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Imagining Open-Source Ecosystems For Experimental Weaving: A View From The Adacad Project, Laura Devendorf, Deanna Gelosi, Etta Sandry
Imagining Open-Source Ecosystems For Experimental Weaving: A View From The Adacad Project, Laura Devendorf, Deanna Gelosi, Etta Sandry
Textile Intersections Conference Series
This paper describes and reflects on a series of activities, performed from 2024-present, that looked to grow an open-source ecosystem centered around [Anon. Software], a tool for what we began to call experimental weaving. We describe how we came to see experimental weaving as a term that can capture approaches and applications for weaving beyond common characterizations that center disciplinary affiliation or professional identity. We sketch the boundaries and sites of experimental weaving as it relates to our project and offer insights on common needs and challenges our project presented for these groups. We conclude by envisioning broader ecosystems for …
Scaffolding Transition Pathways: Integrating Ses Resilience As A Dialogic Tool For Community-Based Co-Design, Jiarong Hu, Angus Donald Campbell, Gabriela Baron
Scaffolding Transition Pathways: Integrating Ses Resilience As A Dialogic Tool For Community-Based Co-Design, Jiarong Hu, Angus Donald Campbell, Gabriela Baron
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper addresses a challenge for Transition Design (TD): how to make long-term, systemic frameworks tangible and actionable in small-scale, community-led practice. We introduce and evaluate the preliminary results of a methodological framework that scaffolds TD backcasting with seven principles of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) resilience for urban gardens. Grounded in a community garden case study in Shanghai, we analyse data from semi-structured interviews and a co-design workshop to evaluate this method in practice. Our findings reveal that this method functions as a dialogic tool, enabling participants to diagnose systemic issues, negotiate trade-offs, and co-create near-term actions with a longer-term vision. …
Modes Of Being Amid Anthropocene: Living Through The 2024 Rio Grande Do Sul Floods, Natalia Dai Prá Penteado, Guilherme Meyer
Modes Of Being Amid Anthropocene: Living Through The 2024 Rio Grande Do Sul Floods, Natalia Dai Prá Penteado, Guilherme Meyer
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper situates the 2024 Rio Grande do Sul climate disaster within the intertwined crises of the Anthropocene, arguing that those impacted developed situated practices to preserve identities and sustain life amidst collapse. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirteen individuals directly affected by the floods, the research identifies Modes of Being that illuminate strategies of adaptation, care, and continuity rooted in Latin American ontologies. Through the interpretive lenses of Anna Tsing’s concepts of ghosts, monsters, and ruins, these modes reveal how to endure life in the Anthropocene and reconfigure identities and relations to persist. The study proposes a framework of …
Learning To Design With Communities: Situated Public Design Education Through The Roots Project In The Gambia, Mireia Sierra, Juan José Ramos, Ramon Bragos
Learning To Design With Communities: Situated Public Design Education Through The Roots Project In The Gambia, Mireia Sierra, Juan José Ramos, Ramon Bragos
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper presents the ROOTS Project, developed by interdisciplinary student teams from Esade, UPC, and IED within Fusion Point's Challenge-Based Innovation framework, in collaboration with IdeaSquare at CERN. As part of a challenge proposed by IDAEA-CSIC (Spain) and the Sankandi Youth Development Association (SYDA, The Gambia), students co-designed low-cost environmental monitoring tools to support community-led mangrove restoration in the River Gambia region. A two-week field deployment in Sankandi embedded the project within a layered local governance structure (the Alkalo, the Village Development Committee, and its Environmental Committee) through which the technology was formally adopted and transferred. Drawing on student reflections …
Reframing Architectural Practice Through Territory And Emotion: The Atlas Of Emotions In Bajo Atrato, Colombia, Carolina Saldarriaga-Cardona
Reframing Architectural Practice Through Territory And Emotion: The Atlas Of Emotions In Bajo Atrato, Colombia, Carolina Saldarriaga-Cardona
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study reframes architectural practice in Bajo Atrato, Colombia, through a relational understanding of territory and emotion, during the implementation of the Peace Agreement. Using a situated research-by-design approach, the study combines field journeys, workshops on emotional cartographies, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and audiovisual recordings in Carmen del Darién, Marriaga Swamp, Triganá Bay, and Santa María de la Antigua del Darién. These methods consider everyday life, memory, and collective care as forms of territorial knowledge. The recognition of territories, identification of emotions, and the visibility of the Territorial Expressions of Grieving led to the creation of the Atlas of Emotions, …
Design With Care: Theories, Practices, Methods, And Politics, Zixuan Wang, Jiashuo Liu, Bow Yiying Wu, John Vines, Karey Helms, Sarah Kettley, Paul Rodgers, Ann Light
Design With Care: Theories, Practices, Methods, And Politics, Zixuan Wang, Jiashuo Liu, Bow Yiying Wu, John Vines, Karey Helms, Sarah Kettley, Paul Rodgers, Ann Light
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This is an overview editorial of the track "Design with Care: Theories, Practices, Methods, and Politics" at the Design Research Society (DRS) conference 2026. In this track, we discuss how care could serve as a critical lens guiding research and design. Our track received 55 full paper submissions, and 21 of which have been accepted through a double-blind peer-review process. Together with three additional submissions from the open track, we organise these papers into four theme sessions: Knowing with Care, Practicing with Care, Co-designing with Care, and Making with Care. Collectively, the track demonstrates diverse ways of engaging with care …
Patterns Of Everyday Care: Translating Cultural Practices For Online Communities, Austin Toombs, Seora Park, Tilar Manion, Xinyun Zhang
Patterns Of Everyday Care: Translating Cultural Practices For Online Communities, Austin Toombs, Seora Park, Tilar Manion, Xinyun Zhang
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Design research in social computing has used the concept of care to describe how technologies help or hinder interpersonal support online. Yet opportunities remain to explore how the subtle, everyday forms of care that have long sustained communities can inform social technology design. Addressing this, we present a collection of design patterns that translate culturally specific, everyday social practices like passeggiata (Italian social stroll) and sobremesa (Spanish post-meal lingering) into design prompts for digital platforms. Our collection has five pattern families: Shared Habits and Routines, Atmospheric Qualities, Collective Identities, Facilitation Roles, and Boundary Practices. The patterns map these families to …
Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng
Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Despite the advancement of sustainable design, a critical paradox persists: many practices remain embedded in industrial paradigms, failing to address deep-seated socio-natural contradictions. Grounded in the Eco-Marxist "metabolic rift" framework and informed by recent Agricultural Innovation Design (AID) research, this study proposes a key path for mending these rifts. The research offers a systemic framework for intervening in complex social-ecological systems. The primary conclusions are: (1) metabolic rifts are fundamentally rooted in relational alienation, characterized by the disruption of healthy and reciprocal metabolic relationships between society and nature; (2) structural sustainability requires reshaping metabolic relationships across social, ecological, and intergenerational …
Co-Designing Culture: A Grounded Theory Of Participatory Practice In Indian Folk Music, Abhinav Agrawal, Mudit Chaturvedi, Gaurang Agrawal
Co-Designing Culture: A Grounded Theory Of Participatory Practice In Indian Folk Music, Abhinav Agrawal, Mudit Chaturvedi, Gaurang Agrawal
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Prevailing accounts of co-design remain anchored in Western formal practice. This study repositions Indian folk music as a culturally embedded site of collaborative design. Drawing on Murphy’s anthropology of design and a grounded theory approach, we analysed 1,621 coded segments from interviews with 23 first-generation folk artists across 14 Indian states. We show that musicians function as cultural designers who translate lived experience and shared moral economies into adaptive musical forms through participatory routines: community observation, collective ideation, performance-based prototyping, and iterative calibration through audience feedback. We formalise these dynamics in the Cultural Co-Design Flow model, illuminating how layered semantics, …
Does Taboo Constrain Self-Knowledge?: A Design-Led Inquiry Into The Intimate Health Of Older Women, Renata Rocha, Ayşe Özge Ağça, Teresa Almeida
Does Taboo Constrain Self-Knowledge?: A Design-Led Inquiry Into The Intimate Health Of Older Women, Renata Rocha, Ayşe Özge Ağça, Teresa Almeida
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Intimate health deals with highly personal functions and experiences related to sexuality, reproduction, and vulnerability. In this paper, we enquire into the private nature and sociocultural constructs of these experiences in relation to self-knowledge. We introduce a design workshop with three women aged 65+ in Portugal, where we investigated intimate care practices throughout the lifecourse. Our findings show that participatory methods can open dialogue and reveal tacit knowledge, and that lifelong learning is critical for healthy ageing. We reflect on our practice in relation to design considerations for designing with taboo and offer future directions for designing for and with …
Hybrid Craft Practices For Sustainable Materialities And Narratives Through Digital Fabrication, Alessia Romani, Philip Gurrey, Imogen Clendinning, Junyu Ke, Joshua Pearce
Hybrid Craft Practices For Sustainable Materialities And Narratives Through Digital Fabrication, Alessia Romani, Philip Gurrey, Imogen Clendinning, Junyu Ke, Joshua Pearce
DRS Biennial Conference Series
Hybrid craft can help envision more sustainable futures, recognizing the human-nature-technology interdependence in ecological making practices. Beyond industrial and research applications, digital fabrication offers new aesthetic and formal possibilities to designers, artists, and practitioners, exploring new materialities and narratives to foster sustainable discourses through hybrid craft and reflective making. This paper explores how hybrid craft and digital fabrication can foster sustainable materialities and narratives to reflect on human-nature-technology relationships and advance sustainability discourses through Janus, a collaborative case study combining local natural elements with 3D printing and crafts. By showcasing a corn stalk alongside its 3D scanned and 3D printed …
Mapping The Opportunity For Circularity In Fashion Retail Design And Fit-Out, Bethan Alexander, Rosemary Varley
Mapping The Opportunity For Circularity In Fashion Retail Design And Fit-Out, Bethan Alexander, Rosemary Varley
DRS Biennial Conference Series
While the fashion industry has accepted, conceptually at least, the benefits of circularity in the context of products and supply chains, little has been written about circularity within the wider context of fashion store design and fit-out. Yet, these aspects of planning and operating retail outlets are central to an industry sector which significantly contributes to local and global economies. This paper comprises an integrated review of academic and industry literature to form themes for future research development. The review revealed four key knowledge gaps: a paucity of data to understand how circularity is implemented in fashion retail design practice; …
From Conflict To Care: A Design Learning Experiment On Food Justice In Rio De Janeiro, Laura Cipriani, Claudio Magalhães, Stefano Maffei
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 …
Designing With Country: Relational Infrastructuring Beyond Technocratic Urbanism, Kimberley Harding, Jennifer Seevinck, Marcus Foth
Designing With Country: Relational Infrastructuring Beyond Technocratic Urbanism, Kimberley Harding, Jennifer Seevinck, Marcus Foth
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The design of both physical and digital layers of the built environment is increasingly shaped by the pursuit of “smartness,” often privileging efficiency and control over the cultural, ecological, and ethical dimensions that sustain life in cities. Resisting this technocratic urbanism and reimagining infrastructuring through Australian Aboriginal principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) – including relationality, responsibility, and reciprocity – offers ethical and sustainable directions for design. This paper proposes relational infrastructuring as a situated design practice that enacts and sustains cultural and ecological relations rather than merely delivering technical functions. Drawing on design scholarship, Indigenous knowledges, and urban studies, …
Co-Creating Connections: How Design, Healthcare, And Museum Actors Experience A Co-Creation Process, Margo Annemans, Iulia Vescan, Frederik Vandyck, Grietje D'Hollander, Maarten Van Acker, Inge Glazemakers
Co-Creating Connections: How Design, Healthcare, And Museum Actors Experience A Co-Creation Process, Margo Annemans, Iulia Vescan, Frederik Vandyck, Grietje D'Hollander, Maarten Van Acker, Inge Glazemakers
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In recent years, co-creation has become common in design and healthcare contexts. This paper examines a co-creation process aimed at creating a physical link between a museum park and a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital. Whereas the experiences of end-users are key in co-creation processes, only few studies analyse how research and design actors experience partaking in such process. Therefore, we aim to unravel how a co-creation process is perceived by the various actors involved to ultimately foster improved understanding and collaboration and formulate recommendations for future projects. Through a focused collective autoethnographic approach, we explore the experiences of all …
Design Activism Pedagogy: Learning And Negotiating Values In Practice, Gheysa Caroline Prado
Design Activism Pedagogy: Learning And Negotiating Values In Practice, Gheysa Caroline Prado
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This paper examines how design education can reveal and negotiate values through the practice of design activism. Based on a multi-year teaching experience with undergraduate design students, the study reflects on how pedagogical strategies oriented by emancipation and collective responsibility enable the articulation of ethical awareness in design processes. The teaching approach evolved from remote reflection-based activities to embodied, field-based interventions that addressed social and environmental issues in local communities. Through qualitative analysis of classroom documentation and student projects, the study identifies values such as reciprocity, dignity, and solidarity as emerging drivers of learning and design action. The discussion highlights …
City Of Longevity: A Framework To Integrate Emerging Technologies And Participatory Design Into Urban Environments, Camilla Borghi, Beatrice Ferrarini, Valeria Leonardi, Xueying Xiong
City Of Longevity: A Framework To Integrate Emerging Technologies And Participatory Design Into Urban Environments, Camilla Borghi, Beatrice Ferrarini, Valeria Leonardi, Xueying Xiong
DRS Biennial Conference Series
The City of Longevity (CoL) framework integrates emerging technologies, participatory methodologies, and systemic service design to mainstream longevity in urban planning. Anchored in equity and intergenerational engagement, CoL introduces an AI-driven decision-support platform that translates longevity evidence into actionable urban policy through participatory co-design, KPI setting, and systemic service design principles. Following the Longevity as a Service (LaaS) concept, CoL advances a phased, coordinated implementation architecture whose deliverables are tailored to each municipality's cultural heritage and civic identity. This architecture is embedded within a collaborative inter-city network. Methodologically, this work synthesises convergent evidence from exposome science, longevity-ready urbanism, participatory design, …
Reflective Sociomaterialist Learning For Design For Sustainability (Dfs) In The Global South: Evaluations Of Students’ Product Service System (Pss) Design Projects At A Thai Design School, Hyunwook Hwangbo
DRS Biennial Conference Series
This study explores how teaching service design through Product-Service System projects can encourage reflective sociomaterialist learning for Design for Sustainability in the Global South. It analyses 22 Product-Service Systems projects by undergraduate students at a Thai design school to examine how design education, aligned with Thailand’s bio-circular-green (BCG) economy initiative, helps develop students as social agents who drive sustainable innovation. Using ethnographic action research and thematic analysis, six case vignettes illustrate how participatory design methods and systems thinking in Product-Service Systems projects empower students to build sociotechnical systems and offer localized, community-centered solutions. Findings show that integrating Product-Service Systems practices …
More-Than-Human Design In The Real World: Resistance, Regeneration, And Radical Solidarity, Cristina Zaga, Iohanna Nicenboim, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Arne Berger, Claudia Garduño García, Laura Forlano
More-Than-Human Design In The Real World: Resistance, Regeneration, And Radical Solidarity, Cristina Zaga, Iohanna Nicenboim, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Arne Berger, Claudia Garduño García, Laura Forlano
DRS Biennial Conference Series
In Capitalocene, humanity faces the intertwined crises of technological advancement and ecological collapse. These urgent challenges require us to question the power structures embedded in design, technology, and society. As a response, More-than-human design (MthD) recognizes the agency, sentience, and mutual influence of nonhuman species, materials, and environments, foregrounding principles of care, reciprocity, and collaborative co-shaping to foster multispecies cohabitation, ecological justice, and planetary well-being. Yet, it remains unclear how MthD can move beyond academia to influence policy, industry, and communities for ecological and social regeneration. Practicing MthD in the real world means proposing different ways of knowing and ways …
Reimagining Speculative Design For Inclusion: An Narrative-Based Prototype For Civic Participation, Sandy Claes, Gitte Vande Graveele, Erica Bol
Reimagining Speculative Design For Inclusion: An Narrative-Based Prototype For Civic Participation, Sandy Claes, Gitte Vande Graveele, Erica Bol
IASDR Conference Series
Speculative design has the potential to foster civic reflection but often remains inaccessible to broader audiences due to its cultural and conceptual complexity. This paper presents a research-through-design (RtD) exploration of how speculative design can become more inclusive by embedding reflection into the narrative experience itself. We redesigned INWARDS, a policy-oriented speculative artefact, by segmenting one of its films and integrating plain-language prompts at key narrative moments and reframing participation as introspection by triggering lightweight, personal reflections. The resulting prototype was deployed in a semi-public setting to explore spontaneous engagement beyond design- savvy audiences. We contribute (1) a design-led exploration …
Process Designing For Creative Well-Being: How Cultural Prescribing Emerges Through Community-Based Art Practice At Machino Zukoushitsu In Nabari City, Japan, Rui Fukumoto, Takakazu Yamaguchi, Hideaki Kawabata, Sawako Inaniwa, Tatsuya Ito
Process Designing For Creative Well-Being: How Cultural Prescribing Emerges Through Community-Based Art Practice At Machino Zukoushitsu In Nabari City, Japan, Rui Fukumoto, Takakazu Yamaguchi, Hideaki Kawabata, Sawako Inaniwa, Tatsuya Ito
IASDR Conference Series
As societies around the world confront aging populations and growing social isolation, Cultural Prescribing has emerged as a promising approach to community-based care beyond institutional systems. While social prescribing has primarily been implemented through clinical referral models, this study examines how Naturally Emergent Creative Well-being, the interaction between individual creativity and community culture, can generate care organically through everyday practice. The research focuses on Machino Zuko ushitsu, a community art studio in Nabari City, Japan, which serves as a hub for creative participation, intergenerational exchange, and informal support. Using a participatory action research framework, qualitative data were collected through interventional …
Design When Policy Cycle Begins: Participatory Design As Relational Infrastructuring For Local Policy, Shin Okamoto, Daijiro Mizuno
Design When Policy Cycle Begins: Participatory Design As Relational Infrastructuring For Local Policy, Shin Okamoto, Daijiro Mizuno
IASDR Conference Series
This paper explores the role of design when participatory design intervenes more deeply in decision- making processes of local policy making. In the domain where design and public policy share common interests, participatory design has been considered effective as a better policy making approach adapted to complex contexts, particularly with municipalities. However, the process from organizations' understanding of participatory design legitimacy to design's involvement in deeper levels of decision-making involves many unpredictable barriers and often takes a long time. Particularly in the front-end phase before setting policy design criteria, unstable relationships exist between designers and policymakers, appearing as conflicts and …
Design For Neo-Endogenous Regional Development Of Urban-Rural Interfaces In China: A Case Of 'Field Design Work' In Zhizigang Village, Changsha City, Hunan Province, Jia Ren, Tangxiang Huo, Binbin Shao, Chih-Hu Wang, Han Meng, Tie Ji
Design For Neo-Endogenous Regional Development Of Urban-Rural Interfaces In China: A Case Of 'Field Design Work' In Zhizigang Village, Changsha City, Hunan Province, Jia Ren, Tangxiang Huo, Binbin Shao, Chih-Hu Wang, Han Meng, Tie Ji
IASDR Conference Series
This study responds to the theoretical frameworks of New Endogenous Development and Place-Based Innovation by investigating how co-design can stimulate local agency and foster the co-evolution of cultural and ecological resources in urban–rural interface areas of China. Taking Zhizigang Village in Hunan Province as a case study, the research brought together cross-strait design teams to engage in both fieldwork and co-creative workshops, exploring design intervention strategies within the context of integrated urban – rural development. The study makes three key contributions:(1) It repositions the cultural and ecological strategic value of urban–rural interface areas, challenging the prevailing negative perceptions of their …
Empowering Through Design: Asset-Based Architectural Practices For Vulnerable Communities, Hei Chan, Peter Hasdell
Empowering Through Design: Asset-Based Architectural Practices For Vulnerable Communities, Hei Chan, Peter Hasdell
IASDR Conference Series
This paper investigates aasset‐based aarchitecture design practiices through an analysis of three architectural interventionss case study across vulnerable communities in differeent locations. Departing from deficit‐ddriven modelss of aid and ree construction, these projeccts illustrate hhow local asseets can be leveraged to drive empowwering, inclussive and culturally embedded sustainaable develop mment. The study draws on asset‐baseed design obsservations witth cases of Gaando Primary School (Burkina Faso), Itathao Tribee Community Rebuild (Taiwwan) and Zhoou Shan Village House of Dreams (Chiina). Each project is anaalysed throughh the lens of ttangible (builtt, natural, financial) and intaangible (sociaal, human, political, cultuural) capital cconditions andd outcomes. …
Utilizing Ai-Assisted Service Design To Address The Digitalization Challenges Of Religious Services: A Case Study Of Taoist Temple Service, Shin-Ying Chen, Hsien-Hui Tang
Utilizing Ai-Assisted Service Design To Address The Digitalization Challenges Of Religious Services: A Case Study Of Taoist Temple Service, Shin-Ying Chen, Hsien-Hui Tang
IASDR Conference Series
As digitalization reshapes religious services, Taoist temples in Taiwan face challenges involving cultural heritage, ritual experience, and institutional coordination. Existing studies often focus on the technological or sociological aspects of digital religion but rarely examine how design practice balances institutional efficiency with cultural sensitivity. This study explores how service design can clarify the systemic complexity of Taoist service transformation while addressing both institutional and cultural contexts throughout digital transition and implementation. Using a qualitative case study of a Taiwanese Taoist temple, the research applies the Triple Diamond Model of service design to analyze the cultural complexity embedded in people, processes, …
Design For Vulnerables: Co-Designing Technological Hubs For Socio-Environmental Resilience In Mexico's Semiarid Communities, Minqing Ni, Tiziano Cattaneo, Emanuele Giorgi
Design For Vulnerables: Co-Designing Technological Hubs For Socio-Environmental Resilience In Mexico's Semiarid Communities, Minqing Ni, Tiziano Cattaneo, Emanuele Giorgi
IASDR Conference Series
Design for Vulnerables was an international collaborative research initiative that explored how participatory design can address socio-environmental challenges in vulnerable communities across urban, peri-urban, rural, and forested settings within the semiarid region of Chihuahua, Mexico. Through participatory action research, the process integrated in-depth stakeholder engagement using semi-structured interviews, community immersion through neighbourhood walks, participatory mapping workshops, and in-community prioritization sessions. The DV project co-developed and implemented six technological “hubs” addressing mobility, water, agriculture, and environmental sustainability. These interventions provided transferable strategies for arid regions globally, bridging gaps between technological potential, ecological constraints, and social equity. The paper demonstrated how integrating …
From Jugaad To Generative Ai: A Framework For Culturally Responsive Human-Centered Ai, Nidhi Singh Rathore, Shreya Thakkar
From Jugaad To Generative Ai: A Framework For Culturally Responsive Human-Centered Ai, Nidhi Singh Rathore, Shreya Thakkar
IASDR Conference Series
Contemporary generative AI tools exhibit systematic biases rooted in their Anglo-American development context and training data, prioritizing Global North perspectives in design and implementation. Drawing on jugaad—an Indian approach to resourceful problem-solving—this paper critically evaluates how AI solutions disconnected from local contexts perpetuate technological Through a mixed-methods study involving 52 participants across workshops, systematic AI testing with over 300 images, and expert discussions, the authors compare human and AI responses to identical problem-solving scenarios. Our findings reveal stark differences: 100% of human solutions considered environmental and cultural contexts while 90% of AI solutions ignored these factors. Human participants demonstrated contextual …
From Research Subjects To Active Players: Playful Active Mastery Research For Value Co-Creation On C2c Platforms, Koki Kusano, Kyosuke Sakakura, Naruki Kurokawa
From Research Subjects To Active Players: Playful Active Mastery Research For Value Co-Creation On C2c Platforms, Koki Kusano, Kyosuke Sakakura, Naruki Kurokawa
IASDR Conference Series
Customer-to-Customer (C2C) platforms have the potential to foster "sharing cultures" — diverse social practices emphasizing cooperation and relational values —, yet their capacity to harness users' creativity in value co-creation remains largely under explored. This paper introduces "Playful Active Mastery Research (PAMR)," a novel design research methodology specifically developed to investigate how C2C platforms can effectively support value co-creation rooted in users' everyday sharing practices. PAMR distinctively positions users as active, agentic "players" who playfully "master" existing platforms to devise novel, culturally resonant applications. Through a case study involving the C2C marketplace "Mercari," workshops were conducted where participants actively engaged …
Bridge Builders: A Comparative Study Of Arm's Length Bodies' Strategic Role In Design Education-To-Employment Gaps In Asia And Europe, Po-Yu Chen, Tang-Ling Kuo
Bridge Builders: A Comparative Study Of Arm's Length Bodies' Strategic Role In Design Education-To-Employment Gaps In Asia And Europe, Po-Yu Chen, Tang-Ling Kuo
IASDR Conference Series
This comparative study examines how Arm's-Length Bodies (ALBs) in Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Denmark address the persistent gap between design education and industry employment needs. By analyzing regional contexts and the institutional logics, methods, and intermediation roles of five representative organizations, the study reveals both shared concerns and divergent approaches. While the education-to-employment gap is a universal issue, all organizations emphasize designer upskilling, the development of design learning platforms, and engagement in research and policy advocacy. ALBs in Asia tend to adopt government-led strategies that prioritize transdisciplinary education, industry-academia collaboration, and skills upgrading, particularly in response to …
Integrating Cultural Touchpoints In Service Design: Insights From Culturally Embedded Marathons, Yijia Jiang, Xia Bi, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Keren Zhang, Wanchun Ye, Huiyi Zhang
Integrating Cultural Touchpoints In Service Design: Insights From Culturally Embedded Marathons, Yijia Jiang, Xia Bi, Kin Wai Michael Siu, Keren Zhang, Wanchun Ye, Huiyi Zhang
IASDR Conference Series
This study explores service design strategies for Culturally Embedded Marathons (CEMs), proposing a research perspective that integrates cultural memory formation mechanisms (symbol is ation, ritual is ation, and institutional is ation) to examine service design frameworks. Through a case study of the representative 2025 Kyoto Marathon, we identified 26 cultural touch points within its service design system. Using Python, we scraped and analysed 2,689 user-generated posts from social media platforms documenting the 2025 Kyoto Marathon, comprising 13,345 images. Computer vision analysis was employed to assess the distribution, frequency, and key combinations of these cultural touch points. The findings reveal that …