Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Keyword
-
- Design (12)
- Participatory design (7)
- Design research (6)
- Design education (5)
- Sustainability (5)
-
- Collaboration (4)
- Design history (4)
- Design methods (4)
- Care (3)
- DRS (3)
- DRS Newsletter (3)
- Design Process (3)
- Design Research Society (3)
- Newsletter (3)
- Service design (3)
- Anthropocene (2)
- Art and Design (2)
- Citizen science (2)
- Co-creation (2)
- Cognition (2)
- Communication (2)
- Cultural Studies (2)
- Culture (2)
- Design And Society (2)
- Design History (2)
- Design philosophy (2)
- Design research newsletter (2)
- Design research quarterly (2)
- Design research society (2)
- Drs (2)
- Publication Year
- Publication
-
- DRS Biennial Conference Series (169)
- IASDR Conference Series (51)
- Nordes Conference Series (34)
- Learn X Design Conference Series (24)
- DRS Conference Volumes (11)
-
- Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG) Conference Series (11)
- ServDes Conference Series (9)
- Textile Intersections Conference Series (4)
- Design Research Newsletters (1966-1999) (3)
- Pluriversal Design Conference Series (3)
- Design Research Quarterly (2006 - 2009) (2)
- Book Reviews (1)
- DRS Summer Meetings (1)
- Quarterly Council Reports (1)
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 30 of 324
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Textile Commons Of Care: Intergenerational Mending And Temporalities, Sam Bennett, Gabriele Ferri
Textile Commons Of Care: Intergenerational Mending And Temporalities, Sam Bennett, Gabriele Ferri
Textile Intersections Conference Series
Visible mending is increasingly recognized as both a functional and creative craft practice and a form of material intelligence, where knowledge emerges through tactile engagement. This paper adds an additional layer that visible mending in community, where the act of mending is also visible, functions as a materially grounded practice of ongoing care through which knowledge and learning are distributed across people, textiles, and time. Drawing on a multi‑sited qualitative study, including a nine‑month global mending cohort, a visible mending workshop, and interviews with experienced menders, the paper examines how care aesthetics helps clarify the social and epistemic dimensions of …
User-Centered Dread: A Lovecraftian Critique Of Design, Lewis Urquhart, Emma Lawrie
User-Centered Dread: A Lovecraftian Critique Of Design, Lewis Urquhart, Emma Lawrie
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper offers a speculative critique of contemporary design practice through the lens of Lovecraftian horror by critically interrogating assumptions embedded in user-centered design theory. Drawing on the oeuvre of 'weird fiction' author H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmically pessimistic mythologies, this paper explores three thematic dimensions - control, user unknowability, alien materiality - to reveal the limitations of human-centred design paradigms. Utlising examples from literature, film, and everyday experience, this critique demonstrates how design’s aspirational narratives, centered on mastery, empathy, and progress, are increasingly inadequate in addressing the complexities of a more-than-human world. The concept of 'user-centered dread' emerges as a central …
Archives And Graphic Memory: 1980s Brazilian Rock Album Covers As Cultural Heritage, Paulo Eduardo Moretto, Priscila Lena Farias
Archives And Graphic Memory: 1980s Brazilian Rock Album Covers As Cultural Heritage, Paulo Eduardo Moretto, Priscila Lena Farias
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The centrality of modernist and institution-centred narratives has narrowed the scope of Brazilian graphic design throughout history, limiting its cultural and epistemological diversity. This article explores the value of researching graphic artefacts normally understood as not pertinent to design research, focusing on album covers from the Brazilian rock scene of the 1980s. Based on the formation of an archive of 155 covers, this study emphasizes the need for appropriate methods to analyse mass-culture artefacts whose wide circulation shapes collective design practices and visual imaginaries. By reflecting on the criteria of selection, interpretation, and preservation that determine what is collected, analysed, …
Participatory Design As Third Space: Iterative Ethic In Singapore’S Contemporary Multiculturalism, Cheng Chen
Participatory Design As Third Space: Iterative Ethic In Singapore’S Contemporary Multiculturalism, Cheng Chen
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Participatory designers in Singapore work within Bhabha’s “third space,” where identities and practices are continuously negotiated across cultural boundaries. This qualitative study, based on interviews and ethnographic observation with 18 designers addressing social welfare for marginalized communities, examines how designers’ intersectional identities—such as female, queer, Chinese, and gig creatives—shape an ethic of care rooted in Asianised neighbourliness. Designers strategically inhabit in-between spaces, balancing top-down and bottom-up approaches through critical curiosity and cultural competence. Findings identify three interlinked personas: (1) Facilitator—mediating perspectives and trust; (2) Maker—engaging in embodied, situated making; and (3) Reflexive practitioner—cultivating curiosity across demographics. This iterative ethic enables …
Make It So(Und): Speculative Sonic Metaphors As Boundary Objects For Design Research, Kc Collins
Make It So(Und): Speculative Sonic Metaphors As Boundary Objects For Design Research, Kc Collins
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates how speculative sound design can employ metaphors as boundary objects to mediate shared understanding across users and designers. Because sound is ephemeral and difficult to describe, participants often rely on metaphor, drawing on nature, human behaviour, or emotion. We surveyed 72 people online to respond to textual prompts with descriptions of futuristic sound objects, and analysed their responses using several methods. We present results and outline suggestions for re-deploying sonic metaphors as design prompts, and discuss their potential to support sound design.
The Meandering Practitioner: When Research Emerges In Relational Resistance And Intentional Ambiguity, Markus Wernli, Kam-Fai Chan, Jonathan Yu, Josh Wolper
The Meandering Practitioner: When Research Emerges In Relational Resistance And Intentional Ambiguity, Markus Wernli, Kam-Fai Chan, Jonathan Yu, Josh Wolper
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper theorizes meandering as a dispositional heuristic in design research, foregrounding how researchers can encounter complexity through nuanced, situated journeying. Drawing on the case of SoilTrust nutrient-cycling praxis in Hong Kong, the study identifies four key dispositions – nimble resistance, contextual reasoning, temporal suppleness, and deliberate ambiguity – that enable practitioners to respond to structural challenges with humility, curiosity, and strategic indirection. Rather than pursuing fixed goals, meandering researchers cultivate relational awareness, embrace uncertainty, and reconfigure material and social systems through iterative, practice-led inquiry. Anchored in agential realism and indirect action, meanderability reframes design as a life-embedded mode of …
Biodiverse Design And The Ethics Of Bioempathy In Practice, Delphine Lewandowski
Biodiverse Design And The Ethics Of Bioempathy In Practice, Delphine Lewandowski
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper investigates biodiverse design as a practice through which environmental ethics can inform architectural production. Drawing on the concept of bioempathy—understood as the recognition of the intrinsic value of the biotic community—it develops an ethical and operational framework for guiding design reasoning. This framework is then applied to a reflective analysis of biodiverse wall prototypes developed by the author with an interdisciplinary team, used as an empirical ground to examine how ecological intentions were translated into material and spatial decisions, and how observations of plant establishment and spontaneous colonisation contribute to reassessing the assumptions embedded in those intentions. The …
More Than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge Of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition And Embodied Experiences, Enza Migliore, Mirna Zordan, Peiyue Lin
More Than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge Of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition And Embodied Experiences, Enza Migliore, Mirna Zordan, Peiyue Lin
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Concrete builds the assets and aesthetics of contemporary cities. This research suggests that concrete also shapes emotions and cognition, generating a tacit body of valuable experience. Construction workers, who engage with this material daily, embody expertise through their bodily practices. Yet their insights remain unheard and underrepresented in the design discourse. This study adopts a material engagement approach, using concrete samples as probes and conducting semi-structured on-site interviews with 14 workers in Shenzhen, China. Analysing 280 minutes of video and audio data thematically, the research reveals that workers and materials mutually shape each other. Workers develop their understanding of concrete …
How Sound Knowledge And Education Can Support Designers In Creating Museum Experiences: Insights From Semi-Structured Interviews With Experts In Acoustics/Sound, Yi Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Today, the growing demand for sound in shaping multisensory museum experiences requires exhibition designers to acquire relevant sound knowledge. However, designers often find it difficult to identify applicable insights across the vast and interdisciplinary fields of acoustics and sound studies. Thus, this paper conducts twelve semi-structured interviews with experts in acoustics and sound-related disciplines. The findings establish a basic sound knowledge framework comprising four thematic areas with related concepts: fundamentals of acoustics, sound and space, sound and audience experience, and sound control and technology. In addition, the paper explores interdisciplinary communication and collaboration in sound design practices within exhibition productions. …
Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan
Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As global cities become increasingly transnational, retail environments have become key sites where mobile publics negotiate belonging through spatial and commercial experience. While transnational consumers are widely theorised, the spatial implications of their participation in global retail remain underexplored. This conceptual paper draws from transnational and diaspora studies to argue that retail design operates as a transcultural interface where familiarity and difference coexist, shaping plural modes of belonging. It proposes the concept, ‘Transnationally Resonant Retail Design’, a conceptual framework outlining how affective resonance, cultural mediation, and social recognition foster civic belonging within commercial spaces. These principles are illustrated by the …
The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang
The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design plays a key role in driving economic and organizational transformations. However, existing approaches face significant challenges in addressing the translation of cross-cultural needs, integrating diverse perspectives, and critically reassessing the role of design within the singular economic/efficiency paradigm, particularly regarding affective experiences assessment such as comfort. To address these, this study proposes a qualitative framework that incorporates multiple stakeholders and cross-cultural users into the design process, referred to as the Diversity-Co-Creation-Framework (DCF). Through four phases—Scanning, Framing, Mapping, and Deepening—the DCF combines tools such as semi-structured interviews and the Futures Triangle from foresight research to engage opinion leaders and cross-cultural …
Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee
Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Sustainability transitions are marked by growing pains: tensions between planetary and local scales, global urgency and lived experience. This paper argues that techno-centric, metric-driven, and scalable approaches obscure inequalities, conceal the labour of maintenance, and overlook affective dimensions. It proposes a counter-infrastructural approach that understands sustainability as emerging through infrastructural, ecological, temporal, embodied, and relational dynamics. Drawing on interdisciplinary theory, participatory workshops, and experiential experiments, the study shows how process-oriented practices can reconnect individuals to energy systems. Bioregional thinking, community-led initiatives, repair and maintenance, and sensory engagement are explored as alternatives that foreground resilience and interdependence. Through lenses of scale, …
Unmaking Ai’S Classificatory Ontologies: Situated Annotation As Design Inquiry In Human–Ai Assemblages, Antonella Autuori
Unmaking Ai’S Classificatory Ontologies: Situated Annotation As Design Inquiry In Human–Ai Assemblages, Antonella Autuori
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design research can unmake AI's classificatory ontologies through situated and embodied annotation practices. Drawing on feminist, queer, and critical data epistemologies, it reframes bias not as a technical flaw but as a generative condition that reveals how knowledge is produced and negotiated within human–AI assemblages. An autotheoretical experiment grounds the inquiry. The researcher creates and annotates a dataset of self-representations using subjective, affective, and relational labels, training a small-scale model to probe classification as an interpretive encounter shaped by embodiment, ambiguity, and positionality. Building on the shift from debiasing toward reflexive data practices in design and …
Sticky Vitalities: Developing Play Design Sensitivities Through Material-Affective Practices, Jennifer Ann Skriver, Helle Marie Skovbjerg
Sticky Vitalities: Developing Play Design Sensitivities Through Material-Affective Practices, Jennifer Ann Skriver, Helle Marie Skovbjerg
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While design for play has shown how materials invite and shape engagement, less attention has been given to how material encounters may hold participation over time. This article examines how participation is sustained through material–affective dynamics in early childhood play. Drawing on Spinoza’s (1985) concept of potentia, Ahmed’s (2004a, 2010a, 2010b) notion of stickiness, and Slaby et al.’s (2019) affective arrangements, the study explores how capacities and orientations unfold in situated encounters. Based on design-based research in Danish daycare, the analysis centers on a vignette in which a child remains in shared play through engagement with tape. The analysis shows …
Extending Futures Literacy To Speech Scientists And Technologists, Sjuul Bos, Simone Ashby, Julian Hanna
Extending Futures Literacy To Speech Scientists And Technologists, Sjuul Bos, Simone Ashby, Julian Hanna
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As speech technologies make rapid strides, facilitating multi-tasking, workflow automation, and cross-cultural collaboration, attention to the adverse effects of such technologies (e.g., legacy bias and inequities) continues to lag, exposing the need for non-designers, such as speech scientists and technologists, to critically assess the ethical implications of their work. In this paper, we present the art-based futuring methods used in a speech technology summer school we co-organized for guiding students in exploring the unintended consequences of speech technology outputs. By sharing our methods and pedagogical insights, we aim to help educators promote discussions on themes like fairness and inclusivity and …
Transitional Materials And Collaborative Craft: European–Indonesian Design Practices From The Design Matters Lab Programme Toward A Resilient Future, Xingyu Tao, Samantha Vettese
Transitional Materials And Collaborative Craft: European–Indonesian Design Practices From The Design Matters Lab Programme Toward A Resilient Future, Xingyu Tao, Samantha Vettese
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design Matters Lab (DML) was a collaborative design programme that brought together ten emerging designers from Europe and Indonesia for an online and in-person design residency in Bandung, Indonesia. This paper explores the concepts, methods, and outcomes of DML, offering a potential blueprint for small-sized international businesses seeking to integrate crafting techniques and local, sustainable materials into their manufacturing processes. The project also proposes a methodology for teaching sustainability in design through meaningful environmental engagement rooted in local collaboration and applied practice. It emphasises the importance of working with local communities and using locally available waste and bio- materials. The …
Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios
Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Voice loss after total laryngectomy disrupts identity and quality of life yet current assistive technologies reproduce techno-ableist assumptions, prioritizing speech mimicry over identity restoration while systematic marginalization excludes laryngectomees from research and innovation. This paper presents a care-centred participatory design agenda bridging a propositional approach “Singing Without a Larynx”, a vowel-based vocal interface for singing, with cross-cultural photovoice research in the United States and Argentina. Grounded in care ethics, we operationalize attentiveness, responsibility, and relational accountability, positioning participants as co-designers whose embodied knowledge shapes technological imaginaries, and community challenges and assets. We propose: (1) a critical framework integrating care ethics, …
Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures, Emile De Visscher, James Auger
Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures, Emile De Visscher, James Auger
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Each material production entails an ecosystem of interrelations linking geopolitical, economic, technological, cultural, social and sanitary dimensions, sometimes on a global scale. As designers, we are rarely conscious of these realities, and limit our actions to material selection at the scale of the artefact in constrained industrial and cultural settings. However, at a time of ecological crisis, tracking, revealing and understanding these complex systems is becoming an imperative if we are to transition towards resilient futures rooted in socio-economic realities. This article will present a pedagogical approach developed with Design Research MA students, where investigation and speculation stem from a …
From Waste To Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation In The South African Context: The Case Of Clothes To Good, Jennifer Murray, Lindsey Carey, Desiree Smal, Adelaide Sheik
From Waste To Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation In The South African Context: The Case Of Clothes To Good, Jennifer Murray, Lindsey Carey, Desiree Smal, Adelaide Sheik
DRS Biennial Conference Series
South Africa is a country which is facing significant textile waste problem. High volumes of second-hand products are entering the marketplace and represent an opportunity to SMEs and micro-businesses. Clothes to Good (CTG), a South African charitable organisation, are working to offset this challenge by creating upcycling programmes which repurpose these products through micro-business models designed to empower mothers of neurodivergent children. Neurodiversity is rising in South Africa and sensory stimuli products are an opportunity to repurpose second-hand clothing to products to support these consumers. This research represents the pilot study of a larger project investigating micro-business programmes creating weighted …
Environmentality's Integrated Design: Iso Standards As Infrastructural Semiotics, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun
Environmentality's Integrated Design: Iso Standards As Infrastructural Semiotics, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Tracing the emergence of neoliberalism, Michel Foucault introduced the concept of environmentality to describe a form of power in which control is exercised through the design of an increasingly technologically mediated environment to ensure economic circulation. Decades in, environmentality has reshaped how our habitats are conceptualized, designed, and perceived. In many levels, design has stopped being an independent autonomous task to be integrated and automated within the operative nature of our milieux. This integrated design operates through infrastructural semiotics, i.e. texts, codes, guidelines, indicators, benchmarks and protocols as well as other ecologies of biological, social and machinic signs like notifications …
Affective Materialities And Textile Agency: The Apron As A Device Of Gender And Class, Camila Andrea Rios Erazo
Affective Materialities And Textile Agency: The Apron As A Device Of Gender And Class, Camila Andrea Rios Erazo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This article analyses textiles as living materials endowed with their own agency. In addition to the emotions and memories they evoke, textiles are imbued with vitality. When they occupy an intimate and private space, such as a home, they act as a kind of soft architecture, absorbing the words, gestures, smells, memories and relationships that emerge within that environment. Steeped in everyday aesthetics and imbued with feminine care, these materials face a society with clear and visible power structures as they cross the threshold into the public sphere. This is accentuated when these textiles cover a body, revealing social hierarchies …
The Transformative Nature Of Food And The Transition Of Traditional Desserts Into Industrial Products: A Case Study Through A Transformational Design Lens, Burcu Torum
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines the transformation of traditional Turkish desserts into contemporary industrial food products through the framework of transformational design. Grounded in the premise that food functions not only as a biological necessity but also as a carrier of cultural memory, identity, and social meaning, the study explores how traditional foods can be reinterpreted within modern production systems, consumption patterns, and sustainability expectations. Drawing on student projects from a food design course in an industrial design department during the 2024–2025 academic year, the research analyzes how desserts are redesigned according to industrial constraints and contemporary lifestyles. Using thematic analysis, findings …
Designing Narrative Reconstruction From Bamboo Slips: A Rag-Agent Approach For Cultural Scene Generation, Qijun Tian, Yuqian Yao, Zhengyu Chen, Hanling Zhang
Designing Narrative Reconstruction From Bamboo Slips: A Rag-Agent Approach For Cultural Scene Generation, Qijun Tian, Yuqian Yao, Zhengyu Chen, Hanling Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As large language models (LLMs) become increasingly integrated into cultural heritage research, practices such as artifact reconstruction, content generation, and virtual restoration are rapidly advancing. Generative artificial intelligence is unlocking new narrative potential for jiandu (bamboo and wooden slips), offering innovative approaches to cultural expression and historical reconstruction. However, general-purpose language models often face limitations in domain knowledge and semantic reliability, making it difficult to ensure accuracy and traceability in jiandu-based generation. To address these challenges, this study proposes a virtual restoration framework for jiandu narratives based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and agent mechanisms. Using the Liye Qin slips as …
From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian
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 …
Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad, Soyoun Jang, Jay David David Bolter
Historicising Speculative Design With Mcluhan’S Tetrad, Soyoun Jang, Jay David David Bolter
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper introduces and applies Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad model, grounded in critical media studies, as an interpretative framework for analysing corporate concept videos as design fictions. Through a close reading of seven videos, we identify three recurring themes: present as future, the rhetoric of the new and socio-economic utopia. In parallel, the two diagonals of the Tetrad reveal contrasting orientations: the enhances-obsolesces diagonal reflects a corporate anticipatory (non-radical) future, whereas the retrieves-reverses diagonal is more critical and disruptive. We discuss figure-ground reversal as a key strategy for historicising corporate concept videos and suggest how the Tetrad can foster historical reflexivity …
Ai' S Brush On Novice Posters: Unfolding Visual Competence Shifts Of Design Students, Yisu Zhao, Chuhan Li, Qianqian Hu, Fang Liu, Renke He
Ai' S Brush On Novice Posters: Unfolding Visual Competence Shifts Of Design Students, Yisu Zhao, Chuhan Li, Qianqian Hu, Fang Liu, Renke He
DRS Biennial Conference Series
As generative AI tools increasingly permeate design education, questions arise about their impact on novice students’ creative competence. This study addresses two research questions: (RQ1) How does AI participation affect students’ creative outcomes, particularly the visual dimensions of their work? (RQ2) How do evaluators redefine competence amid AI involvement in novice design students’ creative processes? Using a mixed-method approach, Study1 analysed professional evaluations of 88 student projects, showing that AI-assisted works scored higher in creativity and visual elaboration but not in design logic, with greater score divergence.Study2 involved interviews with eight design experts, revealing tensions in evaluators’ attribution of competence …
Queering Empathy In/For/With/By Design, Jessica Meharry
Queering Empathy In/For/With/By Design, Jessica Meharry
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Empathy is widely used as the initial stage of the design process to understand users and meet their needs and desires. Recently these methods have been critiqued for commodifying empathy in commercial practice, centering the designer instead of the user, and failing to account for power dynamics. Empathy is also under attack in political spheres, increasing the dehumanization of others. To address these criticisms, we explore the value of empathy in design processes and examine how queer theory and queering methodologies can help designers move past “walking in someone else’s shoes” towards intersectional design processes rooted in political responsibility. Synthesizing …
Making Worlds Thinkable: Design As Diffractive Sensemaking., Joan Vellvé Rafecas
Making Worlds Thinkable: Design As Diffractive Sensemaking., Joan Vellvé Rafecas
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Across contemporary design practice, an attitude has been consolidating design as diffractive sensemaking. It is not method- or outcome-oriented, nor even necessarily a discipline, but a habit of attention in which fragments, measures and memories, timings and routines, infrastructures and more-than-human traces are placed so they read through one another to develop conscious, situated practices. Often grounded in research practice, these approaches lead to diverse outcomes. In all of them, an ecosophic orientation keeps environmental, social and mental ecologies mutually in play without collapsing them into a single index or metric. In such practices, care appears as activism: framing, positioning, …
Critical Assembly: Exploring The Role Of Critical Making In Complex Technology Relationships, Chuan Khoo
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, …
The ‘Cuteness Matrix’: Mapping Cuteness As An Affective Strategy For Purpose-Led Communication Design, Guo Yi Xian Yix, Mimi Nguyen, David Preston
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 …