Designing For Dignity: A Method To Explore Emotional Lived Experiences Of Stigma And Dignity In Perinatal Mental Health Environments,
2026
University of Twente, Faculty of Engineering Technology, Netherlands, The
Designing For Dignity: A Method To Explore Emotional Lived Experiences Of Stigma And Dignity In Perinatal Mental Health Environments, Carmen Heuvelmans, Aslı Günay, Geke Ludden, Jodi Sturge
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Psychiatric care environments are intended to heal, yet their design is often experienced as stigmatizing. This paper presents the Uncovering and Designing for Dignity through Emotions (UDDE) method, a participatory approach designed to uncover the meaning of dignity for perinatal women in psychiatric care, explore lived experiences of stigma and dignity, and identify how care features can be re-designed to uphold dignity. While dignity is often defined as an inherent worth every person possesses, in everyday life dignity is experienced as a lived value shaped by interactions with others and the environment. Emotions act as biological signals that can reveal …
Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector,
2026
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands, The
Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector, Geert Brinkman, Elke Wennekers
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While design has gained significant interest in the public sector in recent years, it has yet to gain real traction. Even in countries seen as frontrunners, design has not become mainstream practice and its potential to meaningfully address public issues remains largely unrealized. One of the main reasons for this is that designers find it difficult to legitimize design. In this study, we conducted eight interviews with designers to explore how they attempt to gain legitimacy for the outcomes of their work. We adopted an argumentation lens to identify the various legitimation strategies employed. Rather than individual strategies, we present …
Narrativizing Care: Exploring Narrative Medicine For Designing Ai-Mediated Remote Patient Monitoring,
2026
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Narrativizing Care: Exploring Narrative Medicine For Designing Ai-Mediated Remote Patient Monitoring, Somayeh Ranjbar, Tara Capel, Peter Lloyd, Douwe E. Atsma, Somaya Ben Allouch, Jeroen Raijmakers
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how care is enacted and understood within Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) systems, which promise efficiency and autonomy but fragment care into data flows. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a Dutch hospital’s RPM program for myocardial infarction patients, we analyze how stories, reassurance, and contextual interpretation unfold alongside structured data, revealing the promise and limits of AI-mediated care. Using narrative medicine’s triad of attention, representation, and affiliation, we identify how extractive data models overlook patients’ lived realities and relational dimensions of care. We propose three design provocations for exploring the application of AI in RPM systems: narrative layers …
Sherlock Holmes In The Studio: Supporting Deductive And Inductive Reasoning Skills In Design Education,
2026
Istanbul Technical University, Turkiye
Sherlock Holmes In The Studio: Supporting Deductive And Inductive Reasoning Skills In Design Education, Koray Gelmez, Pelin Efilti, Hatice Kubra Kubra Yildiz, Ali Cankat Alan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Reasoning is a central skill in design education, yet it often remains implicit in studio courses. This paper presents an instructional exercise that adapts methods of deductive and inductive reasoning, commonly associated with crime scene investigation, into industrial design education. Inspired by Sherlock Holmes’ investigative methods, students examined manufactured products as ‘crime scenes,’ collecting traces of production and assembly as evidence. By reconstructing these processes, they practised analytical thinking and transferred investigative reasoning into design reasoning. Implemented across three semesters with around 101 students, the activity was followed by interviews with 25 participants. Findings indicate that students reported stronger observation, …
The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics,
2026
Sichuan University, People's Republic of China
The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics, Yu Zhi, Hanbing Ren
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In today's world, AI technology is reshaping design practice. The modern design cognition is shifting from Cartesian disembodied rationality to phenomenological embodied intuition. This study draws on Nigel Cross's research on design thinking and the concept of “Shensi” from traditional Chinese aesthetics. It reveals the embodied essence of design cognition as a dynamic network of body, technology, and environment. This network reconfigures design problems, structures, and meanings. By comparing "Shensi" (embodied, intuitive, humanistic) with AI-mediated design (logical, data-driven, efficient), this study proposes a new design paradigm based on Eastern wisdom to broaden theoretical understanding of design cognition.
An Exploration Into The Value Of ‘Gap System’ Within Regenerative Design,
2026
Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology
An Exploration Into The Value Of ‘Gap System’ Within Regenerative Design, Ariane Camille Fourquier, Delfina Fantini Van Ditmar, Iohanna Nicenboim
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores the possible contribution of ‘gap system’ within the context of regenerative design, highlighting how ‘gaps’, as overlooked, unexplored, and unrecalled dimensions of creative practice, can provide critical opportunities for regeneration. Drawing on ongoing research into weave structures conceptualised through the holes in between yarns, and by presenting the outcomes of a workshop, we illustrate the potential of thinking through ‘gaps’ as a nuanced perspective for regenerative design. Here, ‘gaps’ become sites of reflection, emergence, and transition. We show how this approach reshaped participants’ ways of mapping systems by focusing on ‘gaps’ rather than existing linear knowledge, enabling …
Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis,
2026
Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom
Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis, Alison Thomson, Hannah Scott, Ruth Dobson
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Neurological prevention science is gaining traction, with implications for people at raised familial risk of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We examine how design can intervene in this emerging prevention space through Digesting Science (DS), a co-designed public engagement project that brings families affected by MS together through events and playful, hands-on activities in community settings. We analyse post-event open-ended evaluation forms and a follow up study using auto-photo-elicitation with semi-structured interviews with children and parents. Findings show that DS makes MS discussable without increasing anxiety, embodied activities create shared reference points and language for talking about symptoms, science and uncertainty. We …
Verbalized Thoughts 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
Verbalized Thoughts 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 …
Time Travelers: Bridging Generations In Boston’S Seaport,
2026
Northeastern University, United States of America
Time Travelers: Bridging Generations In Boston’S Seaport, Robiya Sahibnazarova, Annika Kim
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This qualitative study examines social isolation among Boston's elders aged 65 and older. We explored ways to employ service design and interactive encounters to connect different generations around history. Our focus was on Boston’s Seaport—a district shaped by redevelopment and technology. This study involved four interviews with museum professionals, elders, and locals to understand how memories influence community connections. The Time Travelers app features an Interactive Memory Map of stories along with guided walks and collaborative memory threads that encourage intergenerational exchange. Complementing the app, a Seaport boardwalk installation features televisions from different decades displaying memories from each era. Visitors …
Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review,
2026
The University of Edingburgh, United Kingdom
Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review, Yuanrong Guo, Zixuan Wang, Sarah Kettley, Autumn Roesch-Marsh
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Integrating systems thinking and design thinking offers a promising approach to address systemic challenges in healthcare. However, existing studies apply diverse systems thinking theories and methods across different healthcare contexts, and design also shows methodological pluralism. Such diversity has created conceptual fragmentation and uncertainty about how designers can meaningfully apply systems thinking. This paper presents a scoping review of 44 empirical studies that apply both design approaches and systems thinking theories or methods in healthcare service systems. The analysis examines where systems thinking is positioned within studies and identifies four relationship types: (1) design as systemic practice, (2) systems thinking …
Erased By Default: Reorienting Digital Welfare Systems With Care And Participation,
2026
South East Technological University, Ireland
Erased By Default: Reorienting Digital Welfare Systems With Care And Participation, Emma Holden, P.J. White, Aisling Tuite, Ray Griffin
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The shift from analogue to digital-first government service delivery positions design as a central gatekeeper of welfare access and civic recognition. However, these systems frequently act upon blanket assumptions regarding trust, digital literacy, and engagement, inadvertently marginalizing the most vulnerable of society. This paper examines how digital welfare interfaces produce forms of non-response, interpreted both as user disengagement and systemic erasure. Grounded in a qualitative, design-led study with marginalized young adults in Ireland’s Youthreach programme, alongside the perspectives of frontline support and service providers. The study documents how these users navigate and resist platforms that presume universal digital competence. Their …
The Fidelity-Flexibility Paradox: Student Creative Experience With Ai-Assisted Visualisation In Design Ideation,
2026
School of Product Design, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
The Fidelity-Flexibility Paradox: Student Creative Experience With Ai-Assisted Visualisation In Design Ideation, Wendy Zhang, Charlie Ranscombe, Euan Coutts
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In design education, AI-assisted visualisation tools are challenging established sketching practices during ideation, influencing how students generate, iterate, and develop ideas. Empirical research on their impact on students’ creative processes is essential to guide pedagogical integration. Guided by the Design Tool Characteristics (DTCs) framework, this study analyses the survey data (n = 55) from two undergraduate design cohorts (2024–2025) using an AI sketch rendering tool during studio-based ideation. Findings reveal a central fidelity–flexibility paradox: AI’s high-fidelity outputs accelerated divergent visualisation, yet its perceived low flexibility and limited control constrained iterative refinement. This tension between rapid generation and limited creative agency …
Design Knowledge Archaeology: Developing The Body Of Design Knowledge And Theory,
2026
Center for Design Research, Mechanical Engineering Design Group, Stanford University, United States of America
Design Knowledge Archaeology: Developing The Body Of Design Knowledge And Theory, Jan Michel Auernhammer, Hamid Bekamiri, Milan Drake
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The development of the foundational body of knowledge is a primary concern of Design Research. This body of knowledge is essential to design education and practice, which shape the human-made environment. This article presents Design Knowledge Archaeology, an emerging approach for systematically rediscovering and developing this foundation by analyzing the evolution of knowledge structures within design discourse. This article outlines and evaluates three distinct methods: the Focused approach, the Discourse approach, and the AI-enabled Semantic Similarity approach. The Focused approach reconstructs the intellectual lineage of a single perspective or recovers marginalized accounts. The Discourse approach maps competing perspectives and discontinuities …
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 …
Does Knowledge In Design Require A Distinct Epistemology? A Critical Rationalist Perspective,
2026
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Does Knowledge In Design Require A Distinct Epistemology? A Critical Rationalist Perspective, Jj Digby
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design epistemology has long been divided by apparent dualities, such as science versus art and rationality versus intuition, which resist resolution within existing frameworks. This paper argues these are false dichotomies and that Critical Rationalism (Popper, 1963/2002, 1972; Deutsch, 1997, 2011) provides a universal account of knowledge creation that explains the distinctive character of design without requiring a separate epistemology. Knowledge is conjectural and fallible: progress occurs not through justification or verification, but through iterative creative conjecture and — crucially — error-correction via criticism. Deutsch's account of knowledge as physically instantiated information, subject to the same logic of variation and …
Testing The Unbuilt: Design Studios As Research For Wicked Opportunities,
2026
School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Testing The Unbuilt: Design Studios As Research For Wicked Opportunities, Linus Tan, Justyna Karakiewicz
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This research examines the design studio as a form of architectural design research. Architectural and Urban Design studios have been operating as epistemic laboratories in which the processes of evaluating wicked problems, proposing design interventions, and iteratively testing the fit between the brief and design intersect to generate new knowledge. It is often impractical to evaluate the long-term implications of built works on complex, interrelated societal issues, as such assessments are time-consuming, costly, and rarely yield transferable insights. Hence, many architects and urban designers investigate design opportunities in design studios, allowing them to test, reframe and expand their understanding of …
Critical Assembly: Exploring The Role Of Critical Making In Complex Technology Relationships,
2026
Monash University, Australia
Critical Assembly: Exploring The Role Of Critical Making In Complex Technology Relationships, Chuan Khoo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Critical making often assumes that practitioners possess or can acquire sufficient technical and fabrication skills to balance reflective inquiry with material engagement. Yet, as digital and networked technologies grow more abstract and complex, they risk constraining critical making by privileging technical proficiency over critical reflection. This tension raises questions about accessibility and the depth of engagement required for meaningful participation, as reliance on pre-integrated solutions may distance both practitioners and lay participants from interrogating technology’s societal roles. Still, uncovering the components of technological systems remains essential to critical engagement. This article proposes critical assembly as an extension of critical making, …
Bio-Inspired Design For Preventive Healthcare: Translating Living Systems Into Design Knowledge,
2026
Department of Engineering, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON, United Kingdom
Bio-Inspired Design For Preventive Healthcare: Translating Living Systems Into Design Knowledge, Xiuyuan Tu, Wei Liu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates how bio-inspired design can contribute to preventive healthcare by learning from the adaptive intelligence of living systems. Through a Critical Interpretive Synthesis of 356 studies, it explores the translation of concepts like adaptation, cooperation, and self-repair from biology to design practice. The Design Knowledge Translation Model (DKTM) is introduced to illustrate the process by which biological insights are interpreted, abstracted, and applied to inform design knowledge. The findings indicate that leveraging nature-inspired reasoning can shift healthcare from a reactive to an anticipatory approach, fostering systems that enhance wellbeing and collective care. Furthermore, this work provides a guideline …
