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Decoding The Visual Language Of Embroidery: Making, Knowing, And Recontextualising, Minshu Chen Jun 2026

Decoding The Visual Language Of Embroidery: Making, Knowing, And Recontextualising, Minshu Chen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper positions textile-making as a way of understanding the world through embodied engagement with materials, processes and relationships. Drawing on Xiang embroidery traditions and the Chinese philosophical concept of Qi-Yun (vital force and resonant rhythm). Through participatory workshops with local communities in Hunan, China, it explores how tacit knowledge emerges in a specific context through inner perception, observation, collaboration and dialogue surrounding material interaction and the accumulation of experience. A triangular methodology is developed to analyse multiple standpoints (traditional practitioners, technical collaborators and spectators) and articulate how different standpoints participate in meaning-making within textile practice. This approach theorises embroidery …

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Hybrid Craft Practices For Sustainable Materialities And Narratives Through Digital Fabrication, Alessia Romani, Philip Gurrey, Imogen Clendinning, Junyu Ke, Joshua Pearce Jun 2026

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 …

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Negotiating Authenticity, Vividness, And Engagement: A Design Framework For Genai In Heritage Co-Creation, Zijing Song, Sifan Chen, Chihiro Sato, Christian Wagner Jun 2026

Negotiating Authenticity, Vividness, And Engagement: A Design Framework For Genai In Heritage Co-Creation, Zijing Song, Sifan Chen, Chihiro Sato, Christian Wagner

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The adoption of generative AI in heritage storytelling has revealed hidden tensions among stakeholders due to competing values. To investigate how design research can negotiate values differences, we conducted a three-session qualitative study surrounding the “Kawagoe Festival” in a bottom-up, three stakeholder-group setting. Session 1 used photo-elicitation to ground memories; Session 2 adopted human–AI image co-creation to explore past representations and speculative futures; while Session 3 facilitated reflective discussion. Grounded theory analysis identifies three values shaping GenAI-mediated co-creation: authenticity as a symbolic baseline, vividness as the enrichment of remembered details, and engagement as enabler of iterative, playful participation. Stakeholders balanced …

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Three Lenses, One Wicked Problem: Navigating Pluralism To Address Consumer Confusion In Australia, Brian Rodrigo Llagas, Linda Brennan, Simon Lockrey Jun 2026

Three Lenses, One Wicked Problem: Navigating Pluralism To Address Consumer Confusion In Australia, Brian Rodrigo Llagas, Linda Brennan, Simon Lockrey

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Food waste presents a significant global environmental and economic challenge. Australian households are responsible for 40% of discarded food, with unclear date labelling and storage advice creating consumer confusion, contributing to the problem. This research employed systems thinking and pluralism to address consumer confusion. A multi-level analytical framework integrating visual grammar, symbolic interactionism, and activity theory examined semiotic dimensions, interactions, and system behaviours within the food packaging system. Micro-level prototyping generated design concepts for date labels and storage advice. Meso-level collective intelligence-participatory design techniques evaluated the designs and brainstormed solutions. Scenario planning at the macro level used morphological analysis to …

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Strategies For Successful Collaborative Engagement: Navigating Organizational Dynamics, Sylvan Lobo, Ravi Mahamuni Jun 2026

Strategies For Successful Collaborative Engagement: Navigating Organizational Dynamics, Sylvan Lobo, Ravi Mahamuni

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Typical organizations are characterized by complexity, comprising individuals working in isolated groups with competing priorities. Structural and cultural factors often hinder effective collaboration, despite organizational efforts. This paper examines collaboration dynamics in organizations through the lens of behaviour-change. It introduces the CraftChange framework for behaviour-change for promoting collaborative participation, demonstrating the approach through an analysis of two real-world organizational projects. The paper argues that genuine participatory engagement cannot be achieved solely through top-down directives or establishment of support units like innovation labs, design thinking or prototyping teams. Instead, there is a need to focus on bringing behaviour-change through a stagewise …

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The Future Of Designers: A Study On The Transition Of Designer Occupations And Corresponding Strategic Responses, Yeonghun Kim, Chajoong Kim, Sangyeol Kim Jun 2026

The Future Of Designers: A Study On The Transition Of Designer Occupations And Corresponding Strategic Responses, Yeonghun Kim, Chajoong Kim, Sangyeol Kim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The design industry is experiencing significant occupational shifts driven by rapid technological advancements, evolving market demands, and other pressures. Traditional roles like 2D rendering, mock-up production, and market research are declining. This research systematically explores these declining roles through comprehensive desk research, expert focus group interview, and in-depth interviews. The study identifies a clear trend: manual, routine processes are being replaced by digital tools, automation (like generative AI and 3D visualization), and multifunctional roles. Societal shifts toward digital content, economic imperatives, and policy frameworks accelerate these changes. To address these transformations, the study proposes a strategic framework: individual designers should …

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Small Ai: A Degrowth Imaginary For Designing With/For Artificial Intelligence, Roy Bendor, Dave Murray-Rust, Rainer Rehak Jun 2026

Small Ai: A Degrowth Imaginary For Designing With/For Artificial Intelligence, Roy Bendor, Dave Murray-Rust, Rainer Rehak

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents Small AI as a conceptual lever for designers to resist the ‘bigger is better’ trend in the discourse and development of Generative AI. We explore different types of Small AI: initially in relation to the size of models, as smaller models require less computational resources for both training and inference, thus implying a smaller ecological footprint. However, we extend the meaning of smallness to apply to political, epistemic and cultural domains as well. In this vein, the paper posits Small AI as an imaginary-in-the-making, and a rallying concept for an alternative innovation agenda that holds, in the …

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Mapping The Opportunity For Circularity In Fashion Retail Design And Fit-Out, Bethan Alexander, Rosemary Varley Jun 2026

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; …

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Designing For Food System Transformation: Navigating Cultural Complexity In Cross-Regional Platform Design, Margherita Motta, Sebastian Baez-Lugo, Luis Rodriguez Aguayo, Laura Deschl, Nicolas Henchoz, Emily Groves Jun 2026

Designing For Food System Transformation: Navigating Cultural Complexity In Cross-Regional Platform Design, Margherita Motta, Sebastian Baez-Lugo, Luis Rodriguez Aguayo, Laura Deschl, Nicolas Henchoz, Emily Groves

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines the design of a digital platform supporting sustainable food transformation across six European regional Hubs. Through multi-phase participatory evaluation involving contextual inquiry across culturally diverse contexts, responsive redesign, and formal usability testing, we identify a fundamental tension between technical standardization and cultural adaptation. While formal metrics demonstrated strong usability and aesthetic appeal of our platform design, Hub-based evaluation revealed that participants' requests for regional adaptation such as representing traditional production methods, biodiversity, and place-specific sustainability logics challenged fundamental platform assumptions about capturing food knowledge in standardized structures. We articulate emergent design principles including minimizing barriers while maintaining …

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Problem–Solution Co-Evolution Research In The Drs Conference Community (2001-2025), Michael Mose Biskjaer, Kim Halskov, Alwin De Rooij Jun 2026

Problem–Solution Co-Evolution Research In The Drs Conference Community (2001-2025), Michael Mose Biskjaer, Kim Halskov, Alwin De Rooij

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The problem–solution co-evolution model proposed by Dorst and Cross (2001) remains highly influential for understanding design processes. This paper contributes a scoping review of DRS conference proceedings (2001–2025) revealing how the model has been adopted, developed, and critiqued. A thematic synthesis of a corpus of sixteen DRS papers shows how the model has been used to frame, connect, and extend foundational design theories by pointing to the crucial role of mutual adaptation of problem and solution. We find that problem and solution spaces are considered distinct and interdependent. Co-evolution is conceptualized and studied through several conceptual lenses, e.g., cognitive, social, …

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In Kinship With Harakeke Phormium Tenax: How One Plant And Its Materials Facilitate Transitional Knowledge Through Inter-Indigenous And Inter-Cultural Exchange., Angela Kilford, Sonya Withers, Faith Kane, Huhana Smith Jun 2026

In Kinship With Harakeke Phormium Tenax: How One Plant And Its Materials Facilitate Transitional Knowledge Through Inter-Indigenous And Inter-Cultural Exchange., Angela Kilford, Sonya Withers, Faith Kane, Huhana Smith

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Abstract: This paper considers how one plant, harakeke (phormium tenax), native to Aotearoa New Zealand embodies the natural attributes to mitigate climate change and support transition to more sustainable and equitable material futures. Through interaction and collaboration, harakeke demonstrates how circular and regenerative textile design systems are manifested. In the interest of learning from harakeke the authors, working from multiple perspectives, position the plant as tohunga (knowledge expert) and themselves as tauira (learners) to share and reflect upon their engagements with the plant and its fibre. From harakeke we learn about familial relationships to whenua (land) and to each other, …

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Hacking As A Queering Design Practice. Insights From A Visual Analysis Of Product Hacking Scenes In Movies., Julia Carrasco Parodi, Massimo Menichinelli, Guim Espelt Estopà Jun 2026

Hacking As A Queering Design Practice. Insights From A Visual Analysis Of Product Hacking Scenes In Movies., Julia Carrasco Parodi, Massimo Menichinelli, Guim Espelt Estopà

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article examines hacking, understood as the alteration of an object’s function, as a queer and feminist design practice that disrupts normative relations between bodies and things. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s concept of the feminist snap as a moment of rupture and reconfiguration, we define hacking as an embodied act of refusal that reconfigures everyday things. Through "Función Rota", an audiovisual research project that gathers product hacking scenes in movies, we identify hacking as a form of both critique and speculation: it reveals the normative logics embedded in things, while opening up the possibility of re-prototyping from below. Through feminist …

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Introducing Systems Thinking In Design Education: Exploring Systems Through Breakfast, Michael Hohl Jun 2026

Introducing Systems Thinking In Design Education: Exploring Systems Through Breakfast, Michael Hohl

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Teaching and learning systems-thinking can often be abstract and, for new students, difficult to grasp. In our first-year Bachelor of Arts design theory seminar our goal was to connect systems theory to practice and thus allow for systems to become more tangible and visible. We asked ourselves: How might systems thinking become more concrete through doing, researching, reflecting, and discussing, therefore leading to a deeper understanding? In this text we present and discuss 'breakfast as a system', an evolving step-by-step and enquiry-based approach to learning. It involves background research, giga-mapping, and how researching and presenting information can lead to more …

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Metatrain：A Metacognitive Framework–Based Gamified Executive Function Training For Children With Adhd, Ningfeng Tang, Yang Yin, Haoran Wei, Beijia Hu, Chunlei Chai, Xiyuan Zhang Jun 2026

Metatrain：A Metacognitive Framework–Based Gamified Executive Function Training For Children With Adhd, Ningfeng Tang, Yang Yin, Haoran Wei, Beijia Hu, Chunlei Chai, Xiyuan Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Nowadays, parents and educators are paying more attention to the intervention of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Children with ADHD typically exhibit deficits in executive functions (EF), and metacognition is crucial for enhancing these functions. However, existing interventions mostly focus on specific training of EF and lack effective strategies to promote overall improvement through higher-level metacognitive processes. Therefore, this study integrates the metacognitive theoretical framework into EF training and designs a gamified intervention program for children with ADHD. Subsequently, we conducted an experiment with 16 children with ADHD and analyzed the changes in their EF levels before and …

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Public Participation Infrastructuring For Sustainability Transitions, Maria Andrea Valladares, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Martina Maria Keitsch Jun 2026

Public Participation Infrastructuring For Sustainability Transitions, Maria Andrea Valladares, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Martina Maria Keitsch

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Public participation plays a central role in sustainability transitions and addressing complex environmental challenges. However, governments face multiple challenges in enabling meaningful public participation and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Such processes tend to be constrained by legal frameworks, institutional rigidity, fragmented infrastructures, and limited capacity to facilitate multi-stakeholder dynamics. Drawing on insights from literature on transition governance and public participation, this article explores how public participation systems and infrastructures can be shifted towards what is needed in the context of transitions. The concept of infrastructuring is proposed as an analytical and design-orienting tool. Infrastructuring, here understood as an ongoing process of building …

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Within The Dialogue Box: Exploring Designer Activities And Linguistic Features In Collaboration With Textual Genai, Yulu Song, Ying Hu, Zihan Zhou, Wentao Deng, Xing Du, Yiming Bai Jun 2026

Within The Dialogue Box: Exploring Designer Activities And Linguistic Features In Collaboration With Textual Genai, Yulu Song, Ying Hu, Zihan Zhou, Wentao Deng, Xing Du, Yiming Bai

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Language functions as both a core element and the cognitive framework that supports the entire design process. However, the deep integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) is shifting the creative process from self- or human-to-human dialogue to human-AI conversation, requiring a careful examination of this emerging form of collaborative language. This study conducted an experiment on designer-AI collaboration. The goal was to explore the relationship between their collaborative activities, linguistic features, and co-creativity. By carefully coding activities and using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) method, we identified conversational features linked to different levels of creativity. These findings not …

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Understanding Designers’ Activities And Cognition In Co-Creation With Textual Genai: Do Prior Experience And Ai Literacy Matter?, Yulu Song, Ying Hu, Zihan Zhou, Yiming Bai, Xing Du, Ziling Liang, Yunxiang Shi, Wentao Deng Jun 2026

Understanding Designers’ Activities And Cognition In Co-Creation With Textual Genai: Do Prior Experience And Ai Literacy Matter?, Yulu Song, Ying Hu, Zihan Zhou, Yiming Bai, Xing Du, Ziling Liang, Yunxiang Shi, Wentao Deng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Artificial intelligence is bringing comprehensive impacts to the approaches, methods, and efficiency of creation. As a result, designers are being driven to tackle more untried tasks, rather than engaging in work they have long been proficient in. This study organised a co-design experiment involving novice designers and Textual GenAI to investigate the influence of prior experience and AI literacy on collaborative design outcomes. We conducted a detailed coding of collaborative activities in the design process. This uncovered the activity characteristics, shifts, and collaboration patterns in the co-creation process. These findings deepen the understanding of the Human-AI collaborative design process and …

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Visualisation For Citizen Participation: Data Practices In The Copenhagen Climate Citizens' Assembly, Daniele Dell'orto, Amalia De Götzen, Mathieu Jacomy Jun 2026

Visualisation For Citizen Participation: Data Practices In The Copenhagen Climate Citizens' Assembly, Daniele Dell'orto, Amalia De Götzen, Mathieu Jacomy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The recent popularisation of data and their visualisation has offered new opportunities for spaces of citizen participation around contested issues, such as climate assemblies. The potential of data visualisation in opening and supporting discussions has been widely recognised, but so has the risk it carries of naturalising certain perspectives and delegitimising others. Still, the roles played by data visualisation in the specific context of climate assemblies remain unaddressed. This paper investigates those roles through field observation and desk research around a case study, the Københavnernes Klimaborgerting. The study explores which data were visualised, how, by who and why. What emerges …

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The Transformative Nature Of Food And The Transition Of Traditional Desserts Into Industrial Products: A Case Study Through A Transformational Design Lens, Burcu Torum Jun 2026

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 …

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Exploring Current Understandings Of ‘Design Systems’: Toward A Conceptual Framework, Margrethe Nielsen, Peter Vistisen, Nanna Inie, Michael Mose Biskjaer Jun 2026

Exploring Current Understandings Of ‘Design Systems’: Toward A Conceptual Framework, Margrethe Nielsen, Peter Vistisen, Nanna Inie, Michael Mose Biskjaer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design systems are foundational in the design of user experience (UX) across platforms and products. Although design systems have become pervasive in design practice, the term remains ambiguous due to multiple definitions and conceptualizations. The lack of a shared definition can lead to misunderstandings and ill-aligned uses of design systems in practice, vulnerable to the same issues of parallel activities and inconsistencies that design systems are meant to prevent. This paper reviews the concept from the term’s origin in design theory and into its current practice and proposes a new frame of reference for researchers and practitioners, focusing on improved …

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Crafting Semiotic Riddles: Materiality And Interpretive Play In Speculative Design, Jess Uhre Rahbek, Sofie Kinch Jun 2026

Crafting Semiotic Riddles: Materiality And Interpretive Play In Speculative Design, Jess Uhre Rahbek, Sofie Kinch

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper repositions speculative design artefacts as semiotic riddles, where materiality operates not merely as a carrier of speculation but as a vehicle for play. Drawing on Peircean semiotics and narrative theory, we extend Auger’s notion of the ‘perceptual bridge’ to show how speculative artefacts invite audiences into riddle-solving, assembling ‘fabula’ worlds from incomplete ‘syuzhet’ clues. Methodologically, we propose that speculative design can be understood as the crafting of riddles: designing with ambiguity, incompleteness, and interpretive openness. Through three design projects, we illustrate distinct ways in which designers structure the clues of semiotic riddles, whether singular artefacts, fragmented constellations or …

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The Fair Share Of Care: A Distributed Care Account Of Circular Design, Ida Krstulović Jun 2026

The Fair Share Of Care: A Distributed Care Account Of Circular Design, Ida Krstulović

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how the ethics of care can be applied to circular product design. Although the concept of care is compatible with circular design, individualistic models of care place excessive focus on single actors, such as designers, while approaches of shared or collective care risk the diffusion of responsibility, making it unclear who should act in order for certain needs to be met. These approaches fail to adequately address three interrelated problems: moral distance, influence (or lack thereof), and the diffusion of responsibility. Consequently, this paper introduces the concept of distributed care, an approach that focuses on assigning care …

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In Vegetal Terms: Temporal Lenses In Human-Plant Interaction, Clee Zhuo Wang, Jeffrey C. F. Ho, Bow Yiying Wu Jun 2026

In Vegetal Terms: Temporal Lenses In Human-Plant Interaction, Clee Zhuo Wang, Jeffrey C. F. Ho, Bow Yiying Wu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper highlights temporality as an important more-than-human design strategy and expands multiple lenses for engaging with the temporal complexity of more-than-human. Reflecting on the dominance of anthropocentric and industrial notions of time in design, we choose plant as a paradigmatic case for otherly temporality. We take stock from interdisciplinary literatures and introduce six temporal lenses: rhythm, horizon, continuity, duration, genealogy, and incompleteness, to articulate how plants live, change, and relate through multiple overlapping temporalities. Connecting these lenses to human-plant interaction design practice, these temporal lenses enables designers to recognize temporal frictions, attend to vegetal rhythms, and cultivate responsive and …

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From Speculation To Strategy Reflection: A Case Study Of Design-Led Foresight Workshops At Revigrés, Gisela Pinheiro Agostinho, Teresa Franqueira Jun 2026

From Speculation To Strategy Reflection: A Case Study Of Design-Led Foresight Workshops At Revigrés, Gisela Pinheiro Agostinho, Teresa Franqueira

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article presents a case-based investigation of design-led foresight in practice through a series of international workshops conducted in Denmark and China within a doctoral action-research programme with Revigrés, a Portuguese ceramic manufacturer. Grounded in a structured trend cartography clustered into fifteen domains, multidisciplinary teams employed lightweight foresight methods, including personas, rapid scenario visioning, and low-fidelity prototyping, to explore possible housing futures for 2070. Twelve speculative design visions emerged, ranging from bio-integrated habitats and privacy-legible smart homes to circular neighbourhood systems and programmable interiors. Rather than treating these visions as predictive outcomes, the study examines how workshop artefacts functioned as …

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Olfactory Prototyping As Diplomatic Device: Codesigning A Morethanhuman ‘Us’ With Two Captive Pumas, Marcela Mora, Pablo Hermansen Jun 2026

Olfactory Prototyping As Diplomatic Device: Codesigning A Morethanhuman ‘Us’ With Two Captive Pumas, Marcela Mora, Pablo Hermansen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper extends cosmopolitical prototyping into the olfactory domain to examine how smell can operate as a diplomatic device for interspecies coexistence. Building on a longitudinal, autoethnographic research through design project, we report multi session fieldwork with two captive pumas—Huilo (older, methodical) and Maqui (younger, playful)—at Refugio Animal Cascada, Chile. The study sought not to apply enrichment as an external fix, but to co constitute a situated more than human we in which animal, designer, materials, climate and infrastructures jointly stage conditions for safe relationality. We designed textile olfactory braids (reused cotton braids and burlap sachets) infused with botanicals (e.g., …

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Seeing Systemic Design Through Policy Eyes: A Frame-Work To Navigate Complexities Of Policy Contexts, Elke Michel Wennekers, Geert Brinkman, Jotte I.J.C. De Koning, Arwin Van Buuren Jun 2026

Seeing Systemic Design Through Policy Eyes: A Frame-Work To Navigate Complexities Of Policy Contexts, Elke Michel Wennekers, Geert Brinkman, Jotte I.J.C. De Koning, Arwin Van Buuren

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines why design practitioners experience tensions when ap-plying systemic design approaches within policy contexts. Drawing on Bekkers’ four analytical perspectives (rational, political, cultural, and institutional), we reinterpret the systemic design activities to reveal how each perspective places distinct, and at times conflicting, demands on design processes. By comparing the lenses across the dimensions of principles, framing, validity, appropriateness, and embedding, we develop a theoretical framework to shed light on how these tensions emerge. The framework also shows that each perspective puts different demands on a design process in the policy context. The framework helps both designers and policy …

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Towards Equitable Participation Of Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing People In Co-Design Research: An Initial Working Framework, Barbara Hein-Machado, Cecilia Landa-Avila, John Alexander Rey-Galindo, Carlos Aceves-Gonzalez, Rebecca Cain Jun 2026

Towards Equitable Participation Of Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing People In Co-Design Research: An Initial Working Framework, Barbara Hein-Machado, Cecilia Landa-Avila, John Alexander Rey-Galindo, Carlos Aceves-Gonzalez, Rebecca Cain

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Research involving Deaf and hard-of-hearing participants remains limited in its ability to include and engage with diverse participants lived experiences, weakening research rigour, relationships with communities, and perpetuating existing inequalities. The use of co-design approaches to address these needs, by positioning lived experience as an additional form of expert knowledge, has increased in recent years. However, the ways in which practices genuinely empower DHH participants, enabling participation that advances justice within and beyond the research setting, have not been translated into co-design research. This paper proposes an initial participatory framework for exploring DHH engagement in research, examining how models of …

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Co-Evolution In Practice: The Wolf's Disruptive Return To The Netherlands, Laurens Kolks Jun 2026

Co-Evolution In Practice: The Wolf's Disruptive Return To The Netherlands, Laurens Kolks

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Dutchmen like to pride themselves on having ‘successfully conquered nature’ through engineering, management and design. Currently, however, this triumphant spirit has been dampened by global, regional, and local developments that expose established Dutch notions of malleability and control as fallacies. This paper uses the unsolicited return of wolves to the Netherlands as an explanatory case study to illustrate how in this unfolding controversy problem and solution spaces co-evolve and thus call for all-but-reductionist design and management approaches. Building on the crucial difference between problems (that can be solved) and issues (that can be stabilised), a model is proposed that explicates …

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Queering Empathy In/For/With/By Design, Jessica Meharry Jun 2026

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 …

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When Can Asmr Sound Improve Consumer Product Evaluation? Exploring The Joint Influences Of Asmr Sound And Visual Richness, Huan Chen, Peiyao Cheng Jun 2026

When Can Asmr Sound Improve Consumer Product Evaluation? Exploring The Joint Influences Of Asmr Sound And Visual Richness, Huan Chen, Peiyao Cheng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As immersive media grows, brands increasingly adopt multisensory design, with ASMR emerging as a key auditory tool. How ASMR interacts with visual content to influence consumer product evaluation remains underexplored. Grounded in multisensory integration and processing fluency theory, this study employed three experiments (N=630) to examine their joint effects on immersive experience and purchase intention. Results indicate that ASMR generally enhances consumer evaluation, but its effect depends on visual richness. With low visual richness (color), ASMR adds sensory cues and enhances immersive experience. With moderate visual richness (3D), ASMR’s effect diminished. With high visual richness (close-up), ASMR may induce overload …

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