Perceived Quality And Future Applications Of Transparent Wood: Insights From An International Focus Group,
2026
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Perceived Quality And Future Applications Of Transparent Wood: Insights From An International Focus Group, Eva Vanessa Bruno, Beatrice Lerma, Doriana Dal Palù
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Transparent wood (TW), obtained by removing lignin from natural wood and infiltrating it with bio-resin or bioplastic, has attracted renewed scientific and industrial interest over the past fifteen years as an effective alternative to plastics and glass. The research explores how this perceptual hybrid can be meaningfully presented in professional design contexts to support future use of TW. A twofold action was carried out during a focus group involving 12 international project professionals. On one hand, a sensory–perceptual analysis was conducted to identify the distinctive characteristics of the material; on the other, future application scenarios were explored through creative techniques …
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 …
Toward An Ecology Of Imagination In Benwell,
2026
Open Lab - School of Computing- Newcastle University
Toward An Ecology Of Imagination In Benwell, Ivan Pecorari, Clara Crivellaro, Usue Ruiz Arana, Ahmed Kharrufa, Vasilis Vlachokyriakos
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates the emergence of imagination as a participatory ecological process among children and adolescents in a deprived post-industrial area of Benwell, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Responding to ongoing debates about representation and agency in More-than-Human design, we advance an ecology of imagination as a theoretical framework. We situate imagination as a dynamic, evolving network of relations among diverse and ephemeral spatial-temporal actors. Drawing on a summer of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper analyses three examples of imaginative play to illustrate how spatial, material, and affective interactions generate conditions for collective creative play between humans and non-humans. The discussion explores …
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 …
Can The Thumb Point Effectively In Vr? An Evaluation Of Different 3d Pointing Techniques,
2026
Modern Industrial Design Institute, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Can The Thumb Point Effectively In Vr? An Evaluation Of Different 3d Pointing Techniques, Haoran Wei, Hanjia Zheng, Ningfeng Tang, Boyi Lian, Chen Feng, Xintang Wang, Chunlei Chai
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Technological advances have made VR interactions more natural, yet fatigue and social awkwardness persist. Microgestures offer a promising solution. However, prior research has focused mainly on the index finger, leaving the thumb’s potential as a stable, low-fatigue ray-casting modality underexplored. This study conducted two experiments to examine whether the thumb can function as an effective technique for 3D pointing in VR. Experiment 1 compared four input methods: VR controller, hand tracking, index-finger pointing, and thumb pointing. The controller was most efficient, while hand tracking provided greater stability but higher fatigue. Both microgestures outperformed hand tracking in efficiency and fatigue reduction. …
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 …
From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London,
2026
University of Southampton, United Kingdom
From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Hackney Wick has long been regarded as an urban edgeland, marked by significant poverty since the 1860s, with distinctive topographic and socio- economic features. Yet in the early 2000s, it saw a rapid transformation into a creative space as artists began to occupy abandoned warehouses, building a live- work culture and quickly establishing itself as one of Europe’s most vibrant artistic communities. More recently, the development of the London Olympic infrastructure and government-led urban regeneration initiatives have accelerated gentrification and drive for social capital, whilst intensifying social exclusion and community marginalisation amongst disadvantaged communities. This paper integrates visual ethnography (graphic …
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: …
When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design,
2026
Humak University of Applied Sciences, Finland
When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design, Nina Luostarinen, Melanie Sarantou
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores the Miyanohara participatory land art project in Ōmuta City, Japan, as an innovative teaching method for integrating international exchange students into new cultural and environmental settings within higher education institutions (HEIs). By creating a 74-metre installation depicting the Kasumi salamander at a former coal mine site, eleven international students from Kyushu University's Strategic Design course engaged in embodied learning that transcended linguistic and cultural barriers. Using arts-based methodologies and an eco-social design approach, we demonstrate how land art can serve as a powerful tool for HEIs to foster environmental awareness, cultural integration, and transformational learning experiences for …
Design In The Wild,
2026
Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China
Design In The Wild, Peiyao Cheng, Gianluca Carella, Sylvia Xihui Liu, Cees De Bont
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The DRS2026 track titled “Design for business in the wild” examines how design operates within business contexts shaped by uncertainty, resource constraints, organizational complexity, and technological change. Building on long-standing discussions of design’s contribution to innovation, differentiation, user experience, and strategic advantage, the track reflects a shift from demonstrating design’s business relevance to examining the conditions through which design value becomes actionable in practice. The following contributions are organized around three themes: Entrepreneurial Ecologies, Organizational Frictions, and Data, AI & Foresight. Drawing on 12 accepted papers, the track highlights how design for business is increasingly examined through its situated relations …
Uncertainty In The Studio: Ai As A Material In The Design Of Tangible Products,
2026
Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, The
Uncertainty In The Studio: Ai As A Material In The Design Of Tangible Products, Sam Theelen, Giulia Talamini, Roy Op Het Veld, Demi Sparidans, Jesse Josua Benjamin, Stephan Wensveen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
AI uncertainty has been proposed as a design material that provides practitioners with a foothold to engage with technical attributes of these technologies beyond any given output. However, it is unclear what role AI uncertainty can play in tangible product design processes. In this paper, we investigate this through two design research projects following a studio methodology; combining first-person reflective making with autoethnographic elements, incorporating a variety of AI technologies (e.g., object detection, image and video generation, mesh extraction). Through the analysis of these first-person accounts and reflection on design processes and outcomes, we find qualitatively different types of uncertainties …
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 …
Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning,
2026
Institute of Design at Illinois Tech, United States of America
Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning, Seulgi Sylvia Kim, Zach Pino, Paige Safyer, August Neyrey, Richa Sharma, Tzu-Chi Huang, Maria Sekyi
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Online learning platforms give learners unprecedented control over pacing, yet this flexibility often leaves students without support at the moments when they need it most—during transitions between activities, cognitive states, or levels of engagement. Existing self-regulated learning (SRL) interventions tend to rely on fixed schedules or simplistic triggers, overlooking how learners’ trajectories unfold and where they begin to diverge toward productive or unproductive pathways. This paper introduces a framework for trajectory-aware interventions, an approach that integrates temporal design with real-time behavioral diagnostics to identify and support critical transition moments. Through a comparative analysis of major online learning platforms and a …
More-Than-Human Data Practices,
2026
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
More-Than-Human Data Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Sara Lenzi, Chris Speed, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Jiwei Zhou
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Grounded in post-anthropocentric and post-humanist perspectives, this track explores more-than-human data practices that challenge dominant data paradigms and cultivate alternative modes of engagement with the world, from the microbial to the planetary. Rather than treating non-human life as objects of measurement and classification, as data subjects, the contributions in this track ask what it would mean to recognize organisms, systems, and processes as data co-producers, whose perceptual worlds, temporal rhythms, and relational entanglements actively participate in what counts as knowledge. This reorientation carries profound consequences for the designer. Co-producing data with more-than-human others is a political, epistemic, and ontological commitment …
Learning Design Capabilities In Public Administrations Through Sandbox Experiments: Insights From A 12-City Eu Network,
2026
Aalborg University
Learning Design Capabilities In Public Administrations Through Sandbox Experiments: Insights From A 12-City Eu Network, Patricia Csobánczi, Nicola Morreli, Rike Neuhoff
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper reports on an EU research project involving 12 cities in a multi-thematic innovation network. The project supports innovation and the testing of innovative procurement practices, and also generates or improves design capabilities in public administrations. Once local challenges were defined and two solution providers were selected for each city, civil servants worked in Sandbox mode, experimenting in their own urban contexts. This paper focuses on the Sandbox phase, which provided an opportunity for knowledge exchange, inspiration, and the diffusion of design capabilities. Given the extreme difference in local practices, knowledge exchange and shared learning must be accurately planned; …
In Search Of The Definitions For Biodesign: Practice, Identity And Biodesign Literacy,
2026
Elisava Barcelona School of Design and Engineering
In Search Of The Definitions For Biodesign: Practice, Identity And Biodesign Literacy, Adela Orcajada, Isabel Ordoñez, Valentina Rognoli
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Since its inception two decades ago, biodesign has consistently been conceptually hazy. It´s an emerging interdisciplinary field lying somewhere between biology and material sciences on one hand, and art and design practice on the other. Despite efforts by academia and industry to define and contextualise biodesign, the lack of shared vocabulary between its two sides and clear standards for who qualifies as a biodesigner continues to hinder its development. This study combines a literature review to examine how biodesign has been defined over time, alongside a survey that analyzes who identifies as a biodesigner. The aim is to explore the …
From Conflict To Care: A Design Learning Experiment On Food Justice In Rio De Janeiro,
2026
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
From Conflict To Care: A Design Learning Experiment On Food Justice In Rio De Janeiro, Laura Cipriani, Claudio Magalhães, Stefano Maffei
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper discusses the Design for Peace Ecosystem: Urban Conflict and Food Justice course as a situated experiment in transformative design education. Conducted in Rio de Janeiro, the course combined participatory mapping, desk research, and fieldwork to explore how design can reveal and reframe tensions and hidden structural injustices within urban Food Systems. Students first developed urban food conflict maps to visualise inequalities in access, labour, and cultural recognition. Through desk research, they identified local “food care” initiatives that address food conflicts and promote the right to an adequate food culture. Using ethnographic diaries and ethnography techniques, they engaged with …
