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Lifting Threads, Piercing Fabrics, And Tracing Stories Through Stitches: An Embroidery Inquiry Into Analysing Empirical Material, Andreea Strineholm, Jennie Schaeffer Jun 2026

Lifting Threads, Piercing Fabrics, And Tracing Stories Through Stitches: An Embroidery Inquiry Into Analysing Empirical Material, Andreea Strineholm, Jennie Schaeffer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates how textile-based practices can open alternative modes of inquiry into research material. Through an exploratory workshop, a multidisciplinary group of creative professionals and design researchers engaged with photo-elicitation data by embroidering directly onto photographs printed on fabric and wallpaper. This tactile and embodied engagement enabled a slower, more reflective encounter with the material, where meaning emerged through touch, rhythm, and collective making rather than systematic analysis. By lifting threads, piercing fabrics, and tracing stories through stitches, participants enacted a form of textile thinking: one that performs epistemologically through material interaction. This approach situates embroidery as a methodological …

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Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare, Anne Schiffer, Anthony P. Cooper Jun 2026

Critical Minerals In The Body: Towards Re-Use In Orthopaedic Healthcare, Anne Schiffer, Anthony P. Cooper

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Recent years have seen an acceleration in efforts to secure global supply chains of ‘critical minerals’ for defence, digital technologies, energy and transport. However, this rapidly evolving geopolitical context also impacts other sectors including healthcare which rely on some of the same resources. In orthopaedics, metals including titanium and medical grade stainless steel are used for implants. Supply chain disruption and rising costs therefore pose risks to product performance in the body, affordability and quality of patient care. Firstly, this paper shares findings from a content analysis of grey literature by leading orthopaedic manufactures. Secondly, it presents an illustrative re-use …

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Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels, Amy Hyewon Lee Jun 2026

Mapping Design’S Contribution To Policymaking: A Framework For Understanding Design’S Roles Across Policymaking Levels, Amy Hyewon Lee

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how design is conceptualised within design and policy literature in public-sector contexts, contributing to the expanding discourse on design for policy. Despite the growing adoption of design approaches in governance, robust evidence of their contribution remains limited. Using a qualitative meta-synthesis of 24 publications spanning design studies, policy design, and public administration, the study identifies four interrelated logics through which design is conceptualised in policymaking: systems learning and reflexivity; legitimacy and relational effectiveness; structuring and coherence; and adaptation and delivery. These logics are reframed as epistemic, relational, systemic, and operational dimensions of contributive capacity that describe how …

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More-Than-Human Self-Tracking: An Uncertain Account Of Urine Monitoring, Protein Excess And Ecological Entanglements, Anton Poikolainen Rosén Jun 2026

More-Than-Human Self-Tracking: An Uncertain Account Of Urine Monitoring, Protein Excess And Ecological Entanglements, Anton Poikolainen Rosén

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores self-tracking technologies through a more-than-human lens, focusing on the entanglements between protein consumption, urine monitoring, and environmental care. Using autoethnography, I reflect on the practices of measuring protein and nitrogen in urine as a means to interrogate how personal health data intersect with ecological concerns, particularly nitrogen runoff and its contribution to overfertilization of the Baltic Sea. The account highlights tensions between the precision promised by digital health apps and the uncertainty, messiness, and environmental costs of measuring itself. By mapping nitrogen metabolism across bodies, infrastructures, and the environment, the paper identifies potential points of intervention: dietary …

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Co-Designing Equitable Engagement - Home Health Assessment In Healthcare Practice In Scotland, Sonja Oliveira, Laura Maclean, Gráinne Mcgill, Carolina Recart Jun 2026

Co-Designing Equitable Engagement - Home Health Assessment In Healthcare Practice In Scotland, Sonja Oliveira, Laura Maclean, Gráinne Mcgill, Carolina Recart

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reflects upon the research process of co-designing equitable engagement within the healthcare sector. The research considers approaches to co-design as rooted within researchers sharing decision-making and shifting power not from themselves to participants, but amongst the research team itself. Co-design is mostly discussed as a process of academics and non-academics sharing the research design journey through participatory, inclusive and dialogical methods. This study considers how this process evolves within the research team itself, whereby known research project roles, responsibilities and remit are put to one side allowing difference, conflict and disagreement to be explored using design research methods. …

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Touchbox: A Research Toolkit Of Haptic Textile Cubes For Experiencing, Evaluating, And Co-Designing Tangible Remote Communication, Hannah Friederike Fischer, Hanns-Peter Horn, Emil Woop Jun 2026

Touchbox: A Research Toolkit Of Haptic Textile Cubes For Experiencing, Evaluating, And Co-Designing Tangible Remote Communication, Hannah Friederike Fischer, Hanns-Peter Horn, Emil Woop

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The novel nature of tangible communication technologies and users’ lack of prior experience pose a significant challenge for engaging stakeholders in participative activities for non-verbal, tangible remote-communication devices. To address this gap, we developed a research toolkit consisting of wirelessly connected textile cubes capable of transmitting haptic signals such as motion, warmth, shape change, heartbeat, vibration and visual cues. This paper examines the potential of the toolkit as a methodological tool for identifying suitable input-output modalities and capturing user perceptions in the early stages of device development. Applied within a recent research project, the toolkit enabled participants to engage with …

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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, …

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Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection, Jenny Long, Caroline Gausden, Tara Capel, Uta Hinrichs Jun 2026

Build & Connect: Designing A Constructive, Participatory Physicalization Activity & Toolkit For Community Reflection, Jenny Long, Caroline Gausden, Tara Capel, Uta Hinrichs

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper explores how slow design and care can inform reflective data physicalization practices. Physicalization has been recognized to widen participation in data exploration, but how can it serve communities with varied relationships to power, access, and exclusion? We explored this question through a case study that aimed at supporting a long-term community project through physicalization activities. We found that language around data and representation created barriers to participation, even when demonstrated through established physicalization activities. Centering design processes around participants’ reservations we arrived at Build & Connect, a constructive, participatory physicalization activity and toolkit which, based on the analogy …

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Restorative Retail: A Literature Review On Consumer Well-Being In The Retail Environment, Katelijn Quartier Jun 2026

Restorative Retail: A Literature Review On Consumer Well-Being In The Retail Environment, Katelijn Quartier

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In an era increasingly shaped by consumers’ search for meaningful and emotionally engaging experiences, the concept of restorative retail is emerging as a key paradigm in retail and service design. This semi-systematic literature review synthesizes theoretical and empirical research across marketing, environmental psychology, and architecture to examine how physical retail environments can promote psychological restoration and well-being. Drawing on foundational frameworks—Attention Restoration Theory (ART), biophilia, and servicescape theory—the review identifies central design principles such as nature integration, sensory harmony, and spatial openness that underpin restorative experiences. Although evidence supports the restorative potential of retail environments, empirical validation remains limited, particularly …

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Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice, Olga Ioannou Jun 2026

Re-Materialising Design: Material Agency And The Reconfiguration Of Creative Practice, Olga Ioannou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines biobased materials as agents of creative and systemic transformation within design practice. Drawing from a university course on circular building product design, several graduation theses, and two research projects -one focused on food waste valorisation and another on load-bearing mycelium composites- it investigates how engagement with biobased, regenerative materials reconfigures the designer’s role across the value chain, from sourcing to post-use reintegration. By situating material experimentation within ecological and socio-technical transitions, the paper argues that biobased materials enable a re-materialisation of design knowledge, where making becomes a mode of inquiry into interdependencies between nature, technology, and culture. …

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Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity, Kaicheng Zhuang, Minghao Du Jun 2026

Age-Ready Suburbia: Designing Distributed Care And Housing Transitions For Longevity, Kaicheng Zhuang, Minghao Du

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This thesis reimagines the aging U.S. suburb as a site of transition, where single-family housing can evolve into distributed care infrastructure supporting longevity and community well-being. Through onsite research in Sacramento and collaboration with local care providers, the project develops a scalable framework for retrofitting suburban homes into neighborhood-based care hubs connected by shared food, mobility, and caregiver networks. Integrating architectural transformation, service design, and participatory co-design methods, it proposes a systemic approach that bridges individual housing adaptation with urban-scale resilience. Rather than pursuing technological “smartness,” the model advances a human-centered LongevityTech vision,where design mediates between housing, health, and social …

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Reorienting Design Futures With Hope, Manuela Celi, Victoria Rodriguez Schon Jun 2026

Reorienting Design Futures With Hope, Manuela Celi, Victoria Rodriguez Schon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reorients Design Futures through hope as a situated, anticipatory, and actionable practice for working within postnormal conditions marked by uncertainty, systemic crisis, and defuturing. Bringing together futures studies, feminist epistemologies, and decolonial perspectives, it argues that design can help imagine and enact alternatives through situated interventions. The paper develops a conceptual and reflexive methodology that synthesizes three strands of literature; hope, hope and design, and hope and futures, and formulates three tactics for operationalizing hope in design practice: hoping as present-tense praxis, hoping otherwise, and projectual hope. Together, these frame hope as an ethical and political orientation that …

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When Grief Takes Shape: Codesigning Creative Modalities In Grief Support Groups For Children, Kirstine Neimann Skov, Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen Jun 2026

When Grief Takes Shape: Codesigning Creative Modalities In Grief Support Groups For Children, Kirstine Neimann Skov, Eva Knutz, Thomas Markussen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Research highlights the positive impact of creative modalities, such as drawings and images, in grief practice for children. However, more knowledge is needed to guide grief practitioners regarding the effects and contributions of these modalities to children’s coping strategies and wellbeing. This paper investigates the use of creative modalities in Danish grief support groups for children through a study involving participatory design research. The study provides a comprehensive overview of how creative modalities can support grieving processes and lay new ground for future work in codesigning creative modalities for and with practitioners and children. The concept of grief as an …

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Speculative Woolgathering: Using Design Approaches To Explore Values In The Uk Wool Supply Chain To Enable Digital Good, Naomi Jacobs, Emily Birch, Peter Craigon, Katherine Drury, Anabel Gutierrez Mendoza, Louise Manning, David Perez Jun 2026

Speculative Woolgathering: Using Design Approaches To Explore Values In The Uk Wool Supply Chain To Enable Digital Good, Naomi Jacobs, Emily Birch, Peter Craigon, Katherine Drury, Anabel Gutierrez Mendoza, Louise Manning, David Perez

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents an interdisciplinary project using speculative design to explore the intersections of sustainability and technology in the UK Wool industry. Through a process of value mapping, worldbuilding, design fiction, and card development, the project involved stakeholders across the wool supply chain who contributed their perspectives and priorities. This process revealed how value is created in the wool industry, and how relationships and systems are mediated by hidden, often contrasting values. Findings highlight the importance of these values in shaping sustainable and equitable futures for the sector. We present a conceptual framework of valuation, revaluation and evaluation as a …

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Material Awareness And Meaning-Making: Leather In Handbag Design, Jaana Päeva Jun 2026

Material Awareness And Meaning-Making: Leather In Handbag Design, Jaana Päeva

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article explores how material properties and sustainability awareness shape aesthetic perception in leather handbag design. Drawing on practice-based research, the study combines memory collection, collaborative designer-led prototyping and user feedback to examine designer and consumer experiences. Findings show that designers focus on structural and tactile qualities—stiffness, thickness, and texture—while aesthetic attributes such as colour and surface finish support conceptual and stylistic intentions. Sustainable tanning methods and innovative leathers introduce new challenges, requiring adaptive strategies. For users, long-term interaction with leather fosters appreciation for durability, patina, and cultural meaning, shifting aesthetic evaluation from immediate visual appeal to qualities signalling longevity …

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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, …

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Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd, Çağla Şen, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jos J. Kraal Jun 2026

Breaking The Cycle: Understanding Self-Experimentation As A Health Behavior Change Approach For Young Adults With Adhd, Çağla Şen, Jaap Daalhuizen, Jos J. Kraal

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterized by executive dysfunctions that disrupt the initiation and maintenance of everyday behaviors, making habit formation challenging. As a result, many individuals with ADHD struggle to sustain healthy routines. Conventional behavior change approaches overlook the complexity and variability of ADHD, highlighting the need for adaptive and personalized methods such as Self-Experimentation (SE). This study explores the potential of SE in supporting individuals with ADHD to change health behaviors. Using a Research through Design approach, stakeholders were involved across three iterative phases. The process resulted in two prototypes that facilitated SE while generating insights on how individuals …

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Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures, Emile De Visscher, James Auger Jun 2026

Deep Materialities - Investigating The Complex Socio-Technical Entanglements Of Materials Towards The Designing Of Resilient Futures, Emile De Visscher, James Auger

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Each material production entails an ecosystem of interrelations linking geopolitical, economic, technological, cultural, social and sanitary dimensions, sometimes on a global scale. As designers, we are rarely conscious of these realities, and limit our actions to material selection at the scale of the artefact in constrained industrial and cultural settings. However, at a time of ecological crisis, tracking, revealing and understanding these complex systems is becoming an imperative if we are to transition towards resilient futures rooted in socio-economic realities. This article will present a pedagogical approach developed with Design Research MA students, where investigation and speculation stem from a …

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The Intrusive Sounds Of Resilence., Andrea Cera, Georgios Loupas, Eleftheria Lagiokapa, Nefeli Valeria Georgakopoulou, Sotiris Diplaris, Stefanos Vrochidis, Eleonora Ceccaldi, Nicola Corbellini, Simone Ghisio, Antonio Camurri Jun 2026

The Intrusive Sounds Of Resilence., Andrea Cera, Georgios Loupas, Eleftheria Lagiokapa, Nefeli Valeria Georgakopoulou, Sotiris Diplaris, Stefanos Vrochidis, Eleonora Ceccaldi, Nicola Corbellini, Simone Ghisio, Antonio Camurri

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In a ReSilence (S+T+Arts) residency dedicated to the consequences of urban soundscapes on human movement, 36 sound-files and their spectral analyses were considered as examples of auditory intrusiveness (intended as a pre-conscious effect, anticipating conscious behaviors). These 36 sounds were used in three modules: a pilot experiment to study the influence of auditory intrusiveness on human movement; an installation, where the sound-files were triggered by the participants' movement qualities – moreover, their spectral analyses served as prompts to an image-generating GAN network; in the design of a smartphone app, where the 36 analyses allowed to study the spectral features to …

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Beyond Situated Ethics: Towards A Practice-Based Understanding Of How Designers Do Ethics, Samantha Osys Jun 2026

Beyond Situated Ethics: Towards A Practice-Based Understanding Of How Designers Do Ethics, Samantha Osys

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As discussions about AI and its societal impacts grow, questions about how to practise design responsibly and ethically have become more prominent. This paper examines how designers do ethics in practice, focusing on the relationship between universal frameworks and situated, lived experiences. Conversations with design practitioners reveal that while universal ethical frameworks provide consistency, they often overlook the everyday negotiations designers face in the workplace. Practitioners report that current governance systems, influenced by external regulations, are overly ‘top-down’ and narrowly focused on specific technologies. This approach leaves designers to identify and fill ethical gaps themselves, often through subtle, even covert, …

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Navigating Lca In Circular Design: Methodological Barriers When Applying Life Cycle Assessment To Industrial Waste Upcycling Design Decisions, Seidpooyan Ghafoori, Linda Nhu Laursen, Christian Tollestrup Jun 2026

Navigating Lca In Circular Design: Methodological Barriers When Applying Life Cycle Assessment To Industrial Waste Upcycling Design Decisions, Seidpooyan Ghafoori, Linda Nhu Laursen, Christian Tollestrup

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Industrial designers increasingly valorise pre-consumer waste through upcycling; yet face methodological ambiguities when applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for design decision-making. This paper critically examines barriers in using LCA to evaluate circular design strategies for industrial waste metals, plastics, and wood. Through focused literature review of LCA studies and guidelines, this research identifies key methodological tensions: allocation approaches produce contradictory conclusions about upcycling benefits; system boundary definitions inconsistently classify upcycling activities; functional unit choices fundamentally alter comparative results; guideline selection (ISO, GHG Protocol, PEF) creates large variation in results; performance metrics remain application-dependent rather than operational. Findings reveal when LCA …

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From Co-Design To Co-Execution: A Knowledge Map Of Real-Time User Participation In Service Settings (2008-2024), Yue Cao, Yihan Zhao Jun 2026

From Co-Design To Co-Execution: A Knowledge Map Of Real-Time User Participation In Service Settings (2008-2024), Yue Cao, Yihan Zhao

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This bibliometric study analyzes 236 articles from Web of Science (2008-2024) to map the intellectual structure of real-time user participation in service encounters (RUP-SE). The field has transitioned from exploration (2008-2013) to maturity, with post-2020 publications averaging 29.5 annually. Three core research clusters emerge: real-time co-creation and participation, digitally-driven service innovation, and value creation-destruction dynamics. Theoretically grounded in service-dominant logic and value co-creation frameworks, the field addresses how technological advancement and COVID-19 have accelerated the shift from co-design to co-execution. However, platform architectures introduce governance logics that render co-execution inherently asymmetrical, and value co-destruction in algorithmic contexts may be structurally …

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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 …

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Grounding The Interspecies Playground: A More-Than-Human Framework For The Goccia Project, Francesco Vergani, Davide Fassi Jun 2026

Grounding The Interspecies Playground: A More-Than-Human Framework For The Goccia Project, Francesco Vergani, Davide Fassi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper describes and presents a workshop conducted with partners of a European research project that reinterprets a former industrial site – now a small urban forest – as an Interspecies Playground, a living lab of multispecies coexistence. Through systemic design, more-than-human perspectives, and transdisciplinary collaboration among scientists, experts, designers, the municipality, and local communities, the project introduces a theoretical framework of relational ecology that seeks to challenge anthropocentric urban models and promote a new conception of green urban areas. By showing the project framework – articulated along the three interconnected layers of agents, phenomena, and contexts – and the …

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Sounding Territories: Dis/Identificatory Codings As Relational Worlding, Grace Turtle, Błażej Kotowski, Elisa Giaccardi, Roy Bendor Jun 2026

Sounding Territories: Dis/Identificatory Codings As Relational Worlding, Grace Turtle, Błażej Kotowski, Elisa Giaccardi, Roy Bendor

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents Sounding Territories, a sonic performance developed with Fundación Organizmo (Colombia) that explores dis/identificatory codings as a tactic for resisting and subverting algorithmic capture. Building on queer and more-than-human perspectives, the project reorients computational logics from stable classification toward relational and generative forms of identification. Through deep listening, embodied performance, and model training, datasets were composed as relational constellations: entanglements of sounds and situations (e.g., fire–conversation–bird–wind) that enact the liveliness of data beyond representational frames. Rather than seeking legibility within existing taxonomies, dis/identification becomes a methodological reorientation–a performance of politics–that disturbs predictive logics and embraces illegibility as generative …

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Co-Designing Co-Design Workshops With Adhd Adults, Patrick Brundell, Emily Thorn, Teresa Castle-Green, Paul Tennent, Juan Martinez Avila, Sachiyo Ito-Jaeger Jun 2026

Co-Designing Co-Design Workshops With Adhd Adults, Patrick Brundell, Emily Thorn, Teresa Castle-Green, Paul Tennent, Juan Martinez Avila, Sachiyo Ito-Jaeger

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The increased recognition that minoritised people should play a more significant role in the research and design of technologies aimed at them is welcomed. Though Interaction design research has begun to address the needs of neurodivergent people, the epistemic framing of the research aims, and practical co-construction of technologies are still infrequently from a lived-experience perspective. This work sought to address some of these concerns through a series of interaction co-design workshops with ADHD adults framed as technological design for wellbeing. This paper reflects on our adaptive use of Soma and Co-design workshop methodologies to account for and speak to …

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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 …

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Towards More-Than-Human Inclusion: Designing Artefacts That Cultivate Attentiveness For Engaging With More-Than-Human Worlds, Jorge Luis Siesquén Deza Jun 2026

Towards More-Than-Human Inclusion: Designing Artefacts That Cultivate Attentiveness For Engaging With More-Than-Human Worlds, Jorge Luis Siesquén Deza

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research explores how Inclusive design can be expanded to recognise nonhuman stakeholders by engaging perspectives from the More-than-Human turn. Using Research-through-Design, the study combines literature, semi-structured interviews, and case studies to identify barriers to designers’ responsible engagement with nonhuman entities. The findings reveal that while designers are open to widening inclusion, current practices remain centred on human empathy, usability, and evidence, leaving nonhuman concerns unaccounted for. Instead of expanding the repertoire of prescriptive tools, what is needed is the cultivation of attentiveness and care that enables designers to engage meaningfully with nonhuman agencies. This research offers two contributions: (1) …

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Appropriating Edinburgh’S Dead: Exploring The Potential Of Edinburgh’S Historic Burial Grounds As Sites For Designerly Conversations About Grief And Loss, Richard Thompson, Diane Willis, Kirstie Jamieson Jun 2026

Appropriating Edinburgh’S Dead: Exploring The Potential Of Edinburgh’S Historic Burial Grounds As Sites For Designerly Conversations About Grief And Loss, Richard Thompson, Diane Willis, Kirstie Jamieson

DRS Biennial Conference Series

There are five unique historic burial grounds within the proximity of Edinburgh’s city centre. Cross-sector consultations with police, heritage and council officials decry the decline of these spaces. Each is at risk; erosion, limited resources, and perceived anti-social behaviour obscure their value as social spaces apt to explore, share and process grief. The potential of these historic sites has been limited to imagining convivial and heritage-aligned uses of graveyards. This case study explores their potential as unique spaces to publicly discuss bereavement, mortality and grief through design workshops. It argues that designing provides an appropriate process to scaffold these conversations …

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From Waste To Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation In The South African Context: The Case Of Clothes To Good, Jennifer Murray, Lindsey Carey, Desiree Smal, Adelaide Sheik Jun 2026

From Waste To Opportunity, Upcycling Innovation In The South African Context: The Case Of Clothes To Good, Jennifer Murray, Lindsey Carey, Desiree Smal, Adelaide Sheik

DRS Biennial Conference Series

South Africa is a country which is facing significant textile waste problem. High volumes of second-hand products are entering the marketplace and represent an opportunity to SMEs and micro-businesses. Clothes to Good (CTG), a South African charitable organisation, are working to offset this challenge by creating upcycling programmes which repurpose these products through micro-business models designed to empower mothers of neurodivergent children. Neurodiversity is rising in South Africa and sensory stimuli products are an opportunity to repurpose second-hand clothing to products to support these consumers. This research represents the pilot study of a larger project investigating micro-business programmes creating weighted …

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