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Nature-Centred Biodesign For Regeneration. Design Understandings In Europe., Nina Costa, Pierre Oskam, Helen Charoupia, Fátima Pombo Jun 2026

Nature-Centred Biodesign For Regeneration. Design Understandings In Europe., Nina Costa, Pierre Oskam, Helen Charoupia, Fátima Pombo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores how design researchers in Europe understand and enact nature-centred biodesign for regeneration: an emerging approach that bridges design, biology, and ecology to foster regenerative futures. It proposes an evolutionary framework of design agency, mapping the transition from imitation to co-evolution and from instrumental ethics to ecological justice. The framework highlights four paradigmatic quadrants: Anthropocentric Planning, Emerging Bioeconomy, Socio-Ecology, and Regenerative Biodesign that capture how ethical, ecological, and material orientations shape practice. In parallel, it employs a qualitative analysis of a questionnaire with 32 researchers from COST Action DESIGNAE (2025), which investigates how design operates between scientific, material, …

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Making The Invisible Visible: Supporting Older Adults’ Expression Of Emotional Needs For Companion Robots Through Visual Co-Design Tools, Chuxuan Xu, Hua Dong, Mohammed Elsouri, Mingfeng Wang Jun 2026

Making The Invisible Visible: Supporting Older Adults’ Expression Of Emotional Needs For Companion Robots Through Visual Co-Design Tools, Chuxuan Xu, Hua Dong, Mohammed Elsouri, Mingfeng Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As populations age, companion robots are increasingly explored to support emotional well-being in later life. However, older adults often find it difficult to express abstract emotions or imagine interactions with unfamiliar technologies, limiting their participation in early-stage design. This study develops and validates a structured toolkit designed to support emotional articulation and co-design participation. The toolkit, consisting of companionship cards, robot role cards, and recording canvases, was refined through expert evaluation and user testing, and validated through comparative interviews with older adults (n=10). Results show that the toolkit supported richer emotional expression, smoother dialogue, and more sustained engagement, helping participants …

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Aesthetics As A Driver For Inclusion: What Recycling Rooms Reveal About Participation In Everyday Society, Anna-Sara Fagerholm, Henrik Haller, Anders Warell, Per-Olof Hedvall Jun 2026

Aesthetics As A Driver For Inclusion: What Recycling Rooms Reveal About Participation In Everyday Society, Anna-Sara Fagerholm, Henrik Haller, Anders Warell, Per-Olof Hedvall

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how aesthetics can foster inclusion in everyday urban infrastructures, using recycling rooms in residential areas as a case study. Drawing on a design ethnographic study of 27 municipal recycling facilities, three interconnected dimensions – access aesthetics, communicative aesthetics, and spatial aesthetics – were identified. Environments that are neglected, dark, and smelly tend to exclude residents, while those designed with aesthetic considerations foster a sense of shared responsibility and well-being. By linking perceptions of aesthetics in recycling rooms to broader debates in universal design, this paper highlights how aesthetic qualities influence participation, social connection, and environmental practices. These …

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Holding Paradoxes Together: Navigating Institutional Complexity In Public Design, Luis Garcia, Geert Brinkman Jun 2026

Holding Paradoxes Together: Navigating Institutional Complexity In Public Design, Luis Garcia, Geert Brinkman

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores the evolving practice of design in the public sector. To do so, we initiated a reading group that brought together academics and practitioners from around the globe to discuss how public design is understood and practiced in different contexts. The common thread across the six reading groups held so far was that public design is inherently paradoxical. Three core paradoxes appear to characterize its practice: the identity paradox (blending in to stand out), the enablement paradox (constraining design by enabling it), and the political paradox (designing apolitically while designing politically). These paradoxes highlight the need for strategic …

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Fictionalized Affective Relations:Rethinking Wellbeing In Human–Ai Interaction From A Design Perspective, Boyu Zhang, Li Zhang Jun 2026

Fictionalized Affective Relations:Rethinking Wellbeing In Human–Ai Interaction From A Design Perspective, Boyu Zhang, Li Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As AI increasingly enters everyday life in intimate roles of companionship and emotional support, established understandings of wellbeing in design research are being challenged. Conventional approaches tend to frame wellbeing as an optimizable experiential state, typically enhanced by means of emotional design. However, as AI becomes a medium for emotional engagement, wellbeing shifts toward a relational outcome that emerges from ongoing interactions.This paper introduces fictionalized affective relations to describe how users, despite knowing AI lacks genuine consciousness and emotion, nonetheless disclose vulnerability, invest affectively, and derive experiences of intimacy. It identifies three ethical tensions: emotional capitalization, loss of affective sovereignty, …

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Educating Inclusive Human Augmentation By Design: A Triadic Definitional Framework And Pedagogical Validation, Keren Zhang, Huiyi Zhang, Ka Wing Tsang, Yijia Jiang, Shiyu Liu, Kin Wai Michael Siu Jun 2026

Educating Inclusive Human Augmentation By Design: A Triadic Definitional Framework And Pedagogical Validation, Keren Zhang, Huiyi Zhang, Ka Wing Tsang, Yijia Jiang, Shiyu Liu, Kin Wai Michael Siu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Advances in AI, wearables, exoskeletons, and BCIs are driving human augmentation (HA) into everyday use, yet education lacks a design-focused definition, a practical positioning language, and awareness of ethics. This study asks: How should HA be defined for design, and how can a critical, inclusive approach be taught and validated? Based on systematic reviews, we propose a three-part toolkit: a Human–Machine–Environment paradigm that redefines objects and boundaries; a map of design possibilities (dimensions, categories, intervention levels); and ethical dimensions spanning the thing, the human, the environment, and society. We validated the toolkit through three 8–11 week speculative workshops (n=45). Four …

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Enacting Micro-Utopias: Situated Pedagogies Of Collective Imagination In Design-Based Education, Ricardo García Galiot Jun 2026

Enacting Micro-Utopias: Situated Pedagogies Of Collective Imagination In Design-Based Education, Ricardo García Galiot

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores a pedagogical intervention that leveraged speculative enactment as a portal to utopian futures. During a Blended Intensive Program, students were presented with a design challenge that addresses workplace inclusion by reimagining it as a “future otherwise.” The challenge was projected into a future temporality, allowing participants to respond to contemporary challenges with radical imagination. Drawing on Levitas’s (2013) utopia as method and Bloch’s (1986) notion of concrete utopias, this study investigates how engaging with these enacted visions as sensorial expression serves as a mechanism to unleash potentialities latent in the present. Situated at the intersection of Design …

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Toward An Architectural Model Of Design Methods: Meta-Methods, Proto-Methods, And Method Building Blocks, Colin M. Gray, Shruthi Sai Chivukula, Abdul Moeed Asad Jun 2026

Toward An Architectural Model Of Design Methods: Meta-Methods, Proto-Methods, And Method Building Blocks, Colin M. Gray, Shruthi Sai Chivukula, Abdul Moeed Asad

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design methods have long occupied a central yet ambiguous role in design research. They are invoked as distillations of procedural knowledge and recipes for action but also function as placeholders for more complex performances. Yet the persistent assumption that methods are checklists—mechanical sequences of steps that can be validated or optimized—has obscured their performative and situated dimensions. This paper revisits the nature of methods through an architectural model that distinguishes between meta-methods, proto-methods, and method building blocks. Drawing from historical, theoretical, and empirical discussions, we argue that methods are best understood as assemblages of prescription and performance, whose coherence emerges …

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How To Observe Design Practices, Aurelien Catros Jun 2026

How To Observe Design Practices, Aurelien Catros

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Aside from design theories and design methods, the design research field has built numerous methods for observing design practices. Most of them can be classified into two categories: ethnographies, which consist of sharing the daily lives of designers, and experimental approaches, which reconstruct design situations in the controlled environment of a laboratory. This study retraces the history of these methods, that exist almost independently from one another creating silos within the design research field. Throughout their respective developments, both ethnographies and experimental approaches indicate the same blind spot: the study of material traces of processes that have already taken place. …

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When Data Systems Meet Ecosystems: Tensions Between Ai Platforms And Vitality In Corporate Sustainability, Michelle Westerlaken, Sonja Rattay Jun 2026

When Data Systems Meet Ecosystems: Tensions Between Ai Platforms And Vitality In Corporate Sustainability, Michelle Westerlaken, Sonja Rattay

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Ecosystems are not computers. They are alive, endlessly complex, and deeply intriguing. What if the data systems used to better understand living worlds could embed this more-than-human vitality? This paper examines ecosystem data tools in corporate sustainability, where AI tools have become key mediators in sustainable transitions. Drawing on desk research and empirical data with biodiversity specialists at 13 large corporations, it identifies four tensions that reveal deeper mismatches between computational systems and ecological worlds. These arise between demands for certainty and the unstable dynamics of ecosystems; between the need for data as neutral evidence and as arguments towards managing …

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Designing A Toolkit To Explore The Design Space Of Woven Textiles, Milou Voorwinden, Savanne Klop, Holly Mcquillan Jun 2026

Designing A Toolkit To Explore The Design Space Of Woven Textiles, Milou Voorwinden, Savanne Klop, Holly Mcquillan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Driven by the potential of smart textiles, shape-changing structures, living textiles, and sustainable manufacturing methods, designers seek to push the boundaries of weaving. However, most existing industrial technologies are designed for mass-producing simple, flat fabrics. This has narrowed the collective understanding of the design potential of woven textiles, thereby restricting the development of complex, three-dimensional, and animated textiles. We present a toolkit, developed through an exploratory workshop and focus group discussions with academic and industry-based designers, that enables exploration and expansion of the design space for woven textiles. The card deck and canvas provide a shared language to externalise and …

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From Values To Metrics: A Methodological Framework For Early-Stage Design Of Rural Cultural Project, Rosana Sanz Segura, Giordana Gallina, Eduardo Manchado Pérez, Ignacio López Forniés Jun 2026

From Values To Metrics: A Methodological Framework For Early-Stage Design Of Rural Cultural Project, Rosana Sanz Segura, Giordana Gallina, Eduardo Manchado Pérez, Ignacio López Forniés

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents the methodological framework of an ongoing design research project focused on cultural creation in rural contexts. It structures the design work that precede co-creation workshops, including the design of tools, participant criteria, session formats and preliminary analyses to understand community needs. Based on design research in rural regions of Aragón (Spain), the study integrates human-centred and community-based design to adapt participatory processes to low-density territories. Initial results include a mapping of key actors, a first set of metrics for evaluating participation and collaboration, and the identification of gaps that justify a specific methodological guide for rural cultural …

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Design Through Co-Elaboration: Friction, Dysfunction, And More-Than-Human, Corentin Loubet Jun 2026

Design Through Co-Elaboration: Friction, Dysfunction, And More-Than-Human, Corentin Loubet

DRS Biennial Conference Series

AI devices are structured by “seamless” and “emotional” design, which conceals many underlying mechanisms and algorithmic rules. By contrast, behavioral objects – through defamiliarization and misbehavior – prompt critical reflection on our relationship with technological artifacts and expose their inner workings. However, most behavioral objects, particularly in art contexts, are designed to ensure predictable outcomes and audience interactions, revealing an underlying desire to tightly control the discourse produced by the work. This paper contends that their critical significance can instead emerge from their material presence through a frictional, more-than-human approach in which dysfunction becomes a source of unpredictable expressivity and …

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Degree Of Anisotropy: A Textile Epistemology Of Making, Sheetal Agrawal, Joy Ko Jun 2026

Degree Of Anisotropy: A Textile Epistemology Of Making, Sheetal Agrawal, Joy Ko

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research demonstrates textiles as an analytical framework to encode forms of distributed intelligence inaccessible to computational modeling alone, challenging contemporary design's reliance on material homogeneity. Using 3D-printed Voronoi lattices on pre-stretched tulle substrates, we reconceptualize anisotropy (directional variation in material behavior) from engineering liability to design theory cornerstone. While conventional design favors isotropy for predictability, it has been long observed that biological textiles (skin, muscle tissue, tendons, spider silk, etc) have achieved adaptive functionality through engineered heterogeneity. By systematically varying infill patterns within Voronoi structures, we establish a methodology enabling textiles to hold contradictory mechanical states simultaneously and respond …

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Disruption As An Ecologizing Co-Design Method, Alp Yilmaz, Dennis Rolfes, Lutz Robbers Jun 2026

Disruption As An Ecologizing Co-Design Method, Alp Yilmaz, Dennis Rolfes, Lutz Robbers

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Conventional participatory planning and design practice imply linear accumulation of data, facts, and representations, predicting meaningful futures through consensus-driven strategies. Transformation is framed as the transparent management of knowable information towards a providential destiny. By reducing participatory reasoning to factual transfer and discursive negotiation, reductionist approaches fail to address the systemic complexity and contingent character of socio-ecological challenges. They overlook disruptive shocks (financial crises, pandemics) that reorder systems. We propose disruption as a co-design method: a deliberately staged technique that exposes boundaries, surfaces dependencies, and fosters collective sense-making under uncertainty. Drawing on 4E cognition and relational design theory, we propose …

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"That's Fine..." Uncovering Ambiguity Through Emotional Labelling In Scottish Design Students’ Design Process, Hazar Taissier Marji, Paul A. Rodgers, Ross Brisco Jun 2026

"That's Fine..." Uncovering Ambiguity Through Emotional Labelling In Scottish Design Students’ Design Process, Hazar Taissier Marji, Paul A. Rodgers, Ross Brisco

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Putting emotions into words is a natural human strategy for reinterpreting situations, even when done unintentionally. Evidence shows that this process, known as affective labelling, can reduce distress compared to non- affective verbalisation. Given that, the word 'fine' is widely used as a self-report label for emotional states, yet its meaning remains strikingly ambiguous. Limited research has explored such neutral or mid-spectrum emotional terms that are neither overtly positive nor negative but still shape the design process. This study examines how Scottish design students use 'fine' to describe their emotional experiences during their final design projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted …

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The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics, Yu Zhi, Hanbing Ren Jun 2026

The Embodied Turn In Design Cognition And The Implications From The “Shensi” Aesthetics, Yu Zhi, Hanbing Ren

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In today's world, AI technology is reshaping design practice. The modern design cognition is shifting from Cartesian disembodied rationality to phenomenological embodied intuition. This study draws on Nigel Cross's research on design thinking and the concept of “Shensi” from traditional Chinese aesthetics. It reveals the embodied essence of design cognition as a dynamic network of body, technology, and environment. This network reconfigures design problems, structures, and meanings. By comparing "Shensi" (embodied, intuitive, humanistic) with AI-mediated design (logical, data-driven, efficient), this study proposes a new design paradigm based on Eastern wisdom to broaden theoretical understanding of design cognition.

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Understanding Digital Health Engagement Among Older Adults In India: A Cultural Probe Based Study, Radhika Sharma, Aakash Johry Jun 2026

Understanding Digital Health Engagement Among Older Adults In India: A Cultural Probe Based Study, Radhika Sharma, Aakash Johry

DRS Biennial Conference Series

India is moving towards a health crisis, with a rapidly increasing population of older adults who have to deal with chronic health issues and declining family support. Remote health monitoring technologies offer opportunities for improved healthcare management; however, existing design guidelines often fail to address the cultural realities of Indian senior citizens. In this study, we identified six critical interaction areas for remote cardiac health monitoring, including self-monitoring, emergency response, and assistance-seeking patterns. Targeted cultural probes were designed for each area to evoke natural behaviours from 27 participants, aged 59-86, across diverse living situations. This participatory approach revealed that elderly …

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Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis, Alison Thomson, Hannah Scott, Ruth Dobson Jun 2026

Tangible Conversations For Uncertain Futures: A Design-Led Approach With Families Affected By Multiple Sclerosis, Alison Thomson, Hannah Scott, Ruth Dobson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Neurological prevention science is gaining traction, with implications for people at raised familial risk of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). We examine how design can intervene in this emerging prevention space through Digesting Science (DS), a co-designed public engagement project that brings families affected by MS together through events and playful, hands-on activities in community settings. We analyse post-event open-ended evaluation forms and a follow up study using auto-photo-elicitation with semi-structured interviews with children and parents. Findings show that DS makes MS discussable without increasing anxiety, embodied activities create shared reference points and language for talking about symptoms, science and uncertainty. We …

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Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines The Optimal Green Wall Form, Wenbo Li, Yihe Li, Hengji Wang, Yang Liu Jun 2026

Not Just One "Best" Green: Soundscape Determines The Optimal Green Wall Form, Wenbo Li, Yihe Li, Hengji Wang, Yang Liu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In high-density cities, window-view green walls (GWs) are implemented to improve psychological well-being, but their design often ignores context. Existing research overlooks how GW geometric forms interact with ambient urban soundscapes. This study investigates this critical audio-visual interaction. We conducted a 4 (sound: between-subjects) × 4 (visual: within-subjects) experiment in Virtual Reality (N=80). Participants were exposed to four visual forms (No-GW, Triangle, Square, Rectangle) within four dominating soundscapes (No Sound, Traffic, Conversation, Ventilation), reporting their Stress and recovery results. Results revealed a significant interaction effect, showing the optimal GW shape for psychological well-being was context-dependent: rectangular forms were best for …

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Becoming Humus: Embodied Ecological Literacy Through Designing, Ines Weigand Jun 2026

Becoming Humus: Embodied Ecological Literacy Through Designing, Ines Weigand

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper employs environmental humanities theories through design, translating them into a more-than-human experiential pedagogy. Drawing on Haraway’s (2016) concept of humans as “humus” and Braidotti’s (2013) notion of the subject as embodied and embedded, it presents an approach that uses the human body to cultivate ecological literacy and make ecological relations tangible through personal involvement. In two public workshops, participants produced phosphate fertiliser from their urine, revealing connections between bodily and planetary metabolisms. This linked the biogeochemical flow of phosphorus within the Planetary Boundaries framework (Rockström et al., 2009) to everyday routines, reframing urine from taboo to resource. The …

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Designing The Echo. Practices For Oral Heritage In The Digital Age, Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina, Alice Biancardi Jun 2026

Designing The Echo. Practices For Oral Heritage In The Digital Age, Ilaria Bollati, Luisa Collina, Alice Biancardi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Oral heritage is inherently unstable: unlike written records, it persists through repetition and reinterpretation rather than through the conservation of a stable object. In post-digital cultural heritage contexts, safeguarding oral memories therefore cannot be reduced to storing audio files; it requires the socio-technical conditions to be designed that make voices interpretable, discoverable, and reactivatable. This paper develops and applies a three-phase framework ̶ Listening / Composing / Amplifying ̶ as an analytical and methodological lens for tracing how oral material is collected, translated into an questionable structure, and returned to the public through differentiated formats. The paper grounds the framework …

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Ai' S Brush On Novice Posters: Unfolding Visual Competence Shifts Of Design Students, Yisu Zhao, Chuhan Li, Qianqian Hu, Fang Liu, Renke He Jun 2026

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 …

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Absent Voices, Alternative Futures: What Design Issues Didn't Say About Design (1984-2025), Yeqiu Yang Jun 2026

Absent Voices, Alternative Futures: What Design Issues Didn't Say About Design (1984-2025), Yeqiu Yang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Can Western design theory be a universal panacea? Celebrating Design Issues' 40-year legacy (1984-2025), "The Unfolding Culture" exhibition asks how culture will shape design's future, yet overlooks whose culture dominates design discourse. Through critical analysis of Design Issues, the author reveals three structural absences that question theoretical universalism: (1) Medium constraints—text-based format systematically excludes sound, video, and material-based knowledge production, eliminating epistemologies that resist textualization; (2) Temporal lag—non-Western topics arrive decades late, revealing one-way delayed recognition rather than dialogue; (3) Divergent concerns—East and West simultaneously focus on fundamentally different design questions yet lack mechanisms for synchronous exchange, resulting in parallel …

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Capturing The Impact Of Co-Creation In Circular Transitions: A Comparative Analysis Of Evaluation Frameworks And Models, Tekla Komlossy, Sonja Van Dam, Conny Bakker Jun 2026

Capturing The Impact Of Co-Creation In Circular Transitions: A Comparative Analysis Of Evaluation Frameworks And Models, Tekla Komlossy, Sonja Van Dam, Conny Bakker

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While participatory design approaches such as co-creation and co-design are increasingly used to develop circular solutions, there are limited contributions on assessing their impact. This paper systematically reviews and compares fourteen existing evaluation frameworks and models for collaborative design approaches across domains such as public health, social innovation and energy transition. Through a systematic literature review and comparative analysis, the study examines how impact is conceptualised and assessed, the extent to which existing approaches are operationalised, and their applicability to circular transition contexts. Results show that most frameworks do not explicitly define or evaluate impact, offer limited operational guidance, and …

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Mapping Circular Design Pathways For Wearables: An Annotated Portfolio At The Intersection Of Material-Driven Design And Bio-Hci, Nicla Guarino, Venere Ferraro, Valentina Rognoli Jun 2026

Mapping Circular Design Pathways For Wearables: An Annotated Portfolio At The Intersection Of Material-Driven Design And Bio-Hci, Nicla Guarino, Venere Ferraro, Valentina Rognoli

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As the environmental impacts of wearable technologies intensify, exploring how material choices can enable circularity in such a waste-intensive sector has become critical for design research. In response to this challenge, materials are recognised as pivotal in emerging wearable alternatives, yet how they can actively support circular practices remains underexplored. The study addresses this gap through an annotated portfolio of 40 case studies situated in or informing the wearable domain at the intersection of Material-Driven Design and Bio-HCI. By foregrounding recurring materials, methods, and tools, the analysis aims to reveal how matter can act as a transformative agent in shaping …

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From Metrics To Meaning: Enabling Iterative Design For Multi-Stakeholder Engagement And Behavioural Change In Systemic Climate Transitions With Quali-Quantitative Assessment And Sensemaking, Rohit Mondal, Sabrina Bresciani, Morgan Ricard, Ilenia Piergallini, Nikhil Chaudhary, Francesca Rizzo Jun 2026

From Metrics To Meaning: Enabling Iterative Design For Multi-Stakeholder Engagement And Behavioural Change In Systemic Climate Transitions With Quali-Quantitative Assessment And Sensemaking, Rohit Mondal, Sabrina Bresciani, Morgan Ricard, Ilenia Piergallini, Nikhil Chaudhary, Francesca Rizzo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cities pursuing systemic approaches to climate neutrality increasingly leverage bottom-up strategies to foster multi-stakeholder engagement, enabling societal and behavioural transformations. However, assessing their impact through conventional quantitative indicators alone fails to capture the complexity of change. Design for systemic climate transitions enables cities to build pluralistic understandings of impact through mutual and reflexive learning that cultivates collective intelligence and shared insights. In this study, we analyse the quantitative indicators, qualitative data and collective sensemaking from 53 European cities participating in the EU Mission Cities: findings show that collective sensemaking has become a key enabler of reflexive learning, allowing cities to …

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Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector, Geert Brinkman, Elke Wennekers Jun 2026

Not Another Design That Ends Up In A Drawer: Mechanisms To Legitimize Design Outcomes In The Public Sector, Geert Brinkman, Elke Wennekers

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While design has gained significant interest in the public sector in recent years, it has yet to gain real traction. Even in countries seen as frontrunners, design has not become mainstream practice and its potential to meaningfully address public issues remains largely unrealized. One of the main reasons for this is that designers find it difficult to legitimize design. In this study, we conducted eight interviews with designers to explore how they attempt to gain legitimacy for the outcomes of their work. We adopted an argumentation lens to identify the various legitimation strategies employed. Rather than individual strategies, we present …

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Causal Loop Diagrams As A Tool In Textile Innovation Trajectories, Hellen Van Rees, Geke Ludden, Jan Mahy, Angelika Mader Jun 2026

Causal Loop Diagrams As A Tool In Textile Innovation Trajectories, Hellen Van Rees, Geke Ludden, Jan Mahy, Angelika Mader

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Innovation in textile production and usage is gaining momentum, driven by both the urgent need for sustainable solutions and rising technological maturity of embedded functionalities in textiles. Traditional linear models of production and consumption are increasingly being replaced by product-service systems (PSS) that can extend product lifecycles through maintenance, reuse, and digital integration. Realizing the full potential of such innovations requires addressing complex interdependencies which are currently lacking within the day-to-day reality of textile innovation projects. We recognize Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs) for their potential to gain insight into these complexities, but their intricacy limits their use in practice. In …

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Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review, Yuanrong Guo, Zixuan Wang, Sarah Kettley, Autumn Roesch-Marsh Jun 2026

Mapping How Design Engages With Systems Thinking In Complex Healthcare Systems: A Scoping Review, Yuanrong Guo, Zixuan Wang, Sarah Kettley, Autumn Roesch-Marsh

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Integrating systems thinking and design thinking offers a promising approach to address systemic challenges in healthcare. However, existing studies apply diverse systems thinking theories and methods across different healthcare contexts, and design also shows methodological pluralism. Such diversity has created conceptual fragmentation and uncertainty about how designers can meaningfully apply systems thinking. This paper presents a scoping review of 44 empirical studies that apply both design approaches and systems thinking theories or methods in healthcare service systems. The analysis examines where systems thinking is positioned within studies and identifies four relationship types: (1) design as systemic practice, (2) systems thinking …

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