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2026

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Becoming Designers: Studio Instructors As Catalysts Of Designerly Identity Formation, Beril Gök Jun 2026

Becoming Designers: Studio Instructors As Catalysts Of Designerly Identity Formation, Beril Gök

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Embodiment, affect, and symbolic modelling remain underexplored dimensions of designerly identity formation, despite its recognition as a central outcome of design education. While existing research emphasizes cognitive-skill acquisition, little is known about how studio instructors shape identity through aesthetic, relational, and performative means. This study examines the influence of instructors within the socio-aesthetic ecology of the design studio. Using abductive thematic analysis of focus group interviews with teaching assistants across architecture, industrial design, interior design, and fashion design, the study highlights shared cross-disciplinary patterns across international contexts. Findings reveal that instructors shape designerly becoming not only through teaching but also …


Reimagining Materiality: Responsible And Experiential Vr Design For Fashion E-Commerce In India, Prajwala Dasari, Min-Ji Seo Jun 2026

Reimagining Materiality: Responsible And Experiential Vr Design For Fashion E-Commerce In India, Prajwala Dasari, Min-Ji Seo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how fashion brands can replicate touch and garment materiality through digital design strategies to engage Gen Z shoppers in India, addressing the sensory absence in e-commerce. Using an interpretivist, qualitative, multi-method approach involving eight semi-structured interviews and five participant observations, the study investigates how Virtual Reality (VR) can enhance emotional engagement and responsible consumption in fashion retail. Guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), findings show that gamification, interactivity, and personalisation—combined with transparency and brand trust—drive consumer acceptance. The study highlights the importance of inclusive and …


Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries, Jess Parris Westbrook, Coraline Ada Ehmke Jun 2026

Queer(Ing) Epistemology By Design: Tmi-Web—A Relational Knowledge System For Intersectional Data Science And Affective Queries, Jess Parris Westbrook, Coraline Ada Ehmke

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Queer(ing) is a practice of questioning, unsettling, and liberating that resists normative ways of knowing. This paper advances a Queer(ing) epistemology for intersectional data science and offers TMI (Too Much Information)-WEB as a working case. This open source, theory-driven qualitative data analysis ecosystem treats identity, lived experience, and power as relational, contextual, and co-constructed. Built on a human-centered graph data model, it reimagines databases as dynamic knowledge systems rather than neutral containers. Authentic, identity-driven personas emerge from participants’ own narratives, while affective queries invite researchers to explore (and experience) patterns of harm, coping, joy, and self-acceptance across intersectional lives and …


Not Post-Digital But More-Than-Human: Rethinking Digital Design For Regional Natural History Museums, Katt Grover, Argenis Ramirez Gomez, Claire Bailey Ross Jun 2026

Not Post-Digital But More-Than-Human: Rethinking Digital Design For Regional Natural History Museums, Katt Grover, Argenis Ramirez Gomez, Claire Bailey Ross

DRS Biennial Conference Series

What if the future of digital design in museums isn’t found in cutting-edge institutions, but in the often-overlooked ecologies of regional natural history collections? This paper repositions small regional museums not as lagging behind in digital transformation, but as fertile grounds for exploring more-than-human digital design. Drawing on an ongoing collaborative project between the Portsmouth Natural History Museum and the University of Portsmouth, we reflect on the interactive experiences using low-cost holograms and motion-capture avatars as mediators between human and non-human actors within museum ecologies. Giving collections voices and personalities engaged audiences, yet in attempting to become more-than-human, the collections …


Cultureaction! An Interaction And Experience Design Project To Explore San Marino’S Historic Center As A Living Archive., Silvia Gasparotto Jun 2026

Cultureaction! An Interaction And Experience Design Project To Explore San Marino’S Historic Center As A Living Archive., Silvia Gasparotto

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how design-driven approaches can boost engagement with cultural heritage and archives, centering on an experimental initiative in San Marino's historic center. The project envisions the city as a dynamic archive brought to life through interactive installations. A system featuring an interactive device called Iride and six site-specific installations was created to reveal the hidden historical and meaningful layers within the urban landscape. These installations use multisensory components to craft experiences that enhance visitors' cognitive and emotional connections with local cultural stories. This method illustrates how design and digital technology can connect tangible and intangible heritage, institutional archives …


Bringing Characters To Vitality: Enhancing Credibility Of Original Characters In Narrative Works By Making The Oc A Generative Ai Agent, Xiaozhan Liang, Ling Zou, Yong Hu, Siyu Luo Jun 2026

Bringing Characters To Vitality: Enhancing Credibility Of Original Characters In Narrative Works By Making The Oc A Generative Ai Agent, Xiaozhan Liang, Ling Zou, Yong Hu, Siyu Luo

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines how generative AI can transform original characters (OCs) into interactive agents that improve character believability in design contexts. We propose a human–AI co-creation workflow that integrates dialogue, image, and context modalities, stabilizing style and behavior through structured prompts and expert feedback. In a mixed-method evaluation with five expert creators and a general audience, the approach increased perceived realism and emotional authenticity, while psychological complexity changed little—indicating the need for longer-horizon design. Dialogue contributed most to credibility, with context reinforcing coherence and images showing limited gains. We distill design principles for cross-modal alignment, style stability, and progressive complexity, …


Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation, Hoi Wah Chan, Christopher J. Parker, Darren J. Southee Jun 2026

Inter-Poly-Creation (Ipc): Unifying Mass Customisation And Co-Creation, Hoi Wah Chan, Christopher J. Parker, Darren J. Southee

DRS Biennial Conference Series

To innovate stakeholder value, designers, business strategists, and marketers rely on shared understanding to co-create value. While co-creation is established in strategic design, practitioners use related terms interchangeably, including co-creation and Mass Customisation (MC). While conflicting terminology enables stakeholder participation, resources and knowledge are fragmented, obstructing a unified practice and limiting shared understanding of value creation. This paper clarifies co-creation and MC terms, explains why practitioners interchange terminology, and examines how stakeholder value and disciplinary perspectives shape their usage. We analysed 828 academic papers across the design, business, and innovation disciplines, focusing on commonly confused lexicons. We reveal that designers, …


Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios Jun 2026

Re-Voicing Identity: Care Ethics And The Politics Of Unsilencing After Total Laryngectomy, Gala Lucia Gonzalez Barrios

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Voice loss after total laryngectomy disrupts identity and quality of life yet current assistive technologies reproduce techno-ableist assumptions, prioritizing speech mimicry over identity restoration while systematic marginalization excludes laryngectomees from research and innovation. This paper presents a care-centred participatory design agenda bridging a propositional approach “Singing Without a Larynx”, a vowel-based vocal interface for singing, with cross-cultural photovoice research in the United States and Argentina. Grounded in care ethics, we operationalize attentiveness, responsibility, and relational accountability, positioning participants as co-designers whose embodied knowledge shapes technological imaginaries, and community challenges and assets. We propose: (1) a critical framework integrating care ethics, …


A Systemic Design Approach To Supporting Children With Different Language Parents, Mitte Van Boxem, Maud Gruyters Jun 2026

A Systemic Design Approach To Supporting Children With Different Language Parents, Mitte Van Boxem, Maud Gruyters

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper describes a master’s thesis process in which systemic design was used to explore how children with a different home language than the national language can be supported. Using a systemic approach, this research maps the complex network surrounding these families and identifies key leverage points: valuing the home language, reducing pressure on the child, and strengthening family integration. Through interviews, cultural probes, and co-creation with professionals, insights were translated into a low-threshold product-service system (PSS) embedded in the children’s living environment. The PSS encourages family interaction and neighbourhood engagement through playful exploration. The findings underscore the potential of …


Figurations As A Situated Counter-Device For Participatory Design: Exploring Time And Presence In Design Practice., Diana Maria Mahecha, Juan Alfonso De La Rosa, Juan Pablo Velasquez Jun 2026

Figurations As A Situated Counter-Device For Participatory Design: Exploring Time And Presence In Design Practice., Diana Maria Mahecha, Juan Alfonso De La Rosa, Juan Pablo Velasquez

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article explores the notion of figurations as a theoretical and methodological concept to address tensions between time, presence, and practice in participatory design processes. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s and Rosi Braidotti’s work, we argue that figurations invite more situated practices that acknowledge the relational and material realities emerging in Global South contexts. Methodologically, the paper offers a situated ethnographic reading of participatory workshops conducted in Colombia, tracing the patterns and affections that shape collective action. We propose figurations as embodied, affective, and speculative counter-devices that foster political imagination and community agency in processes of social transformation. The paper contributes …


Keeping It Real With Responsible Futuring: Reflecting On The Epistemic And Political Ambition Of A Transdisciplinary Approach For Societal Transitions, Cristina Zaga, Julieta Matos Castaño, Mascha Van Der Voort Jun 2026

Keeping It Real With Responsible Futuring: Reflecting On The Epistemic And Political Ambition Of A Transdisciplinary Approach For Societal Transitions, Cristina Zaga, Julieta Matos Castaño, Mascha Van Der Voort

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Amidst the upheaval of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the threat of the Sixth Extinction, designers focus on approaches that help communities connect and imagine alternative, desirable futures. Transdisciplinary approaches promise more sustainable and just transitions by valuing and integrating diverse forms of knowledge to co-shape more equitable design interventions. However, these ambitions often fall short. Transdisciplinary practices may be reduced to justice-washing or corporate co-optation, frequently failing to achieve epistemic and social justice. This paper introduces Responsible Futuring, a transdisciplinary design-led approach that enables communities to actively shape their future trajectories, embracing collaboration and diverse perspectives as catalysts for …


Telling Stories, Making Hanzi: Ai-Assisted Co-Creation With Elderly Migrants In Urban China, Yunfei Chen, Wen Zhan, Peiyue Lin, Ziqun Hua, Ying Hu Jun 2026

Telling Stories, Making Hanzi: Ai-Assisted Co-Creation With Elderly Migrants In Urban China, Yunfei Chen, Wen Zhan, Peiyue Lin, Ziqun Hua, Ying Hu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how older migrants in urban China can record stories that everyday language and design often miss. We ran two co-creation workshops with 10 elders. Activities combined oral storytelling, facilitator-mediated AI assistance, and hand making. Large language models proposed candidate glyphs through a facilitator. Participants crafted new Hanzi to hold their stories. The resulting characters served as memory anchors for later sharing and retelling. Our interpretive analysis shows heterogeneity and adaptive capacity among participants. Participants experienced AI as a creative initiator that lowered barriers to expression and making, especially for those with lower digital literacy. The work challenges …


Environmentality's Integrated Design: Iso Standards As Infrastructural Semiotics, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun Jun 2026

Environmentality's Integrated Design: Iso Standards As Infrastructural Semiotics, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Tracing the emergence of neoliberalism, Michel Foucault introduced the concept of environmentality to describe a form of power in which control is exercised through the design of an increasingly technologically mediated environment to ensure economic circulation. Decades in, environmentality has reshaped how our habitats are conceptualized, designed, and perceived. In many levels, design has stopped being an independent autonomous task to be integrated and automated within the operative nature of our milieux. This integrated design operates through infrastructural semiotics, i.e. texts, codes, guidelines, indicators, benchmarks and protocols as well as other ecologies of biological, social and machinic signs like notifications …


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 …


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 …


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 …


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 …


Is This The “Me” They Want To See? Exploring Near-Future Adaptations Of Ai For Professional Visibility And Self-Presentation, Forouzan Ebrahimi, Mahan Mehrvarz, Nazli Cila Jun 2026

Is This The “Me” They Want To See? Exploring Near-Future Adaptations Of Ai For Professional Visibility And Self-Presentation, Forouzan Ebrahimi, Mahan Mehrvarz, Nazli Cila

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As professional collaboration increasingly shifts to digital and asynchronous modes, workers use collaboration technologies not only to coordinate tasks but also to manage their professional visibility and reputation. To examine how these practices could evolve as AI becomes more embedded in the collaboration environment, a speculative design approach was adopted to make near-future scenarios experiential. We prototyped speculative AI systems that support visibility through employee self-report reflection, performance scoring, AI-enhanced meeting appearance, communication delegation, and AI-use disclosure as probes for a series of immersive and interactive scenario-based interviews. The findings uncover selective disclosure of AI use to manage professional image, …


Whose Voice Is It Anyway?: Design Resources For Safely Navigating Deceptive Ai Voice Scams, Dominique Carlon, Awais Hameed Khan, Anthony Mccosker, Tracy De Cotta Jun 2026

Whose Voice Is It Anyway?: Design Resources For Safely Navigating Deceptive Ai Voice Scams, Dominique Carlon, Awais Hameed Khan, Anthony Mccosker, Tracy De Cotta

DRS Biennial Conference Series

AI-powered voice scams are a fast-evolving public threat, combining rapid advances in synthetic speech technologies with sophisticated social engineering tactics. These scams are difficult to detect, exploit trust and familiarity, often resulting in deeply stigmatising experiences for those targeted. While anyone can be affected by scams, building awareness and confidence in navigating AI-related risks requires approaches tailored to the needs of diverse communities, particularly those who are more digitally excluded or marginalised. To address this, we developed AI & You—a suite of accessible, modular, and adaptable public education resources, collaboratively designed with the digital advocacy group Tactical Tech. We evaluated …


Designing Narrative Reconstruction From Bamboo Slips: A Rag-Agent Approach For Cultural Scene Generation, Qijun Tian, Yuqian Yao, Zhengyu Chen, Hanling Zhang Jun 2026

Designing Narrative Reconstruction From Bamboo Slips: A Rag-Agent Approach For Cultural Scene Generation, Qijun Tian, Yuqian Yao, Zhengyu Chen, Hanling Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As large language models (LLMs) become increasingly integrated into cultural heritage research, practices such as artifact reconstruction, content generation, and virtual restoration are rapidly advancing. Generative artificial intelligence is unlocking new narrative potential for jiandu (bamboo and wooden slips), offering innovative approaches to cultural expression and historical reconstruction. However, general-purpose language models often face limitations in domain knowledge and semantic reliability, making it difficult to ensure accuracy and traceability in jiandu-based generation. To address these challenges, this study proposes a virtual restoration framework for jiandu narratives based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and agent mechanisms. Using the Liye Qin slips as …


Design-Driven Reflection: A Children's Metacognitive Cultivation System Integrating Physical Interaction And Digital Narrative, Yi Li, Yanfei Xu, Yu Gao, Zihui Jiang, Xinming Zhou, Xiaofang Jiang Jun 2026

Design-Driven Reflection: A Children's Metacognitive Cultivation System Integrating Physical Interaction And Digital Narrative, Yi Li, Yanfei Xu, Yu Gao, Zihui Jiang, Xinming Zhou, Xiaofang Jiang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Reflection is a crucial component for the development of children's metacognitive abilities, which is foundational for their overall growth. However, current preschool practices often lack structured approaches for facilitating reflection. To promote children's reflection after autonomous play and thereby foster their metacognitive abilities, this study introduces a reflection system that integrates physical interaction and digital narrative. Using tangible icons, the system guides children in reconstructing their play experiences, which are then converted into personalized digital comics. Implementation in kindergarten settings demonstrates the system's high usability and its effectiveness in eliciting children's metacognitive statements. Furthermore, the socially shared reflective situations significantly …


From Boundaries To Bindings. Reframing Sound-Driven Design In Narrative Exhibitions, Micol Riva, Yi Zhang Jun 2026

From Boundaries To Bindings. Reframing Sound-Driven Design In Narrative Exhibitions, Micol Riva, Yi Zhang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Digital technologies and human-centred design approaches have transformed the cultural heritage sector, shifting the focus towards the visitor experience and advocating for collaboration between designers and non-designers. This article draws on design research and museography to discuss the role of sound in the digital cultural heritage, focusing on sound-driven exhibition design practices. The ephemeral nature of sonic experiences challenges the concept of “boundary objects”, reframing them from blueprint-like physical or abstract schemes into an Ingoldian concept of “bindings", promoting mutual understanding and collaboration across different communities. We focus here on two narrative exhibitions we were directly involved in: a participatory …


Perceived Quality And Future Applications Of Transparent Wood: Insights From An International Focus Group, Eva Vanessa Bruno, Beatrice Lerma, Doriana Dal Palù Jun 2026

Perceived Quality And Future Applications Of Transparent Wood: Insights From An International Focus Group, Eva Vanessa Bruno, Beatrice Lerma, Doriana Dal Palù

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Transparent wood (TW), obtained by removing lignin from natural wood and infiltrating it with bio-resin or bioplastic, has attracted renewed scientific and industrial interest over the past fifteen years as an effective alternative to plastics and glass. The research explores how this perceptual hybrid can be meaningfully presented in professional design contexts to support future use of TW. A twofold action was carried out during a focus group involving 12 international project professionals. On one hand, a sensory–perceptual analysis was conducted to identify the distinctive characteristics of the material; on the other, future application scenarios were explored through creative techniques …


From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian Jun 2026

From Edgeland To Gentrified-Land: Graphic Communication As Intermediary For Negotiating Place Identity In Hackney Wick, London, Angelina Hang Pan, Jennifer Mchugn, Jingnan Bian

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Hackney Wick has long been regarded as an urban edgeland, marked by significant poverty since the 1860s, with distinctive topographic and socio- economic features. Yet in the early 2000s, it saw a rapid transformation into a creative space as artists began to occupy abandoned warehouses, building a live- work culture and quickly establishing itself as one of Europe’s most vibrant artistic communities. More recently, the development of the London Olympic infrastructure and government-led urban regeneration initiatives have accelerated gentrification and drive for social capital, whilst intensifying social exclusion and community marginalisation amongst disadvantaged communities. This paper integrates visual ethnography (graphic …


When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design, Nina Luostarinen, Melanie Sarantou Jun 2026

When Play Becomes Language: Transforming International Student Experience Through Environmental Art And Eco-Social Design, Nina Luostarinen, Melanie Sarantou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study explores the Miyanohara participatory land art project in Ōmuta City, Japan, as an innovative teaching method for integrating international exchange students into new cultural and environmental settings within higher education institutions (HEIs). By creating a 74-metre installation depicting the Kasumi salamander at a former coal mine site, eleven international students from Kyushu University's Strategic Design course engaged in embodied learning that transcended linguistic and cultural barriers. Using arts-based methodologies and an eco-social design approach, we demonstrate how land art can serve as a powerful tool for HEIs to foster environmental awareness, cultural integration, and transformational learning experiences for …


Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning, Seulgi Sylvia Kim, Zach Pino, Paige Safyer, August Neyrey, Richa Sharma, Tzu-Chi Huang, Maria Sekyi Jun 2026

Designing For Learning Rhythms: A Taxonomy Of Trajectory-Aware Interventions In Online Learning, Seulgi Sylvia Kim, Zach Pino, Paige Safyer, August Neyrey, Richa Sharma, Tzu-Chi Huang, Maria Sekyi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Online learning platforms give learners unprecedented control over pacing, yet this flexibility often leaves students without support at the moments when they need it most—during transitions between activities, cognitive states, or levels of engagement. Existing self-regulated learning (SRL) interventions tend to rely on fixed schedules or simplistic triggers, overlooking how learners’ trajectories unfold and where they begin to diverge toward productive or unproductive pathways. This paper introduces a framework for trajectory-aware interventions, an approach that integrates temporal design with real-time behavioral diagnostics to identify and support critical transition moments. Through a comparative analysis of major online learning platforms and a …


In Search Of The Definitions For Biodesign: Practice, Identity And Biodesign Literacy, Adela Orcajada, Isabel Ordoñez, Valentina Rognoli Jun 2026

In Search Of The Definitions For Biodesign: Practice, Identity And Biodesign Literacy, Adela Orcajada, Isabel Ordoñez, Valentina Rognoli

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Since its inception two decades ago, biodesign has consistently been conceptually hazy. It´s an emerging interdisciplinary field lying somewhere between biology and material sciences on one hand, and art and design practice on the other. Despite efforts by academia and industry to define and contextualise biodesign, the lack of shared vocabulary between its two sides and clear standards for who qualifies as a biodesigner continues to hinder its development. This study combines a literature review to examine how biodesign has been defined over time, alongside a survey that analyzes who identifies as a biodesigner. The aim is to explore the …


Tectonic Computation: Crafting Logic Through Material And Geometry, Dimitris Papanikolaou Jun 2026

Tectonic Computation: Crafting Logic Through Material And Geometry, Dimitris Papanikolaou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reframes computation as a design practice rather than a technological application. Through the construction of mechanical computing artifacts that harness environmental energy and material constraints, it demonstrates how designing can become a form of computational inquiry. The work positions architecture as a discipline capable of foundational contributions to computation by treating material, geometry, and energy as active agents of logic and memory. The study advances two main contributions: 1) It reconceptualizes computation as a physical and architectural phenomenon rather than a symbolic or digital one. 2) It demonstrates, through a pedagogical experiment, that computation can be enacted and …


Narrataive: Using Narrative For Human–Ai Co-Creation In Intelligent Cockpits, Danhua Zhao, Yufei Liu, Yuhao Jiang, Zhongjie Xue Jun 2026

Narrataive: Using Narrative For Human–Ai Co-Creation In Intelligent Cockpits, Danhua Zhao, Yufei Liu, Yuhao Jiang, Zhongjie Xue

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As intelligent cockpits transition toward experience-centered scenario design, designers must organize increasingly complex relationships among users, behaviors, and system responses. While Generative AI (GenAI) accelerates early-stage exploration, it often struggles to interpret designers’ intentions, resulting in semantic drift and inconsistencies. This study proposes NarratAIve, a structured narrative–driven framework for human–AI co-creation in intelligent cockpit design. The framework encodes users, actions, contexts, and feedback into computable narrative units that serve as clear semantic inputs for cross-modal AI generation. Through two workshops with 24 participants (including graduate students and industry experts), six cockpit concepts were produced, demonstrating how narrative acts as a …


Understanding Food Waste Practices In Cross-Cultural Food Adaptation: The Case Of Chinese Students In The Uk, Xuecheng Dai, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu Jun 2026

Understanding Food Waste Practices In Cross-Cultural Food Adaptation: The Case Of Chinese Students In The Uk, Xuecheng Dai, Emmanuel Tsekleves, Yekta Bakırlıoğlu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Food waste is a global sustainability concern, yet its connection to cross-cultural adaptation remains underexplored. For international students, adapting to unfamiliar food environments involves cycles of trial, error and waste. Among Chinese students in the UK (one of the largest international student populations), cultural differences and short stays intensify these processes, resulting in distinct forms of waste. This study explores how food adaptation relates to waste among first-time Chinese students in the UK, attempting to reveal areas for design interventions. Seventeen students completed seven-day cultural probes, combining daily tasks with self-reflection on food practices. The analysis revealed various types of …