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Reciprocal Sensing: Expanding Body Mapping Through Lenca And Mestizo Ontologies Of Relational Embodiment, Thaís Alvarenga Medina, Michael Nitsche Jun 2026

Reciprocal Sensing: Expanding Body Mapping Through Lenca And Mestizo Ontologies Of Relational Embodiment, Thaís Alvarenga Medina, Michael Nitsche

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Reciprocal Sensing is an alternative way of body mapping that draws from Indigenous Lenca ontologies, which understand matter as animate and relational. It expands body mapping to account for culturally specific contexts and ways of knowing. The proposed method invites participants to (1) link each felt experience to a worldly source (the non-human agent or co-actor) and (2) visualize the direction of these sensory flows. Using an autoethnographic approach, iterative body mapping sessions revealed recurring patterns of exchange between the body and its material environment. This informed the development of Reciprocal Sensing as a culturally situated, more-than-human perspective to soma …

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From Citizen Innovation Labs To Social Transformation: Analysing The Conectando Cozinhas Case Through The Lens Of Infrastructuring, Laryssa Tarachucky, Diego Hernando Florez Ayala, Aksel Ersoy Jun 2026

From Citizen Innovation Labs To Social Transformation: Analysing The Conectando Cozinhas Case Through The Lens Of Infrastructuring, Laryssa Tarachucky, Diego Hernando Florez Ayala, Aksel Ersoy

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Citizen Innovation Labs (LabICs) have emerged as experimental infrastructures for collective design and civic transformation. Operating in close partnership with public institutions, these laboratories create collaborative spaces where urban publics co-design responses to issues of shared concern. Yet, little is known about how these laboratories operate as long-term supports for community-driven initiatives beyond their initial phases of experimentation or incubation. This paper investigates how LabICs mobilise processes of infrastructuring to support broader cycles of social transformation by analysing the case of Conectando Cozinhas, a citizen-led initiative developed within LabIC Novale (Brazil). Using a retrospective qualitative case study, the research reconstructs …

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The Meandering Practitioner: When Research Emerges In Relational Resistance And Intentional Ambiguity, Markus Wernli, Kam-Fai Chan, Jonathan Yu, Josh Wolper Jun 2026

The Meandering Practitioner: When Research Emerges In Relational Resistance And Intentional Ambiguity, Markus Wernli, Kam-Fai Chan, Jonathan Yu, Josh Wolper

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper theorizes meandering as a dispositional heuristic in design research, foregrounding how researchers can encounter complexity through nuanced, situated journeying. Drawing on the case of SoilTrust nutrient-cycling praxis in Hong Kong, the study identifies four key dispositions – nimble resistance, contextual reasoning, temporal suppleness, and deliberate ambiguity – that enable practitioners to respond to structural challenges with humility, curiosity, and strategic indirection. Rather than pursuing fixed goals, meandering researchers cultivate relational awareness, embrace uncertainty, and reconfigure material and social systems through iterative, practice-led inquiry. Anchored in agential realism and indirect action, meanderability reframes design as a life-embedded mode of …

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Biodiverse Design And The Ethics Of Bioempathy In Practice, Delphine Lewandowski Jun 2026

Biodiverse Design And The Ethics Of Bioempathy In Practice, Delphine Lewandowski

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates biodiverse design as a practice through which environmental ethics can inform architectural production. Drawing on the concept of bioempathy—understood as the recognition of the intrinsic value of the biotic community—it develops an ethical and operational framework for guiding design reasoning. This framework is then applied to a reflective analysis of biodiverse wall prototypes developed by the author with an interdisciplinary team, used as an empirical ground to examine how ecological intentions were translated into material and spatial decisions, and how observations of plant establishment and spontaneous colonisation contribute to reassessing the assumptions embedded in those intentions. The …

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Towards A More Sustainable Industrial Design Sketch Modelling Practice: An Overview Of Associated Materials And Their Life Cycles, Mario Cvetkoski, Hossein Najaf Zadeh, Thomas Woods Jun 2026

Towards A More Sustainable Industrial Design Sketch Modelling Practice: An Overview Of Associated Materials And Their Life Cycles, Mario Cvetkoski, Hossein Najaf Zadeh, Thomas Woods

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study supports the shift towards more sustainable industrial design sketch modelling (the making of expressive models for problem solving) by detailing the material needs and sustainability concerns that result from the practice’s disposable nature. This transition also provides another opportunity to embed sustainable thinking throughout industry, as sketch modelling is taught early in a designer’s education. This study is centred around an overview of the literature on the roles and life cycles of commonly associated materials, with a focus on paper derivatives, polystyrene and polyurethane foam. The polymer foams, in particular, can result in widespread environmental harm, from their …

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Translating Nature's Emotions: Building An Affective Design Framework Rooted In Classical Chinese Poetry, Yi Li, Shuzhan Ji, Yifan Chen, Wanhao Luo, Yuyan Ma, Yu Gao, Xinming Zhou Jun 2026

Translating Nature's Emotions: Building An Affective Design Framework Rooted In Classical Chinese Poetry, Yi Li, Shuzhan Ji, Yifan Chen, Wanhao Luo, Yuyan Ma, Yu Gao, Xinming Zhou

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Current human-computer interaction and more-than-human design increasingly emphasize affective experiences emerging from the dynamic interplay between humans and their environments. However, research in this domain remains largely anthropocentric, often translating non-human emotions in anthropomorphic terms and thereby neglecting their distinctive affective expressions and relational nuances. This paper draws on classical Chinese poetry, renowned for its profound sensory and affective engagement with nature, to analyze how nonhuman entities convey complex emotions such as tranquility, melancholy, and transience. Using grounded theory, we systematically code and categorize the representations of Shui (水, Water), flora, and fauna in poetic excerpts that convey specific affective …

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Agency In The In-Between: A Reflexive Civic Design Inquiry Into Agency Drift, Saskia Pouwels, Koen Van Turnhout, Gabriele Ferri Jun 2026

Agency In The In-Between: A Reflexive Civic Design Inquiry Into Agency Drift, Saskia Pouwels, Koen Van Turnhout, Gabriele Ferri

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Citizen participation initiatives often struggle to engage diverse communities meaningfully. 'In-between' spaces are celebrated as sites where power asymmetries can be renegotiated, yet this spatial metaphor obscures critical temporal dynamics. Through reflexive analysis of a ten-month design justice collaboration with Amsterdam's Stedelijk Team Participatie, this paper examines how temporal positioning shapes agency strategies within participatory processes. Applying temporal-relational agency theory, we identify a phenomenon we term "agency drift", the multidirectional movement across agency strategies as participants navigate institutional and community temporal orientations. Our findings show that making these temporal dynamics visible transforms in-between spaces from sites where drift simply happens …

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Beyond Ephemerality: Boundary Objects And The Plasticity Of Listening In Collaborative Design, Stefano Delle Monache, Dave Murray-Rust, Elif Özcan, Nicolas Misdariis Jun 2026

Beyond Ephemerality: Boundary Objects And The Plasticity Of Listening In Collaborative Design, Stefano Delle Monache, Dave Murray-Rust, Elif Özcan, Nicolas Misdariis

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sound-driven design requires shared objects to bridge disciplinary divides and support collaboration between diverse expertise. Boundary Objects and Intermediary Objects typically fulfil this need, yet the ephemerality of sound is in apparent conflict with the stability needed for this boundary work. However, we argue for extending the object beyond the ephemeral sound wave to encompass tools, user interfaces, methods, and lexicons that provide material persistence. To support this we develop an analytical framework combining BO and IO properties and apply it to a selection of sound design tools in the literature. We argue that the required interpretive flexibility and perceived …

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Investigating Context In Sonic Interaction Design For Sleep: Bridging Users And Designers Through Participatory And Ideation Workshops, Abhishek Choubey, Tinke Van Buijtene, Sandra Pauletto Jun 2026

Investigating Context In Sonic Interaction Design For Sleep: Bridging Users And Designers Through Participatory And Ideation Workshops, Abhishek Choubey, Tinke Van Buijtene, Sandra Pauletto

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sleep is fundamental to health and well-being, yet sleep problems have risen sharply in recent years. These problems often arise from individual and contextual factors, some of which are modifiable through behaviour or design. Research examining sleep’s contextual factors and how they can inform design interventions remains limited. This article presents two connected workshops exploring these aspects of sleep using participatory and speculative design methods. The first workshop invited participants to map contextual aspects of sleep through empathy maps and speculative exercises revealing three themes affecting sleep: safety, sleep routines, and stress or anxiety. The second focused on ideation asking …

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Public Sector’S Climate Commoning And Infrastructural Care, Alicia Smedberg, Per Linde, Anders Melin, Joakim Nordqvist Jun 2026

Public Sector’S Climate Commoning And Infrastructural Care, Alicia Smedberg, Per Linde, Anders Melin, Joakim Nordqvist

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Local urban governments struggle to approach environmental goals in the global climate crisis. An understanding on the necessitiy to increase fair citizen engagement in governmental sustainability initiatives has become fundamental, the challenge emerge on how processes can become resilient beyond specific project initiatives. The concept of infrastructruring, here understood as a situated effort to hold together socio-material constellations that enable certain ways of acting, provides a foundation for long-term interaction between the public sector and citizens. But as the participatory design community is strong on providing ”points of entry” for citizen participation it remains less clear how one cares for …

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More Than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge Of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition And Embodied Experiences, Enza Migliore, Mirna Zordan, Peiyue Lin Jun 2026

More Than Concrete: The Tacit Knowledge Of Construction Workers Through Material Cognition And Embodied Experiences, Enza Migliore, Mirna Zordan, Peiyue Lin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Concrete builds the assets and aesthetics of contemporary cities. This research suggests that concrete also shapes emotions and cognition, generating a tacit body of valuable experience. Construction workers, who engage with this material daily, embody expertise through their bodily practices. Yet their insights remain unheard and underrepresented in the design discourse. This study adopts a material engagement approach, using concrete samples as probes and conducting semi-structured on-site interviews with 14 workers in Shenzhen, China. Analysing 280 minutes of video and audio data thematically, the research reveals that workers and materials mutually shape each other. Workers develop their understanding of concrete …

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Three-Eyed Seeing: A Framework For Regenerative Ecological Design, Korey Wetherell, Chris Speed, Laura Albareda Jun 2026

Three-Eyed Seeing: A Framework For Regenerative Ecological Design, Korey Wetherell, Chris Speed, Laura Albareda

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The design field is increasingly engaging with the challenge of regenerating Earth systems within planetary boundaries, yet the epistemic foundations of regenerative ecological design remain diffuse. This paper introduces Three-Eyed Seeing as a design framework that brings Western empirical methods, Indigenous relational knowledge, and futural imaginaries into accountable dialogue. The framework supports plural ways of knowing without collapsing them into a single worldview and positions designers as mediators across multiple ontological commitments. Drawing on an autoethnographic field encounter with pollinators at Kaʻena Point in Hawaiʻi alongside ecological systems-oriented design research, the study explores how these distinct ways of knowing can …

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Playing Future Places Together, Troy Innocent, Carolyn Briggs, Ashleigh Dharma, Carlo Tolentino Jun 2026

Playing Future Places Together, Troy Innocent, Carolyn Briggs, Ashleigh Dharma, Carlo Tolentino

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cities are physical manifestations of how we live together in urgent need of redesign to adapt and respond to impacts of climate change. Place-based methods offer critical and imaginative ways to work with neighbourhoods as living labs for regenerative futures and planetary civics. Reworlding explores urban play as method in co-governance of the green transition of neighbourhoods. It works with posthuman methods to give nature a voice, supporting more-than-human approaches, and addressing climate, biodiversity, and pollution challenges. Play and democracy balance interests, power, and knowledge asymmetries among neighbourhood actors by engaging cultural actors and use local, indigenous, or marginalised knowledge …

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The Black Box In Spatial Planning: Visualizations Of Indeterminacy In Cybernetics And Model Theory, Marlon J. Brownsword, Adam Jasper, Christiane M. Herr, Thomas Fischer Jun 2026

The Black Box In Spatial Planning: Visualizations Of Indeterminacy In Cybernetics And Model Theory, Marlon J. Brownsword, Adam Jasper, Christiane M. Herr, Thomas Fischer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper traces the historical and conceptual role of the black box as a diagrammatic figure in planning theory. Emerging from pre-war radio circuit jargon, and first theorized in cybernetics, the black box articulated a productive tension: it acknowledged the indeterminacy of future contingencies whilst concealing moments of executive discretion. Alongside cybernetics, the black box became an omnipresent yet elusive figure in 1960s and 70s spatial planning. Against the backdrop of contemporary debates on explainable AI (XAI), this history has acquired renewed significance for designers. Examining a corpus of planning diagrams produced over fifty years ago, the paper shows how …

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Shifting From Creativity To Sympoiesis: A Site-Oriented Design Inquiry Of More-Than-Human Creative Ai, Petra Jääskeläinen, Lisa Boulton, Ron Wakkary, Gillian Russell Jun 2026

Shifting From Creativity To Sympoiesis: A Site-Oriented Design Inquiry Of More-Than-Human Creative Ai, Petra Jääskeläinen, Lisa Boulton, Ron Wakkary, Gillian Russell

DRS Biennial Conference Series

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Decolonizing Care In Design Research: Familiness And Relational Practices From Creative Ageing In Thailand, Khemmiga Teerapong, Boonanan Natakun Jun 2026

Decolonizing Care In Design Research: Familiness And Relational Practices From Creative Ageing In Thailand, Khemmiga Teerapong, Boonanan Natakun

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper advances a decolonised understanding of care within design research by examining how relational and culturally grounded practices shape engagements with older adults in Thailand’s rapidly aging society. Drawing on the Monday Museum creative ageing initiative in Bangkok’s Khlong Bang Luang neighbourhood, the study critiques Western-centric framings of care that privilege clinical, individualised, or outcome-driven approaches. Fieldwork and co-design activities with elderly residents reveal that care emerges as a relational practice embedded in local cultural norms, expressed through attentiveness, reciprocity, and shared responsibility. The paper introduces “Familiness” as a Thai, culturally situated framework that embodies warmth, flexibility, and family-like …

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Accessibility Analysis Of Hospital Lobbies In Korean Tertiary Hospitals Based On Space Syntax To Inform Design Strategies, Aijing Li, Yun Jeong Choi, Hokyun Lim Jun 2026

Accessibility Analysis Of Hospital Lobbies In Korean Tertiary Hospitals Based On Space Syntax To Inform Design Strategies, Aijing Li, Yun Jeong Choi, Hokyun Lim

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Hospital lobbies are gradually transforming from traditional zones of circulation and waiting into multifunctional public spaces that integrate rest, cultural display, retail services, and social interaction. This study analyzes four tertiary hospitals in Korea using space syntax methods, specifically convex space analysis and visibility graph analysis, to quantitatively examine the integration and visual integration characteristics of various functional zones within the lobby. The analysis provides a systematic assessment of spatial accessibility and visual guidance within the lobby environment. From the perspective of enhancing user experience in healthcare settings, the study identifies four key design strategies aimed at optimizing circulation and …

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Dwelling, Making, And Digital Mediation: Mani Stone Piles In Eastern Tibet, Danmeng Xu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Deng Pan, Jing Su Jun 2026

Dwelling, Making, And Digital Mediation: Mani Stone Piles In Eastern Tibet, Danmeng Xu, Han Sun, Zhijun Peng, Deng Pan, Jing Su

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This study examines mani stone piles in Eastern Tibet as material forms emerging through dwelling, movement, and situated acts of making. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s dwelling perspective and long-term visual ethnography conducted between 2016 and 2025, it shows how mani piles are produced through the embodied selection, carrying, and stacking of stones at passes, riverbanks, and crossroads. Rather than treating these piles primarily as fixed religious symbols or products of prior design intention, we argue that their forms arise from the practical coordination of bodily skill, available materials, topography, ritual habit, and movement through the landscape. It further shows that …

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Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan Jun 2026

Belonging Across Borders: A Framework For Transnationally Resonant Retail Design, Zakkiya Khan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As global cities become increasingly transnational, retail environments have become key sites where mobile publics negotiate belonging through spatial and commercial experience. While transnational consumers are widely theorised, the spatial implications of their participation in global retail remain underexplored. This conceptual paper draws from transnational and diaspora studies to argue that retail design operates as a transcultural interface where familiarity and difference coexist, shaping plural modes of belonging. It proposes the concept, ‘Transnationally Resonant Retail Design’, a conceptual framework outlining how affective resonance, cultural mediation, and social recognition foster civic belonging within commercial spaces. These principles are illustrated by the …

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Mediating More-Than-Human Care: Art, Design And Climate Governance, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Jaz Hee-Jeong Choi, Rachel Elisabeth Clarke, Louise Mazet, Kana Ohashi Jun 2026

Mediating More-Than-Human Care: Art, Design And Climate Governance, Liesbeth Huybrechts, Jaz Hee-Jeong Choi, Rachel Elisabeth Clarke, Louise Mazet, Kana Ohashi

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Art is increasingly mobilised in climate governance and policy, yet often instrumentalised for predefined human agendas of data visualisation, awareness raising, and science communication. This paper explores design research’s role as a mediator of more radical art-driven participation that cultivates more-than-human care ecologies: relational configurations that redistribute sensing, accountability, and decision-making across human and other-than-human actors. Drawing on theories of care and affective politics, we examine how design research can support art-driven participation through a critical literature review. Three illustrative case studies addressing sustainable transitions on an interregional level, urban air pollution, and disaster recovery demonstrate a move from anthropocentric …

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Design Activism Pedagogy: Learning And Negotiating Values In Practice, Gheysa Caroline Prado Jun 2026

Design Activism Pedagogy: Learning And Negotiating Values In Practice, Gheysa Caroline Prado

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper examines how design education can reveal and negotiate values through the practice of design activism. Based on a multi-year teaching experience with undergraduate design students, the study reflects on how pedagogical strategies oriented by emancipation and collective responsibility enable the articulation of ethical awareness in design processes. The teaching approach evolved from remote reflection-based activities to embodied, field-based interventions that addressed social and environmental issues in local communities. Through qualitative analysis of classroom documentation and student projects, the study identifies values such as reciprocity, dignity, and solidarity as emerging drivers of learning and design action. The discussion highlights …

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

Becoming Humus: Embodied Ecological Literacy Through Designing, Ines Weigand

DRS Biennial Conference Series

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

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

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

DRS Biennial Conference Series

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

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

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

DRS Biennial Conference Series

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

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The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang Jun 2026

The Dcf Framework: Integrating Cross-Cultural And Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives On Comfort Experience, Danhua Zhao, Rui Qin, Chaomin Ma, Yuhao Jiang, Bingquan Wang

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design plays a key role in driving economic and organizational transformations. However, existing approaches face significant challenges in addressing the translation of cross-cultural needs, integrating diverse perspectives, and critically reassessing the role of design within the singular economic/efficiency paradigm, particularly regarding affective experiences assessment such as comfort. To address these, this study proposes a qualitative framework that incorporates multiple stakeholders and cross-cultural users into the design process, referred to as the Diversity-Co-Creation-Framework (DCF). Through four phases—Scanning, Framing, Mapping, and Deepening—the DCF combines tools such as semi-structured interviews and the Futures Triangle from foresight research to engage opinion leaders and cross-cultural …

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Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng Jun 2026

Design For Mending The Rift: Rethinking Sustainable Design From An Eco-Marxist Perspective, Yan Yang, Zhaoyu Wang, Jia Ren, Tie Ji, Han Meng

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Despite the advancement of sustainable design, a critical paradox persists: many practices remain embedded in industrial paradigms, failing to address deep-seated socio-natural contradictions. Grounded in the Eco-Marxist "metabolic rift" framework and informed by recent Agricultural Innovation Design (AID) research, this study proposes a key path for mending these rifts. The research offers a systemic framework for intervening in complex social-ecological systems. The primary conclusions are: (1) metabolic rifts are fundamentally rooted in relational alienation, characterized by the disruption of healthy and reciprocal metabolic relationships between society and nature; (2) structural sustainability requires reshaping metabolic relationships across social, ecological, and intergenerational …

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Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee Jun 2026

Growing Pains Of Sustainability: Scale, Care, And Counter-Infrastructures, Angela Ka Ki Lee

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Sustainability transitions are marked by growing pains: tensions between planetary and local scales, global urgency and lived experience. This paper argues that techno-centric, metric-driven, and scalable approaches obscure inequalities, conceal the labour of maintenance, and overlook affective dimensions. It proposes a counter-infrastructural approach that understands sustainability as emerging through infrastructural, ecological, temporal, embodied, and relational dynamics. Drawing on interdisciplinary theory, participatory workshops, and experiential experiments, the study shows how process-oriented practices can reconnect individuals to energy systems. Bioregional thinking, community-led initiatives, repair and maintenance, and sensory engagement are explored as alternatives that foreground resilience and interdependence. Through lenses of scale, …

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Made To Misfit: Critical Design As A Tool For Pluriversal Thinking In Design Education, Kaat Kenis, Maud Gruyters, Stine Moons, Kristof Vaes, Leni Van Goidsenhoven Jun 2026

Made To Misfit: Critical Design As A Tool For Pluriversal Thinking In Design Education, Kaat Kenis, Maud Gruyters, Stine Moons, Kristof Vaes, Leni Van Goidsenhoven

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper investigates how critical design can challenge universalist frameworks in design education and open up space for pluriversal perspectives. We explore the use of provocative probes as a concrete pedagogical method for cultivating pluriversal thinking and critical reflection. Our theoretical reflections are empirically grounded in a one-week workshop in which design students created and deployed provocative probes to surface experiences of those who ‘misfit’ and to initiate public interactions around these lived experiences. The notion of misfitting was used to introduce complexity and reflexivity. Findings show that while students began to delink from solutionist thinking and engage with plural …

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Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design, Michael C. Kowalski, Jungkyoon Yoon Jun 2026

Should Sustainability Come Second? Artifact Analysis Toward More Positive Outcomes Through Design, Michael C. Kowalski, Jungkyoon Yoon

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While academic research on design for sustainability and design for subjective well-being has grown for decades, application of these perspectives in professional practice remains underdeveloped. Professional designers often struggle to translate these objectives into their work due to conflicting demands, including tight project timelines, cost targets, and manufacturing constraints. Tools and methods developed in academic contexts have faced criticism for failing to consider these practical concerns, resulting in limited professional adoption. Studies indicate professional designers could benefit from concrete case-studies for existing products and systems that clearly demonstrate both processes and outcomes. This paper addresses this need through an artifact-analysis …

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Understanding Power At The Doorstep: Examining Interpersonal Power Of Smart Doorbells Through Speculative Design, Sofie-Amalie Torp Dideriksen, Silke Snijder, Nazli Cila Jun 2026

Understanding Power At The Doorstep: Examining Interpersonal Power Of Smart Doorbells Through Speculative Design, Sofie-Amalie Torp Dideriksen, Silke Snijder, Nazli Cila

DRS Biennial Conference Series

While Smart Home Surveillance Products (SHSPs), such as smart doorbell cameras, promise safety and convenience, they also reproduce asymmetrical power relations, privileging residents while exposing neighbours, visitors, and service workers to unconsented monitoring. Existing legal and technical responses focus on compliance and system design, yet overlook the interpersonal and affective dimensions of being watched. This paper presents a design-led inquiry into speculative re-imaginings of smart doorbells, aimed at surfacing and reflecting the hidden power dynamics embedded in everyday domestic interactions. We base this inquiry on an understanding of interpersonal power from the feminist theory of Matrix of Domination, allowing us …

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