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Reconfiguring Industrial Heritage: Human-Centered Narrative Design For Reconciliation And Inclusive Storytelling, Yiling Fu, Marco Borsotti Jun 2026

Reconfiguring Industrial Heritage: Human-Centered Narrative Design For Reconciliation And Inclusive Storytelling, Yiling Fu, Marco Borsotti

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This article takes the Shenyang China Industrial Museum as an example to expose the interpretation and design of China's representative industrial heritage museums dominated by authoritative narratives and technocratic biases. Through the case study of the “Steel Home Still” exhibition, explore how narrative design can reconstruct industrial archives and challenge their power structure. This article conducts a comparative analysis of two cases based on three parameters: narrative themes and strategies, representation of individuals and workers, technology narratives and human engagement, discussing how human-centered exhibition narratives reposition human memory at the core of industrial heritage, transforming it from static representations of …

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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, …

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Erased By Default: Reorienting Digital Welfare Systems With Care And Participation, Emma Holden, P.J. White, Aisling Tuite, Ray Griffin Jun 2026

Erased By Default: Reorienting Digital Welfare Systems With Care And Participation, Emma Holden, P.J. White, Aisling Tuite, Ray Griffin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The shift from analogue to digital-first government service delivery positions design as a central gatekeeper of welfare access and civic recognition. However, these systems frequently act upon blanket assumptions regarding trust, digital literacy, and engagement, inadvertently marginalizing the most vulnerable of society. This paper examines how digital welfare interfaces produce forms of non-response, interpreted both as user disengagement and systemic erasure. Grounded in a qualitative, design-led study with marginalized young adults in Ireland’s Youthreach programme, alongside the perspectives of frontline support and service providers. The study documents how these users navigate and resist platforms that presume universal digital competence. Their …

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Imagining Speculative Design Tools With A Capability Approach, Olga Barbara Lackner Jun 2026

Imagining Speculative Design Tools With A Capability Approach, Olga Barbara Lackner

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While the more-than-human is often made visible on the individual, contextual level, it is nevertheless vital to shape sustainable practices at policy and industry level to create sustained change. If it was a necessity to include non-human stakeholders in the creation of new buildings, in the manufacturing of new products and more, what could the needed design tools look like? This paper envisions design practices shaping a world where the more-than-human is already accepted and anchored in law through narration. Subsequently, an attempt is made to create tools that find practical application in this speculative scenario, creating a more-than-human practice …

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Supporting Deep(Er) Engagement With Site Through Blended Resources: A Case Study Across Two Design Studios, James Thompson, Sidh Sintusingha, Dennis Prior Jun 2026

Supporting Deep(Er) Engagement With Site Through Blended Resources: A Case Study Across Two Design Studios, James Thompson, Sidh Sintusingha, Dennis Prior

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reports on the evaluation of a funded teaching initiative for two undergraduate studios, one architecture and one landscape architecture, within an Australia-based design school. The initiative funded the expansion of a virtual site visit, as well as production of detailed digital and physical models. This suite of resources was meant to reduce demand on students related to searching for contextual and historical background, thus allowing them to grapple with the site’s complexities in a deeper fashion than they might otherwise. Students reported satisfaction across a range of criteria, including engagement, interaction, and feedback. Teaching staff reported more sustained …

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Does Knowledge In Design Require A Distinct Epistemology? A Critical Rationalist Perspective, Jj Digby Jun 2026

Does Knowledge In Design Require A Distinct Epistemology? A Critical Rationalist Perspective, Jj Digby

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design epistemology has long been divided by apparent dualities, such as science versus art and rationality versus intuition, which resist resolution within existing frameworks. This paper argues these are false dichotomies and that Critical Rationalism (Popper, 1963/2002, 1972; Deutsch, 1997, 2011) provides a universal account of knowledge creation that explains the distinctive character of design without requiring a separate epistemology. Knowledge is conjectural and fallible: progress occurs not through justification or verification, but through iterative creative conjecture and — crucially — error-correction via criticism. Deutsch's account of knowledge as physically instantiated information, subject to the same logic of variation and …

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The ‘Cuteness Matrix’: Mapping Cuteness As An Affective Strategy For Purpose-Led Communication Design, Guo Yi Xian Yix, Mimi Nguyen, David Preston Jun 2026

The ‘Cuteness Matrix’: Mapping Cuteness As An Affective Strategy For Purpose-Led Communication Design, Guo Yi Xian Yix, Mimi Nguyen, David Preston

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cuteness is often dismissed as trivial or decorative. Yet research across neuroscience, psychology, and cultural theory reveals it as a powerful affective force that captures attention, evokes empathy, and encourages prosocial behaviour and well-being. Cute’s affective potency also renders it ethically ambivalent, capable of manipulation as much as comfort. Despite its ubiquity, cuteness remains under-theorised in design research, a notable gap for a discipline concerned with communication, emotion, and human connection. Addressing this gap, this study conducts an interpretive systematic literature review of publications from 1943 to 2025, identifying 65 key scholarly sources. Interdisciplinary insights are synthesized into the ‘Cuteness …

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Speculative Socially Engaged Design Interventions In Menopause Health And Post-Extractive Environmental Regeneration, Chantelle Baistow, Katherine Moline Jun 2026

Speculative Socially Engaged Design Interventions In Menopause Health And Post-Extractive Environmental Regeneration, Chantelle Baistow, Katherine Moline

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Rarely does speculative socially engaged design reflectively compare different approaches. This paper reflects on two speculative socially engaged design projects that employ materials-based participatory methods to explore the supports and barriers to the continuity of healthcare and the remediation of environmental pollution. The first project, TheChange@Work, engaged hospital staff and outpatients in exploring menopause-related workplace stigma through colour, collage, and textiles, to reflect on diverse experiences of dynamic hormones. The second project, From Waste to Care, involved communities in 3D-printing ceramics from coal ash waste, addressing the remediation of toxic materials remaining from energy production. We analyse the blind spots …

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Producing Knowledge For Whom? Parallel Knowledge Worlds In Chinese Doctoral Education In Design And International Design Research, Linghao Li, Wangda Zhu, Tingxin Zheng Jun 2026

Producing Knowledge For Whom? Parallel Knowledge Worlds In Chinese Doctoral Education In Design And International Design Research, Linghao Li, Wangda Zhu, Tingxin Zheng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Since the first programs were established in 2011, China's design doctoral education has expanded to 37 institutions by 2024, yet Chinese scholars remain marginalized in international venues like DRS (3.6% of papers, 2012–2024). Through mixed-methods analysis of 426 dissertations, 95 conference papers, 6,239 citations, 40 author trajectories, and 9 interviews, we reveal systematic divergence rather than exclusion. Citation analysis demonstrates a 50.9 percentage point shift: scholars cite 54.5% Chinese-language sources in dissertations but only 3.6% in DRS papers. Author tracking shows 72.5% became one-time participants with no subsequent first-author international publications, evidencing strategic credential-seeking over sustained engagement. Keyword analysis confirms …

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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 …

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Design Things In Search For Public Concern: A Study Of How Urban Lighting Is Scripted In The City Of Gothenburg, Christina Vildinge, Elena Raviola Jun 2026

Design Things In Search For Public Concern: A Study Of How Urban Lighting Is Scripted In The City Of Gothenburg, Christina Vildinge, Elena Raviola

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Light is gaining attention as a design element in public space. Its relational and ephemeral aesthetics enable urban transformations beyond the built environment, offering new possibilities for sustainable and inclusive cities. Yet, artificial light remains a relatively new concern in planning, traditionally excluded in drawings and regulations. This paper examines how light’s relational materiality is translated within urban planning and design, and travels as a matter of concern in city governance to become a public thing. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, we analyze municipal lighting policymaking in Gothenburg, Sweden, showing how light’s multiple dimensions—its aesthetics, sustainability, safety, environmental —are mediated through …

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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 …

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Dilemmas Of Institutionalizing Human-Centered Design In Startups, Wenlin Zhang, Jin Ma Jun 2026

Dilemmas Of Institutionalizing Human-Centered Design In Startups, Wenlin Zhang, Jin Ma

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While business and strategic design scholarship widely acknowledges the benefits of Human-Centered Design (HCD), limited research noted that implementing HCD may produce intricate challenges in real-world business contexts—especially in startups constrained by resource scarcity and limited time for trial and error. Drawing on institutional theory, we examine how HCD permeate into organizational culture, strategy making, and daily operations. Our case study develops a framework of “HCD Institutionalization Dilemma”. The framework encompasses four themes. First, overcommitment to HCD, where organizational members deeply adhere to HCD tenets. Second, operational predicament perception, where high investments fail to deliver tangible, actionable design outputs. Third, …

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Questioning One’S Body: Overtrusting In Body-Sensing Technology, Piyakorn Koowattanataworn, Margo Lengua, Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Steve Benford Jun 2026

Questioning One’S Body: Overtrusting In Body-Sensing Technology, Piyakorn Koowattanataworn, Margo Lengua, Anders Sundnes Løvlie, Steve Benford

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Body sensors render human bodies as digital data, promising better self-knowledge. Yet, as people trust and learn to attune to these representations, system breakdowns expose tensions between embodied knowing and digital authority. Through Research through Design and Critical Design, this paper investigates how trust, control, and self-perception are negotiated in bodily interaction with data. Breathe Kritisk is a critical artefact that externalises breathing via an inflatable system linked to the user's solar plexus. Designed for estrangement, it resists attunement through a sensitive sensor and deceptive outputs — sometimes following the user’s breaths, other times acting on its own. We discuss …

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The Changing Role Of Diagrams In Architectural Publications: From Creative To Communicative, Hila David, Dortheimer Jonathan Jun 2026

The Changing Role Of Diagrams In Architectural Publications: From Creative To Communicative, Hila David, Dortheimer Jonathan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Diagrams have long been central to architectural reasoning and communication. While their historical and conceptual roles are established, the impact of digitization on their function and representation is underexplored. This study systematically analyzes 245 diagrams from 45 architectural graphics publications between 1980-2025, classifying them by design stage, representation technique, production method, and purpose. The dataset analysis reveals a transformation in published diagrams: while 1980s-1990s diagrams were characterized by being manually produced, exploratory diagrams in early-stage design, the 2000s onward saw almost total digital production, yet representational conventions remained 2D. By the 2020s, diagrams shift toward external communication and coordination in …

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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 …

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Đồng-Design: Designing Togetherness As A Systemic Approach To Vietnam’S Textile And Apparel Transformation, Lan Lam, Donna Cleveland Jun 2026

Đồng-Design: Designing Togetherness As A Systemic Approach To Vietnam’S Textile And Apparel Transformation, Lan Lam, Donna Cleveland

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry, one of the world’s largest garment exporters, is under growing pressure to shift from labour-based to design-led and sustainable business models. However, applying Western co-design frameworks within the hierarchical and production-driven context of large enterprises reveals significant cultural and structural constraints. Drawing on in-depth interviews and reflexive journaling, this paper reports findings from two phases of an ongoing project and examine how design participation is understood and enacted across Vietnam’s fashion eco-system, contrasting the relational practices of micro and small enterprises with the fragmented processes of large manufacturers. It introduces đồng-design, a culturally situated approach …

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Pedagogies Under Pressure In A Design-For-Transitions Era, Rebecca Price Jun 2026

Pedagogies Under Pressure In A Design-For-Transitions Era, Rebecca Price

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Designers are increasingly called upon to address complex systemic crises, yet these expanding ambitions for impact risk overburdening both practitioners and students. This paper draws attention to the mounting pedagogical pressures within design education as students navigate problem-based, project-based, inquiry-based and transformative learning frameworks. I argue that as systemic aspirations for impact are integrated into curricula, the emotional and cognitive demands on learners intensify, threatening discovery, joy, and sustained engagement. Drawing upon care-based pedagogy and educational scaffolding, I propose approaches to support emerging designers learning to work amidst uncertainty, vulnerability and urgency. Positioned in contrast to design-for-transition literature that emphasises …

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Game Design As An Educational Method, Adeline Hvidsten, Evan Barba, Sarit Youdelevich, Rebecca Rouse Jun 2026

Game Design As An Educational Method, Adeline Hvidsten, Evan Barba, Sarit Youdelevich, Rebecca Rouse

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design is playing an increasingly important role in the liberal arts and in general education at various grade levels. Integrating design into a curriculum can take many forms, from teaching general design literacy to specific disciplinary practices and using design methods to support topical learning. Over decades of teaching game design in various contexts, we have observed how students gain a deep and systemic understanding of topics when designing games on them. Synthesizing our experiences from higher education, we expand on Hanghøj’s model for game-based teaching to include teaching through game design as a pedagogical method. We argue that to …

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How Does Costume Illustration Sketching Mediate Between Visual Development Concept Art And The Practical Construction Of Film Costumes?, Sophie Fretwell, Jon Burgess Jun 2026

How Does Costume Illustration Sketching Mediate Between Visual Development Concept Art And The Practical Construction Of Film Costumes?, Sophie Fretwell, Jon Burgess

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sketching is a vital form of communication across creative industries. As an essential part of the filmmaking process, costume illustration functions as a mediating design practice where sketching translates concept art into wearable garments. Historically rooted in hand-drawn fashion illustration, contemporary costume sketching has evolved into a globalised digital practice that bridges artistic vision and physical construction. Through this lens of design mediation and embodied expertise, the study draws on industry interviews and reflective practice to examine the costume illustrator’s changing role as translator between the digital concept and physical costume. Costume sketching solves practical challenges based on knowledge of …

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Co-Speculating With Ai: From Prompts To Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Maria Luce Lupetti, Giulia Jiangxian Zhu, Dave Murray-Rust Jun 2026

Co-Speculating With Ai: From Prompts To Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Joseph Lindley, Maria Luce Lupetti, Giulia Jiangxian Zhu, Dave Murray-Rust

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents a vocabulary for co-speculation with AI, developed through an experimental design studio with 55 postgraduate students who used generative AI tools to explore more-than-human design practices of decentering. The vocabulary spans multiple scales of interaction—from individual prompting acts to extended collaborative sessions—serving descriptive, analytic, and generative functions. Whilst it was developed through the specific context of decentering practices, we argue that this vocabulary is transferable to diverse design domains. It offers designers and researchers a framework for more reflective and intentional engagements with AI, contributing to emerging discussions on how design practice evolves when speculation becomes a …

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Towards A Common Language For Representation Tools In More-Than-Human Design, Berre Su Demir, Aykut Coskun Jun 2026

Towards A Common Language For Representation Tools In More-Than-Human Design, Berre Su Demir, Aykut Coskun

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Representation tools in More-Than-Human Design (MTHD) are growing rapidly as researchers increasingly seek to include nonhuman perspectives in design. However, guidance for selecting, designing, and evaluating such tools is limited, leaving designers to navigate trade-offs in user-friendliness, empathy, and resources without a shared structure. While recent work has attempted to address this by introducing parameters for MTHD representation tools, their relevance and usefulness remain unexamined. We explore how these parameters resonate in practice through workshops with 12 MTHD researchers, demonstrating that the parameters serve as decision supports during design and use, as lenses for reflection, and as a shared vocabulary …

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Performer, Technologist, Machine: Co-Creating The Soul Song Sensorium, Asha Ward, Jojo Taylor Jun 2026

Performer, Technologist, Machine: Co-Creating The Soul Song Sensorium, Asha Ward, Jojo Taylor

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Soul Song Sensorium examines the negotiation between performer, technologist, and technology in the co-creation of a sound-driven wearable instrument. Initially imagined as a system translating gesture and voice into live sonic layers, the project evolved through iterative exchanges between what the performer envisioned, what was technically achievable, and what emerged unpredictably in practice. The technology frequently acted as a third actor whose behaviours, limitations, and resistances shaped both creative intention and aesthetic outcome. Rather than progressing through linear feature accumulation, the work advanced through attunement—paring back complexity, refining mappings, and learning to work with the system’s tendencies. Through this process, …

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Negotiating Control With Materials: Progressive Modes Of Engagement In Design Practice, Yuliang Kang, Enza Migliore, Jingze Liu Jun 2026

Negotiating Control With Materials: Progressive Modes Of Engagement In Design Practice, Yuliang Kang, Enza Migliore, Jingze Liu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper addresses a design dilemma: how can designers engage with materials that exhibit recognizable yet unpredictable behaviors? Traditional design relies on predictability and control. However, in an era of crises and complexity, we must acknowledge non-human agency and recognize that materials inherently respond and adapt. Complex material systems, characterized by self-organization, nonlinear dynamics, and emergent patterns, resist deterministic control, requiring an alternative approach. Drawing on material agency and play perspectives of rules and chances, we develop an operative framework of negotiating control, exemplified through clay fractals using the Lifting Hele-Shaw cell (LHSC). We identify three progressive modes of engagement: …

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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 …

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Design In The Wild, Peiyao Cheng, Gianluca Carella, Sylvia Xihui Liu, Cees De Bont Jun 2026

Design In The Wild, Peiyao Cheng, Gianluca Carella, Sylvia Xihui Liu, Cees De Bont

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The DRS2026 track titled “Design for business in the wild” examines how design operates within business contexts shaped by uncertainty, resource constraints, organizational complexity, and technological change. Building on long-standing discussions of design’s contribution to innovation, differentiation, user experience, and strategic advantage, the track reflects a shift from demonstrating design’s business relevance to examining the conditions through which design value becomes actionable in practice. The following contributions are organized around three themes: Entrepreneurial Ecologies, Organizational Frictions, and Data, AI & Foresight. Drawing on 12 accepted papers, the track highlights how design for business is increasingly examined through its situated relations …

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Uncertainty In The Studio: Ai As A Material In The Design Of Tangible Products, Sam Theelen, Giulia Talamini, Roy Op Het Veld, Demi Sparidans, Jesse Josua Benjamin, Stephan Wensveen Jun 2026

Uncertainty In The Studio: Ai As A Material In The Design Of Tangible Products, Sam Theelen, Giulia Talamini, Roy Op Het Veld, Demi Sparidans, Jesse Josua Benjamin, Stephan Wensveen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

AI uncertainty has been proposed as a design material that provides practitioners with a foothold to engage with technical attributes of these technologies beyond any given output. However, it is unclear what role AI uncertainty can play in tangible product design processes. In this paper, we investigate this through two design research projects following a studio methodology; combining first-person reflective making with autoethnographic elements, incorporating a variety of AI technologies (e.g., object detection, image and video generation, mesh extraction). Through the analysis of these first-person accounts and reflection on design processes and outcomes, we find qualitatively different types of uncertainties …

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More-Than-Human Data Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Sara Lenzi, Chris Speed, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Jiwei Zhou Jun 2026

More-Than-Human Data Practices, Elisa Giaccardi, Sara Lenzi, Chris Speed, Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Jiwei Zhou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Grounded in post-anthropocentric and post-humanist perspectives, this track explores more-than-human data practices that challenge dominant data paradigms and cultivate alternative modes of engagement with the world, from the microbial to the planetary. Rather than treating non-human life as objects of measurement and classification, as data subjects, the contributions in this track ask what it would mean to recognize organisms, systems, and processes as data co-producers, whose perceptual worlds, temporal rhythms, and relational entanglements actively participate in what counts as knowledge. This reorientation carries profound consequences for the designer. Co-producing data with more-than-human others is a political, epistemic, and ontological commitment …

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Learning Design Capabilities In Public Administrations Through Sandbox Experiments: Insights From A 12-City Eu Network, Patricia Csobánczi, Nicola Morreli, Rike Neuhoff Jun 2026

Learning Design Capabilities In Public Administrations Through Sandbox Experiments: Insights From A 12-City Eu Network, Patricia Csobánczi, Nicola Morreli, Rike Neuhoff

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper reports on an EU research project involving 12 cities in a multi-thematic innovation network. The project supports innovation and the testing of innovative procurement practices, and also generates or improves design capabilities in public administrations. Once local challenges were defined and two solution providers were selected for each city, civil servants worked in Sandbox mode, experimenting in their own urban contexts. This paper focuses on the Sandbox phase, which provided an opportunity for knowledge exchange, inspiration, and the diffusion of design capabilities. Given the extreme difference in local practices, knowledge exchange and shared learning must be accurately planned; …

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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 …

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