Tagus Estuary Color Swatch – Materials As Affective Mediators In More-Than-Human Temporalities,
2026
ITI/LARSyS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Tagus Estuary Color Swatch – Materials As Affective Mediators In More-Than-Human Temporalities, Mariana Simoes, Mariana Pestana, Frederico Duarte, Valentina Nisi
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reimagines material catalogues not as static inventories but as archives of deep-time and affect: tools for sensing, caring for, and reconfiguring our relationships with the more-than-human world. It presents Tagus estuary colour swatch, a Research-through-Design exploration in which bio-pigments derived from local plant, mineral, algal, and waste streams form a colour palette embodying the estuary’s ecological rhythms. The project reframes materials beyond inert resources but rather as affective mediators of and for more-than-human temporalities – by embodying and expressing temporal processes and by enabling designers and audiences to engage with them. Positioned against the extractivist legacy of traditional …
Inclusive Design Revisited: A Paradigm Of Trustworthy Connectedness,
2026
University of Twente, The Netherlands;
Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Inclusive Design Revisited: A Paradigm Of Trustworthy Connectedness, Iris Van Hest, Eveline Van Zeeland, Jörg Henseler
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper revisits inclusive design by moving beyond its traditional emphasis on individual accessibility, which tends to overlook the relational dimension of inclusion. It proposes a paradigm of trustworthy connectedness, in which inclusion is conceptualised not merely as individual participation, but as the facilitation of relational ties between the designer or researcher and the individual or group. Inclusive design often relies on participatory methods, yet when participation and control become central, they risk silencing the very groups these approaches seek to include. Rather than participation or decision control, trustworthy connectedness, expressed through the designer’s competence and warmth, is central to …
Inclusive Co-Learning In Transnational Design Classrooms: Bridging Linguistic And Cultural Gaps Between Chinese Students And British Curricula,
2026
Beijing Jiaotong University, CN
Inclusive Co-Learning In Transnational Design Classrooms: Bridging Linguistic And Cultural Gaps Between Chinese Students And British Curricula, Linli Zhang, Jinze Hao, Yaqi Wang, Liang Xiao
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores inclusive co-learning strategies in transnational design education, focusing on Chinese students enrolled in a joint program jointly delivered by Beijing Jiaotong University and Lancaster University within China. These students complete their entire undergraduate studies domestically, without the opportunity to immerse themselves in an English-speaking or multicultural environment. As a result, they often rely on translation tools to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers when engaging with British pedagogy. Drawing on classroom observations, student interviews, and reflective teaching practices, the study proposes an Inclusive Co-Learning Framework that integrates linguistic scaffolding and cultural mediation to foster language development, cultural understanding, …
Grounding The Interspecies Playground: A More-Than-Human Framework For The Goccia Project,
2026
Department of Design - Politecnico di Milano
Grounding The Interspecies Playground: A More-Than-Human Framework For The Goccia Project, Francesco Vergani, Davide Fassi
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper describes and presents a workshop conducted with partners of a European research project that reinterprets a former industrial site – now a small urban forest – as an Interspecies Playground, a living lab of multispecies coexistence. Through systemic design, more-than-human perspectives, and transdisciplinary collaboration among scientists, experts, designers, the municipality, and local communities, the project introduces a theoretical framework of relational ecology that seeks to challenge anthropocentric urban models and promote a new conception of green urban areas. By showing the project framework – articulated along the three interconnected layers of agents, phenomena, and contexts – and the …
The Atmospheric Jukebox - A Sonic Boundary Object For Multi-Sensory Exhibition Design,
2026
Kolding School of Design, Sonic College - UC SOUTH DENMARK
The Atmospheric Jukebox - A Sonic Boundary Object For Multi-Sensory Exhibition Design, Jonas Rasmussen Kirkegaard
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Museums increasingly aim to create multisensory, immersive experiences, yet exhibition design still tends to privilege visual-first ideation and communication, risking outcomes that are photogenic rather than atmospherically coherent for visitors. This paper introduces the Atmosphere Jukebox, an interactive soundscape playback device that enables heterogeneous teams of curators, designers, architects, historians, and educators, to listen to, discuss, and negotiate sonic atmospheres in the design process. In doing so, it supports multimodal attention and a shared imagination of the affective affordances that unfold across the visitor journey. The Atmosphere Jukebox is therefore proposed as a boundary object for atmospheric staging. The contribution …
Mechanical Jewellery As Epimethean Practice: Staying With The Trouble Of Human–Machine Entanglement,
2026
School of Design, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Mechanical Jewellery As Epimethean Practice: Staying With The Trouble Of Human–Machine Entanglement, Zhiyang Ding, Guang Dai, Beverley Hood, Sarah Kettley
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how mechanical jewellery can serve as an Epimethean design practice that rethinks human–machine relationships through care, hesitation, and affective engagement. Drawing from post-anthropocentric design discourse and new materialist theory, the research investigates how low-tech, playful, and speculative prototypes can undo conventional narratives of technological progress. Through a practice-based workshop conducted at Fringe Arts Bath 2025, the study examines how wearable artefacts exhibiting unpredictable motion provoke emotional response and relational awareness in participants. The findings suggest that mechanical jewellery can operate as a modest yet generative medium for staying with the trouble of human–machine entanglement, foregrounding absurd materiality, …
Analysis Of Design Start-Up Companies’ Challenges And Enablers In Saudi Arabian Ecosystem,
2026
University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom;
Jazan University, Saudi Arabia
Analysis Of Design Start-Up Companies’ Challenges And Enablers In Saudi Arabian Ecosystem, Omaimah Alsenani, Paul Rodgers, Alexander Holliman
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s economy has shifted from oil dependence toward diversification, spotlighting the “creative economy”. This transformation highlights the design economy, where designers are pursuing entrepreneurial and commercial opportunities. Understanding the challenges and enablers that shape design start-ups is key to supporting their growth within the design economy. This paper, part of larger PhD research, explores the Saudi Arabia design ecosystem and the experiences of running a design start-up. The paper addresses the question: “How does the Saudi Arabian ecosystem support or hinder design start-ups?” It provides a qualitative perspective based on semi-structured interviews with fifteen designer-entrepreneurs across …
Relational Embodiment: Rethinking Artifacts As Mediators Of Being-With-Others,
2026
School of Industrial Design, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
Relational Embodiment: Rethinking Artifacts As Mediators Of Being-With-Others, Yufei Zeng, Junjie Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Grounded in theories of embodied cognition, extended mind, and mediating artifact, this paper proposes a human–artifact–human perspective to explore the relational mediation of artifacts in social interaction. Through a systematic review of 30 key studies published between 2010 and 2025, a four-dimensional analytical framework is constructed—embodied cues, interaction modes, mediating artifact features, and affective outcomes—to reveal how embodied design generates relations among the body, artifacts, and society. The analysis shows that embodied interaction is shifting from functional control toward relational generation, presenting four tendencies: micro-intimacy, ambient co-presence, culturally embedded bodily rituals, and slow relational rhythms. Building on these insights, the …
Body Class, The Grand Museum And The Queer Archive,
2026
Royal College of Art
Body Class, The Grand Museum And The Queer Archive, Tadeas Riha
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Tělák, a Czech slang term for physical education (PE) that also echoes tělo - body, is a theatrical exhibition, developed by an interdisciplinary team of educators, activists, architects, and theatre professionals, introducing expressions of gender as a spectrum for teenage audiences. The exhibition unfolds across two layers. The first is a scenography evoking the familiar spaces of PE; corridors, changing rooms, bathrooms, gyms, reassembled within the museum’s own charged normative setting. The second is an archive of personal stories: fragments of experience retold by actors in sound, and others inscribed in situ by a local artist. This practice-based paper traces …
Co-Designing Co-Design Workshops With Adhd Adults,
2026
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Co-Designing Co-Design Workshops With Adhd Adults, Patrick Brundell, Emily Thorn, Teresa Castle-Green, Paul Tennent, Juan Martinez Avila, Sachiyo Ito-Jaeger
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The increased recognition that minoritised people should play a more significant role in the research and design of technologies aimed at them is welcomed. Though Interaction design research has begun to address the needs of neurodivergent people, the epistemic framing of the research aims, and practical co-construction of technologies are still infrequently from a lived-experience perspective. This work sought to address some of these concerns through a series of interaction co-design workshops with ADHD adults framed as technological design for wellbeing. This paper reflects on our adaptive use of Soma and Co-design workshop methodologies to account for and speak to …
Ai And Thou: Empathy, Artificial Intelligence And Alterity In Design,
2026
Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom
Ai And Thou: Empathy, Artificial Intelligence And Alterity In Design, Matt Sinclair, Peter Buwert
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Empathy is a key differentiator in Nigel Cross' model of Design as a third discipline, and has become established as a vital component of both research and practice. Yet agreed definitions of empathy in design remain elusive, and the roles it should play have been questioned and problematised. Recent developments in the capabilities of Large Language Models have generated discussion of the possibility of both simulated and actual empathic behaviour by artificial intelligences. In this paper we gather and synthesise relevant philosophical debates on the nature and operation of AI-empathy. Concepts of alterity in the work of Martin Buber and …
Designing Archipelagic Ai: Challenging The Coloniality Of Ai Through Speculative Metaphors,
2026
ITI/LARSyS, IST - University of Lisbon, Portugal
Designing Archipelagic Ai: Challenging The Coloniality Of Ai Through Speculative Metaphors, Fabio De Almeida, Pedro Sanches, Valentina Nisi, Nuno Jardim Nunes
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Metaphors play a crucial role in how designers understand, communicate, and shape technology, and artificial intelligence (AI) is no exception. This paper introduces Archipelagic AI (AAI), a speculative framework that employs metaphor-making as a design research strategy to challenge the colonial epistemologies that structure AI systems. Developed through collaborative autoethnography and fabulation in one of Europe’s richer ecosystems (Samouco in the Tagus Estuary), AAI draws on archipelagic studies and Caribbean decolonial thought to foreground a geosocial intelligence emerging through relational nodes of situated knowledge, where matter, forces, currents, and affects interweave in fluid assemblages. Structured around three metaphorical figures — …
Designerly Ethics: Reflections On Shadowing Cancer Patients And Ideas For Embedding Ethics In Practice,
2026
University of Zaragoza, Spain
Designerly Ethics: Reflections On Shadowing Cancer Patients And Ideas For Embedding Ethics In Practice, Erika Renedo Illarregi, Laura Hartman, Yeray Sañudo Recacha, Laura Aguado González, Jorge Sierra-Pérez, Alba Medina Castillo, Victoria Artigas Ortega, Carlos Romero Piqueras
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Procedural ethics—applying for approval—alone may fail to address many issues that arise during fieldwork (ethics in the field), particularly when designers enter sensitive contexts such as healthcare. Building on our earlier contribution (DRS 2024: Embedded Ethics in Practice), we reflect on shadowing recently diagnosed cancer patients through a set of ethical considerations. Using framework analysis, we examine challenges encountered by what we term shadowers—five designers and one nurse who accompanied 14 patients throughout the service journey, from consultations to treatment. By noting the actions taken and feelings experienced as ethical issues emerged, we question how to navigate such complexities. Examining …
Appropriating Edinburgh’S Dead: Exploring The Potential Of Edinburgh’S Historic Burial Grounds As Sites For Designerly Conversations About Grief And Loss,
2026
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Appropriating Edinburgh’S Dead: Exploring The Potential Of Edinburgh’S Historic Burial Grounds As Sites For Designerly Conversations About Grief And Loss, Richard Thompson, Diane Willis, Kirstie Jamieson
DRS Biennial Conference Series
There are five unique historic burial grounds within the proximity of Edinburgh’s city centre. Cross-sector consultations with police, heritage and council officials decry the decline of these spaces. Each is at risk; erosion, limited resources, and perceived anti-social behaviour obscure their value as social spaces apt to explore, share and process grief. The potential of these historic sites has been limited to imagining convivial and heritage-aligned uses of graveyards. This case study explores their potential as unique spaces to publicly discuss bereavement, mortality and grief through design workshops. It argues that designing provides an appropriate process to scaffold these conversations …
Bridging Macro Sustainability And Everyday Life: Developing A Meso–Micro Indicator Framework For Sustainable Design In Historic Districts, The Case Of Laomendong, Nanjing,
2026
School of design, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214100, China
Bridging Macro Sustainability And Everyday Life: Developing A Meso–Micro Indicator Framework For Sustainable Design In Historic Districts, The Case Of Laomendong, Nanjing, Chen Liu, Yuwei Wu, Weimin Guo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper develops a multi-scalar indicator framework that bridges macro sustainability goals with the realities of historic district regeneration, focusing on the Laomendong Historic District in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. The study translates top-down policies into meso to micro level design indicators that capture the spatial, social, and cultural dimensions of sustainability. Using a mixed-methodology approach, it combines policy content analysis to identify macro-narratives with grounded theory-based social media analysis to reveal bottom-up perceptions and everyday experiences. The resulting framework demonstrates how sustainable design can move beyond macroeconomic and environmental metrics, embracing a broader range of considerations. Findings suggest that while …
Care-Ful Reorientations In Design,
2026
Northeastern University
Care-Ful Reorientations In Design, Irem Tekogul, Laura Forlano, Carlos Teixeira
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In an era marked by increasing uncertainty and precariousness, feminist care ethics provide a conceptual foundation for reimagining alternative futures, challenging the persistence of "futures-as-usual" that often perpetuate dominant sociotechnical regimes. Care is a future-oriented and imaginative ethic: one that requires moral imagination to recognize the needs of distant others, the vulnerabilities of future generations, and the ethical entanglements of emerging sociotechnical systems. Building on an ethnographic study of design practices within a multinational technology company, we propose reorienting questions and tactics to integrate care ethics into future-making, addressing the disjunction between techno-futures and emergent care-informed design approaches. We outline …
From Decoration To Co-Presence: Reconfiguring Human–Plant Relations In Urban Workplaces Through Aesthetic Bio-Feedback,
2026
Tsinghua University, China
From Decoration To Co-Presence: Reconfiguring Human–Plant Relations In Urban Workplaces Through Aesthetic Bio-Feedback, Yibo Meng, Bingyi Liu, Siyuan Li, Xinran Huang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Office plants are ubiquitous in urban workplaces, yet they are often treated as disposable decoration rather than living co-inhabitants. This paper examines how interaction design can reconfigure this cultural framing. Using a research-through-design approach that combines interviews, the creation of an aesthetic biofeedback artefact, and a longitudinal deployment, we explore how plant vitality, expressed through light and sound, shapes everyday encounters between employees and plants. Rather than improving maintenance efficiency, the artefact functions as a relational probe. Participants described empathy, comfort, and companionship, alongside guilt, pressure, and resistance when the plant’s expressions demanded attention. These tensions show how care for …
Integrating Co-Design And Auto-Ethnographic Approaches: A Preliminary Review Of Methods, Intentions, And Potential,
2026
Design, Monash University Faculty of Art Design and Architecture, Caulfield East, Australia
Integrating Co-Design And Auto-Ethnographic Approaches: A Preliminary Review Of Methods, Intentions, And Potential, Jingyuan Tan, Linfu Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Co-design emphasizes the outward connectivity of perspectives and aspirations, while autoethnography foregrounds the inward exploration of the personal and intimate. Recent trends in design research that integrate these approaches prompted this literature review, guided by the question: How might combining co-design and auto-ethnographic approaches contribute uniquely to design practice and research? Drawing from design studies in education, healthcare, HCI, and community engagement, the review identifies five methodological variations of co-design and auto-ethnographic integration: solo, dialogic, triangulated, cumulative, and solidary. It suggests that these collaborative-reflective–narrative approaches empower co-design practitioners to (1) navigate their evolving and layered roles and identities in relation …
Situated Knowledge In Rural Craft Practices: A Context-Sensitive Approach To Craft–Design Collaboration In Fife, Scotland,
2026
The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Situated Knowledge In Rural Craft Practices: A Context-Sensitive Approach To Craft–Design Collaboration In Fife, Scotland, Peining Sheng, Ayaan Ahmed
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper explores how craft, as an unselfconscious design practice and embodied knowledge, contributes to situated design research, based on an ethnographic field study in Fife, Scotland, and a co-creation workshop in Edinburgh. The study points out that existing studies and practices promoting craft–design collaboration tend to focus on urban contexts and designer-led methods, often resulting in a lack of context-sensitive consideration and the presence of imbalanced relationships. Thus, this study underscores that understanding the local knowledge of rural-based craft practitioners and the distinct attributes of rural settings can respond to the challenges of rural craft practices and the barriers …
Learning How To Use Bodystorming In Service Design For Generating New Insights And Ideas: An Application To Out-Of-Hours Primary Care In The Netherlands,
2026
TU Delft, The Netherlands
Learning How To Use Bodystorming In Service Design For Generating New Insights And Ideas: An Application To Out-Of-Hours Primary Care In The Netherlands, Ömer Taha Döver, Monisha Mohan, Dirk Snelders, Nikita Arora, Ruihong Geng, Paula Melo Signerez, Mathé Delissen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Bodystorming is a design method for generating new insights and ideas for service improvement through improvised, embodied roleplay. However, it is not easy to learn how to use bodystorming as a generative method. Guidance for learning focuses on how to engage in embodied social-technical interactions, but it does not specify clear goals for wanting to do so. In a case study of an out-of-hours primary care service we explored how goal setting can stimulate novice users to use bodystorming to generate insights and ideas. Over three iterations of bodystorming, a group of novice bodystormers focused on goals that they derived …
