Through mixed-methods analysis of 426 dissertations, 95 conference papers, 6,239 citations, 40 author trajectories, and 9 interviews, we reveal systematic divergence rather than exclusion. Citation analysis demonstrates a 50.9 percentage point shift: scholars cite 54.5% Chinese-language sources in dissertations but only 3.6% in DRS papers. Author tracking shows 72.5% became one-time participants with no subsequent first-author international publications, evidencing strategic credential-seeking over sustained engagement. Keyword analysis confirms …
Is The Trend Your Friend? Exploring The Interior Shape And Material Use Across Australian ‘Car Of The Year’ Winners,
2026
School of Design, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Is The Trend Your Friend? Exploring The Interior Shape And Material Use Across Australian ‘Car Of The Year’ Winners, Jesse Goddard, Rafael Gomez, Shayne Beaver, Robbie Napper
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As car interiors transition toward emerging sustainable materials, exploring historical patterns of material use may inform future iteration and adoption. While automotive exterior literature is abundant, historical studies of interior trend evolution are rare. This study investigates over 60 years of interior material and form trends using Australian Wheels magazine’s annual ‘Car of the Year’ winners (1963-2024). Objective visual observations of 57 car interior image-sets built an abductive-coded matrix, followed by visual pattern analysis. This identified a cyclical trend in metal usage, and an evolutionary transition of gloss to matte surface finishes. Subjective scoring of interior shape using scales of …
Reflective Sociomaterialist Learning For Design For Sustainability (Dfs) In The Global South: Evaluations Of Students’ Product Service System (Pss) Design Projects At A Thai Design School,
2026
Thammasat University, Thailand
Reflective Sociomaterialist Learning For Design For Sustainability (Dfs) In The Global South: Evaluations Of Students’ Product Service System (Pss) Design Projects At A Thai Design School, Hyunwook Hwangbo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores how teaching service design through Product-Service System projects can encourage reflective sociomaterialist learning for Design for Sustainability in the Global South. It analyses 22 Product-Service Systems projects by undergraduate students at a Thai design school to examine how design education, aligned with Thailand’s bio-circular-green (BCG) economy initiative, helps develop students as social agents who drive sustainable innovation. Using ethnographic action research and thematic analysis, six case vignettes illustrate how participatory design methods and systems thinking in Product-Service Systems projects empower students to build sociotechnical systems and offer localized, community-centered solutions. Findings show that integrating Product-Service Systems practices …
Whose Voice Is It Anyway?: Design Resources For Safely Navigating Deceptive Ai Voice Scams,
2026
Swinburne University of Technology
Whose Voice Is It Anyway?: Design Resources For Safely Navigating Deceptive Ai Voice Scams, Dominique Carlon, Awais Hameed Khan, Anthony Mccosker, Tracy De Cotta
DRS Biennial Conference Series
AI-powered voice scams are a fast-evolving public threat, combining rapid advances in synthetic speech technologies with sophisticated social engineering tactics. These scams are difficult to detect, exploit trust and familiarity, often resulting in deeply stigmatising experiences for those targeted. While anyone can be affected by scams, building awareness and confidence in navigating AI-related risks requires approaches tailored to the needs of diverse communities, particularly those who are more digitally excluded or marginalised. To address this, we developed AI & You—a suite of accessible, modular, and adaptable public education resources, collaboratively designed with the digital advocacy group Tactical Tech. We evaluated …
