Đồng-Design: Designing Togetherness As A Systemic Approach To Vietnam’S Textile And Apparel Transformation,
2026
RMIT International University
Đồng-Design: Designing Togetherness As A Systemic Approach To Vietnam’S Textile And Apparel Transformation, Lan Lam, Donna Cleveland
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry, one of the world’s largest garment exporters, is under growing pressure to shift from labour-based to design-led and sustainable business models. However, applying Western co-design frameworks within the hierarchical and production-driven context of large enterprises reveals significant cultural and structural constraints. Drawing on in-depth interviews and reflexive journaling, this paper reports findings from two phases of an ongoing project and examine how design participation is understood and enacted across Vietnam’s fashion eco-system, contrasting the relational practices of micro and small enterprises with the fragmented processes of large manufacturers. It introduces đồng-design, a culturally situated approach …
How Automation Impacts Worker Ecosystems In Organizations: A Case Study Of Autonomous Bus Operations At An International Airport,
2026
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
How Automation Impacts Worker Ecosystems In Organizations: A Case Study Of Autonomous Bus Operations At An International Airport, Garoa Gomez-Beldarrain, Femke Van Dam, Euiyoung Kim, Himanshu Verma, Alessandro Bozzon
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Organizations are increasingly immersed in automation programs aimed at enhancing operational efficiency, yet these initiatives fundamentally impact and reshape traditional workplaces. Prior research has examined automation's effects on workers who directly interact with it, but less attention has been given to how broader worker ecosystems are impacted. To address this gap, we investigate an autonomous shuttle bus project at an international airport. We conduct an interview study with nine external experts holding prior experience in similar automation contexts. To engage participants in discussing the impacts of a future autonomous bus operation, we utilize systemic design as a lens and conduct …
Against The Given: Reframing The Brief For Transformative Design Practices,
2026
Elisava (UVic-UCC), Catalonia, Spain
Against The Given: Reframing The Brief For Transformative Design Practices, Roger Paez, James Auger
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While design transition discourse foregrounds systemic change, pedagogy frequently remains rooted in a solutionist mindset, in which the design brief often functions to perpetuate norms. Drawing on the Erasmus+ project Speculative Urban Futures, we reimagine the design brief as an infrastructure for epistemic plurality. Students collaboratively develop and circulate briefs across groups, harnessing divergence as a means of expanding the design space and unsettling normative expectations. We argue that embracing this tension is central to navigating the “growing pains” of design transitions. By embedding theoretical complexity within viscerality, playfulness and speculation, design education can shift from transmission to transformation—equipping students …
Paper, Pixels, And Play: Designing A Trauma-Informed Ai Assessment Toolkit,
2026
The University of Queensland
Paper, Pixels, And Play: Designing A Trauma-Informed Ai Assessment Toolkit, Awais Hameed Khan, Angela Elvery, Dang Khuong Tran, Suvradip Maitra, Suzanna Fay, Paul Henman, Lyndal Sleep
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automated processes hold significant potential to enhance service user experiences, by augmenting or fully automating aspects of service delivery. However, if not carefully designed, these systems also risk creating unintended, widespread harms, at unprecedented speed and scale. Drawing upon trauma-informed principles and developed in collaboration with social service delivery practitioners, we designed the Trauma Informed AI Assessment Toolkit (TIAKIT). TIAKIT supports users in critically designing, reviewing, and evaluating current or planned AI service integrations. We report on the iterative design process of TIAKIT and its adaptation across three formats — analogue, digital, and design game. Findings …
Design For Care-Full Inclusion: Foregrounding The Voices Of Vulnerable Communities Through Vignettes In Co-Design,
2026
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Design For Care-Full Inclusion: Foregrounding The Voices Of Vulnerable Communities Through Vignettes In Co-Design, Daniel Campos-Muñiz, Yiming Yao, Tse Pei Ng, Celeste Seah, Givson Ong, Janghee Cho, Jung-Joo Lee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Foregrounding the voices of vulnerable communities in future-oriented co-design workshops is a growing concern in design. Yet, their participation in multi-stakeholder settings may be limited by factors such as power imbalances, cultural differences, low self-efficacy or limited availability. In this paper, we present a case where a care-oriented approach to vignette making and use was adopted to foreground the voices of migrant care workers (MCWs) in a multi-stakeholder co-design workshop. Through this approach, vignettes (1) fostered our critical reflection and affective understanding, (2) supported the articulation of MCWs’ lived experiences, and (3) provided a medium to highlight the interconnectedness and …
The Invisible Playground For Taboos: A Framework For Recognising And Designing For Inner Play To Engage With Death And Anticipatory Grief,
2026
Independent Researcher, Portugal
The Invisible Playground For Taboos: A Framework For Recognising And Designing For Inner Play To Engage With Death And Anticipatory Grief, Manuela Melo, Sofie Kinch, Andrew Tibbles, Allan Køster
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Death and Anticipatory Grief remain culturally taboo, limiting opportunities for open dialogue and emotional preparedness. This paper explores how design can facilitate such conversations through play. Inner Play is a form of imaginative and introspective play that aids engagement with taboos in an empathic way, but lacks ways to understand and evaluate how to design for it. Employing a Research-through-Design approach, the papers presents a speculative design project that mediates communication between the bereaved and the deceased with a game kit resulting in a shared grief artefact. Ten participants in five workshops engaged in an iterative prototyping process, which resulted …
Proximity, Technology, And Care: Towards Longevity-Friendly Urban Ecosystems,
2026
Department of Humanities, IULM, Italy
Proximity, Technology, And Care: Towards Longevity-Friendly Urban Ecosystems, Carla Sedini, Carolina Nina Bonato
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Social relationships, extending beyond the familiar and domestic spheres, play a crucial role in sustaining the healthy ageing of cities’ inhabitants. The urban ecosystem can support social participation and interdependence among its inhabitants by combining the design of hard and soft infrastructures that shape social engagement and urban attractiveness. Within this framework, a new dimension of care is emerging, one that transcends traditional healthcare and institutionalised models. How can technologies help generate the cornerstones of caring, inclusive, long-life communities? By examining a series of international case studies on technology, proximity, care, and ageing, the paper aims to offer actionable design …
Designing Social Inclusion In Circular Transitions: A Participatory Study Of Repair Initiatives In Germany,
2026
Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Designing Social Inclusion In Circular Transitions: A Participatory Study Of Repair Initiatives In Germany, Antje Burckhardt, Lenard Opeskin, Andrea Augsten
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Repair initiatives are promoted as policy instruments to foster sustainable consumption practices within circular economy agendas. However, recent studies question their ability to achieve broader societal impact, noting that social inclusion remains limited. The study addresses this challenge by employing a participatory design approach to actively explore fields of action to enhance social inclusion in repair initiatives in Germany. Drawing on a literature review, we first conducted five expert interviews with repair initiative representatives, as well as 53 short interviews with visitors and people who had not previously visited a repair initiative, identifying barriers and opportunities for improvement. Second, we …
Game Design As An Educational Method,
2026
Kristiania University of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway
Game Design As An Educational Method, Adeline Hvidsten, Evan Barba, Sarit Youdelevich, Rebecca Rouse
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design is playing an increasingly important role in the liberal arts and in general education at various grade levels. Integrating design into a curriculum can take many forms, from teaching general design literacy to specific disciplinary practices and using design methods to support topical learning. Over decades of teaching game design in various contexts, we have observed how students gain a deep and systemic understanding of topics when designing games on them. Synthesizing our experiences from higher education, we expand on Hanghøj’s model for game-based teaching to include teaching through game design as a pedagogical method. We argue that to …
How Does Costume Illustration Sketching Mediate Between Visual Development Concept Art And The Practical Construction Of Film Costumes?,
2026
arts university bournemouth, United Kingdom
How Does Costume Illustration Sketching Mediate Between Visual Development Concept Art And The Practical Construction Of Film Costumes?, Sophie Fretwell, Jon Burgess
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Sketching is a vital form of communication across creative industries. As an essential part of the filmmaking process, costume illustration functions as a mediating design practice where sketching translates concept art into wearable garments. Historically rooted in hand-drawn fashion illustration, contemporary costume sketching has evolved into a globalised digital practice that bridges artistic vision and physical construction. Through this lens of design mediation and embodied expertise, the study draws on industry interviews and reflective practice to examine the costume illustrator’s changing role as translator between the digital concept and physical costume. Costume sketching solves practical challenges based on knowledge of …
‘Wet’ Policymaking: Exploring The Potential Of Open-Water Swimming In Agonistically Designing Affective Environmental Policies,
2026
R4D Research group, School of Social Sciences, Hasselt University, Belgium;Civic & Policy Design (part of Arck) Research group, Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Hasselt University, Belgium
‘Wet’ Policymaking: Exploring The Potential Of Open-Water Swimming In Agonistically Designing Affective Environmental Policies, Kseniia Obukhova, Jan Boon, Liesbeth Huybrechts
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In the dryland of environmental governance, design can help cultivate what we call ‘wet’ policymaking: an approach that embraces affect, emotional engagement, and more-than-human (MTH) relations as integral to ecological decision-making. Drawing on fieldwork with open-water swimming collectives and policy initiatives in Flanders, Belgium, we explore swimming as an agonistic inquiry into wet policy futures, revealing the tensions between the prevailing dryness and the potential wetness of environmental—particularly water-related—governance. Theoretically, the paper weaves together affective agonistic democratic thought, political design, and MTH perspectives to articulate wetness as both a political and design orientation. We argue that open-water swimming in Flanders …
Designing For Radical Renewal: Innovation Outcomes Across Circular And Regenerative Approaches,
2026
Aarhus University, Denmark
Designing For Radical Renewal: Innovation Outcomes Across Circular And Regenerative Approaches, Belinda Nors, Louise Møller Haase, Sara Nielsen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper defines regenerative design in relation to current collaborative, sustainability-oriented innovation. Production and consumption patterns are largely linear, with circular economy efforts largely focused on recycling. Regenerative approaches are emerging but underdeveloped. Literature describes the Regenerative worldview and theoretical framework, and the few papers on methodology and practice highlight a need for greater definition of the field. An actionable design- and innovation methodology for the regenerative field is lacking. We conduct a scoping review and define the Regenerative design approach in relation to the current Circular Oriented Design approaches. We present the characteristics of the Value Preserving and Regenerative …
Promoting Equity, Accessibility, And Trust Through Co-Design: Shaping A Living Evidence Architecture For South-East Asia And The Western Pacific,
2026
Monash University, Australia
Promoting Equity, Accessibility, And Trust Through Co-Design: Shaping A Living Evidence Architecture For South-East Asia And The Western Pacific, Leah Heiss, Manika Saha, Heath White, Shaira Baptista, Jia Rong, Rifat Shams, Derry Wijaya, Grace Wangge, John Grundy, Rashina Hoda, Chetan Arora, Anneliese Arno, Olga Kokshagina, Tari Turner
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Living evidence refers to continual evidence synthesis and dynamic updating of clinical guidelines to support health decision makers with evidence that is up-to-date, reliable and trustworthy. The rapid take up of AI technologies and prevalence of unverified AI-generated medical advice create an urgent need to improve access to trusted, reliable evidence to support clinicians, policy makers and citizens with accurate health guidance. Developing a living evidence platform with South-East Asia and the Western Pacific - a region that includes almost half of the global population - requires a nuanced understanding of the diverse needs of clinicians, consumers, and policymakers across …
Creating A Regenerative Design Practice That Gives Back To People And Planet: Lessons From Stakeholder Interactions In Industrial Agriculture,
2026
Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Norway
Creating A Regenerative Design Practice That Gives Back To People And Planet: Lessons From Stakeholder Interactions In Industrial Agriculture, Cecilie Baann, Birgitta Ralston, Jannike Falk-Andersson, Line Johanne Barkved
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper considers the development of a regenerative design practice as a grounded and participatory method that fosters sustainable design and solutions, sensitive to relational practices and values, even when these are thought to be negligible. We draw upon theories of ecological relationality, in combination with posthuman theory, to argue that holistic regenerative design should aim to foster ownership of the design processes amongst affected actors. To do so, our regenerative design practice allows participants to search for, promote, and expand existing practices of relationality, a focus we argue have been missing in the existing research on regenerative design. Drawing …
Co-Speculating With Ai: From Prompts To Practices,
2026
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Co-Speculating With Ai: From Prompts To Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Maria Luce Lupetti, Giulia Jiangxian Zhu, Dave Murray-Rust
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper presents a vocabulary for co-speculation with AI, developed through an experimental design studio with 55 postgraduate students who used generative AI tools to explore more-than-human design practices of decentering. The vocabulary spans multiple scales of interaction—from individual prompting acts to extended collaborative sessions—serving descriptive, analytic, and generative functions. Whilst it was developed through the specific context of decentering practices, we argue that this vocabulary is transferable to diverse design domains. It offers designers and researchers a framework for more reflective and intentional engagements with AI, contributing to emerging discussions on how design practice evolves when speculation becomes a …
From Scientific Publication To Scientific Impact: Designing Research For Reach And Engagement,
2026
University of Twente, Netherlands
From Scientific Publication To Scientific Impact: Designing Research For Reach And Engagement, Elisabeth Breden, Eveline Van Zeeland, Jörg Henseler
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Digital media offer transformative possibilities for sharing and experiencing research. These new options call for design researchers and publishers to rethink traditional publishing norms. Yet, expanding access alone is insufficient; making academic knowledge meaningful to diverse audiences can drive real impact. How to engage audiences beyond academia to ensure a broader impact? This study applies the design tools framing and analogical modelling to shift the perspective on academic knowledge dissemination. This allows us to recognize scientific outputs as designed products that need to be brought to ‘the market’ with a clear path for reaching and engaging audiences. This study introduces …
Reclaiming Embroidery: Uncovering The Potential Of Embodied Practice For Women’S Mental Well-Being,
2026
Tongji University, China, People's Republic of
Reclaiming Embroidery: Uncovering The Potential Of Embodied Practice For Women’S Mental Well-Being, Xinglin Sun, Caroline Claisse, Qi Wang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Women’s mental well-being is deeply intertwined with their bodily experiences across different life stages. While embroidery has long been associated with domestic femininity, little is known about how its embodied qualities can support women’s mental well-being. This paper presents a co-creation workshop titled Embodied Embroidery, followed by micro-phenomenological and semi-structured interviews. Eight female participants engaged with embroidery to reconnect with their bodies and translate embodied sensations into material expressions. The findings reveal how embodied making can nurture different dimensions of women’s mental well-being while opening up new design spaces for embroidery activities among women across diverse age groups and cultural …
Towards A Common Language For Representation Tools In More-Than-Human Design,
2026
Koç University, Türkiye
Towards A Common Language For Representation Tools In More-Than-Human Design, Berre Su Demir, Aykut Coskun
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Representation tools in More-Than-Human Design (MTHD) are growing rapidly as researchers increasingly seek to include nonhuman perspectives in design. However, guidance for selecting, designing, and evaluating such tools is limited, leaving designers to navigate trade-offs in user-friendliness, empathy, and resources without a shared structure. While recent work has attempted to address this by introducing parameters for MTHD representation tools, their relevance and usefulness remain unexamined. We explore how these parameters resonate in practice through workshops with 12 MTHD researchers, demonstrating that the parameters serve as decision supports during design and use, as lenses for reflection, and as a shared vocabulary …
Performer, Technologist, Machine: Co-Creating The Soul Song Sensorium,
2026
Arts University Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Performer, Technologist, Machine: Co-Creating The Soul Song Sensorium, Asha Ward, Jojo Taylor
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Soul Song Sensorium examines the negotiation between performer, technologist, and technology in the co-creation of a sound-driven wearable instrument. Initially imagined as a system translating gesture and voice into live sonic layers, the project evolved through iterative exchanges between what the performer envisioned, what was technically achievable, and what emerged unpredictably in practice. The technology frequently acted as a third actor whose behaviours, limitations, and resistances shaped both creative intention and aesthetic outcome. Rather than progressing through linear feature accumulation, the work advanced through attunement—paring back complexity, refining mappings, and learning to work with the system’s tendencies. Through this process, …
Negotiating Control With Materials: Progressive Modes Of Engagement In Design Practice,
2026
Southern University of Science and Technology, China, People's Republic of
Negotiating Control With Materials: Progressive Modes Of Engagement In Design Practice, Yuliang Kang, Enza Migliore, Jingze Liu
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper addresses a design dilemma: how can designers engage with materials that exhibit recognizable yet unpredictable behaviors? Traditional design relies on predictability and control. However, in an era of crises and complexity, we must acknowledge non-human agency and recognize that materials inherently respond and adapt. Complex material systems, characterized by self-organization, nonlinear dynamics, and emergent patterns, resist deterministic control, requiring an alternative approach. Drawing on material agency and play perspectives of rules and chances, we develop an operative framework of negotiating control, exemplified through clay fractals using the Lifting Hele-Shaw cell (LHSC). We identify three progressive modes of engagement: …
