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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

This Class Isn’T Designed For Me: Recognizing Ableist Trends In Design Education, And Redesigning For An Inclusive And Sustainable Future, Sourojit Ghosh, Sarah Coppola Jun 2024

This Class Isn’T Designed For Me: Recognizing Ableist Trends In Design Education, And Redesigning For An Inclusive And Sustainable Future, Sourojit Ghosh, Sarah Coppola

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Traditional and currently-prevalent pedagogies of design perpetuate ableist and exclusionary notions of what it means to be a designer. In this paper, we trace such historically exclusionary norms of design education, and highlight modern-day instances from our own experiences as design educators in such epistemologies. Towards imagining a more inclusive and sustainable future of design education, we present three case studies from our own experience as design educators in redesigning course experiences for blind and low-vision (BLV), deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students, and students with other disabilities. In documenting successful and unsuccessful practices, we imagine what a pedagogy of care …


Materials Designers And The Translational Approach: A Case From A Product Design Company, Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete, Laura Anselmi, Valentina Rognoli Jun 2024

Materials Designers And The Translational Approach: A Case From A Product Design Company, Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete, Laura Anselmi, Valentina Rognoli

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Design professionals are inherently translators due to the multi-faceted nature of the design process that often encompasses considerations of technologies, manufacturing, materials, etc. In investigating the emerging practice of 'materials designers', it has been found that they must develop strong 'translational design skills' to address a material-driven design process when collaborations with diverse stakeholders exist. Especially to create new materials and products or to obtain exclusive material features and experiences. Through a real-life case study on developing a circularity-oriented material from waste, this paper articulates translational design practice in materials design, highlighting its relevance in the design process. The study …


Designing Sound For Public Spaces Through A Research-Creation Collaboration Framework, Valérian Fraisse, Marcelo Mortensen Wanderley, Nicolas Misdariis, Catherine Guastavino Jun 2024

Designing Sound For Public Spaces Through A Research-Creation Collaboration Framework, Valérian Fraisse, Marcelo Mortensen Wanderley, Nicolas Misdariis, Catherine Guastavino

DRS Biennial Conference Series

When designing a sound installation in public spaces, creators consider a wide range of factors related to the site where it will be deployed as part of the artistic statement. However, anticipating the impact of the sound installation on user experience is difficult in the absence of established methods to inform the design and evaluate the outcomes. Based on three case studies involving sound artists and soundscape researchers, we propose a research-creation collaboration framework through four stages: 1) field recordings of pre-existing sound environments; 2) diagnosis of pre-existing sound environments and public space usage; 3) sound installation prototyping in laboratory …


Drawing-Philosophy Correspondence: Towards Transforming From Within, Caroline Hummels Jun 2024

Drawing-Philosophy Correspondence: Towards Transforming From Within, Caroline Hummels

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The global call for transformation towards a more just, sustainable and pluriverse world has also materialised within the design field, asking for new design practices that embrace open-ended and relational processes. Several approaches emerged over the last decades, built on different values, and investigating ontological, epistemological, ethical, and practical dimensions. In this pictorial, I explore what these new practices can be and do, through embarking on a drawing-philosophy correspondence journey. This pictorial shows my three-year quest to explore the role of drawing for researching design for societal transformation. By visually researching philosophical concepts such as correspondence, commoning, minor key, and …


Hybrid Ecologies Of Artificial Intelligence: Prototyping Terrestrial Practices Through A Design Installation, Martin Tironi, Manuela Garretón Jun 2024

Hybrid Ecologies Of Artificial Intelligence: Prototyping Terrestrial Practices Through A Design Installation, Martin Tironi, Manuela Garretón

DRS Biennial Conference Series

If AI is usually represented as an immaterial and deterritorialized agency, this paper seeks to rematerialize the development of this technology, making visible water consumption in AI model generation. Drawing on studies of post-anthropocentric design and the notion of more-than-human interdependencies, we describe Hybrid Ecologies, an installation that problematizes the relationship between AI and the more-than-human agency of water. The installation is a design exploration to overcome the dichotomy between nature and technology, evidencing how AI inhabits a hybrid ecology, made of interdependent relationships between human agencies and terrestrial ecosystems. We try to move the reflection on AI from a …


Visioning And Managing Change: Analyzing Strategic Designers' Approaches In Salient Podcast Episodes, Ruchita Arvind Mandhre, G. Mauricio Mejía, Wenqi Zheng, Kendon Jung, Xueting Wu Jun 2024

Visioning And Managing Change: Analyzing Strategic Designers' Approaches In Salient Podcast Episodes, Ruchita Arvind Mandhre, G. Mauricio Mejía, Wenqi Zheng, Kendon Jung, Xueting Wu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Strategic design considers strategy as the core deliverable of practice, where designers are intentional about creating change. However, there is limited research that reveals change as a deliverable in these projects. The purpose of this study is to understand how experienced practitioners do strategic design and to identify their approaches for behavioral, organizational, and social change intentionally. With many experienced strategic designers invited to podcast shows, we analyzed the content of salient podcast episodes. This qualitative study uncovers themes, methods and approaches that expert strategic designers use to implement intentional change. We found that strategic designers embed themselves in particular …


Shifting Between Boundaries: ‘Contextual Examples’ As Boundary Objects In A Jeweller - Visual Artist Distributed Collaboration, Dong Ding, Sarah Kettley Jun 2024

Shifting Between Boundaries: ‘Contextual Examples’ As Boundary Objects In A Jeweller - Visual Artist Distributed Collaboration, Dong Ding, Sarah Kettley

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Cross-disciplinary collaborations are prevalent in craft and design, during which artists draw from or apply knowledge from outside their primary field. In such creative processes, boundary objects are often present. This paper proposes 'Contextual Examples' as a new type of boundary object and traces its emergence through the analysis of data from the ‘Data-Music-Jewellery’ project - a distributed collaboration between a UK-based jeweller and a US-based visual artist. Through an initial review, 37 boundary objects, clustered into 8 types, were identified. This paper focuses on how ‘Contextual Examples’ as a novel type of boundary object seemed to support the emergence …


Universities Undergoing Climate Transition: Developing Mlp Tools From A Context- Specific And Critical Standpoint, Niki Wallace, Ramia Mazé, Dilys Williams, Domenica Landin Jun 2024

Universities Undergoing Climate Transition: Developing Mlp Tools From A Context- Specific And Critical Standpoint, Niki Wallace, Ramia Mazé, Dilys Williams, Domenica Landin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Knowledge gaps persist in the emerging field ‘Design for Transitions’ (DfT). Our research builds on the ‘multi-level perspective’ (MLP), a core concept in DfT and the wider Transition Studies field, and we address critiques of the MLP in terms of social practices, agency and power. Grounded in a ‘Research through Design’ approach and learning from our prior work, we have carefully adapted and designed MLP tools. We elucidate design considerations for MLP tools from within our 'live' climate transition of a UK university – research conducted within a university about the university. Contributing to DfT, we present six ‘design criteria’ …


Strategy Design Of Ai-Generated Customization For Streetwear Fashion Brands Based On The Big Five Personality Test, Jiewen Lai, Xinyi Wang, Yuanli Yu Jun 2024

Strategy Design Of Ai-Generated Customization For Streetwear Fashion Brands Based On The Big Five Personality Test, Jiewen Lai, Xinyi Wang, Yuanli Yu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This research aims to revolutionize streetwear fashion brands' customization services by incorporating the Big Five personality psychology test and AI-generated content (AIGC) technology. Focus group discussions with professionals and designers explored integrating AIGC technology into customization services. An analysis of 200 questionnaires examined consumers' preferences for visual styles and image types in customized streetwear fashion brands. An experimental test matched AI-generated elements with personality dimensions, leading to personalized AI image-generation rules. This research identifies personalized needs and favored design elements, develops rules for data visualization, and offers insights into utilizing AI technology for data visualization. It presents a fresh approach …


Unified Patient Portal: Engaging Patients Throughout The Genetic Testing Journey, Adriana Navarro-Sainz, Shama Huda, Regis Bectarte Jun 2024

Unified Patient Portal: Engaging Patients Throughout The Genetic Testing Journey, Adriana Navarro-Sainz, Shama Huda, Regis Bectarte

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Patient Empowerment (PE) has increasingly gained popularity in shaping the framework of healthcare systems. We present a case study at Natera, where we designed a patient-centric portal aimed at fostering patient engagement throughout the genetic testing journey. Through a patient-centric approach, we present the design process of creating a portal for patients to take control over their genetic tests. This is followed by the user research we conducted utilizing cognitive walkthrough and think-aloud methodologies. This is then followed by analyzing the data gathered through the user research conducted with organ health patients. We then conclude by presenting findings and outlining …


Sensemaking About Power In Anti-Oppressive Design Practice, Jessica Meharry Jun 2024

Sensemaking About Power In Anti-Oppressive Design Practice, Jessica Meharry

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The concept of power can be an effective discursive tool to wield when designing against oppression and designing for joy, desire, and flourishing. While power is a critical concept in oppression, it is underdeveloped in most design methods and practices. This paper makes the case that designers interested in social justice can explore dimensions of power to uncover and redirect bias and inequities in both design processes and outcomes. I summarize the conceptual debates about power's meaning and survey how designers are currently engaging with the concept. I then offer a loose anti-oppressive framework for sensemaking around power in professional …


Towards Active Aging: Investigating Innovations Within Intelligent Communities, Gabriela Branco, Manuela Quaresma Jun 2024

Towards Active Aging: Investigating Innovations Within Intelligent Communities, Gabriela Branco, Manuela Quaresma

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Intelligent communities can nurture environments conducive to fostering positive and meaningful relationships among the elderly. This systematic literature review examines the role of these communities in the aging population’s social relations. Through the review of studies and interventions via the Scopus database, we investigate how some innovative approaches are positively impacting the quality of life for the elderly. We identified examples of initiatives, technological solutions, and a social project successfully implemented in communities to strengthen older adult support networks. The contributions of this article lie in providing a comprehensive view of how smart technologies are shaping support for the senior …


Hand Postures: An Analysis Of Patterns In Novice Design Drawing, Jason O'Neill Germany, Kris Brauer Jun 2024

Hand Postures: An Analysis Of Patterns In Novice Design Drawing, Jason O'Neill Germany, Kris Brauer

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In the realm of design drawing, extensive research and professional expertise have been dedicated to identifying the techniques and specific methods employed by designers. However, limited knowledge has been captured as to the potential in-fluence of human biomechanics on the act of design drawing. This research en-deavors to scrutinize the specific hand postures adopted by a diverse group of de-signers, particularly those who are at the early stages of their design training, name-ly second-year design students. This exploration extends to investigating how these postures are influenced by prior exposure to design or art drawing instruction and, most crucially, how they …


Embodied Prototyping In Vr: Ideation And Bodystorming Within A Custom Vr Sandbox, Joshua Robin Mcveigh-Schultz, Elena Márquez Segura, Katherine Isbister Jun 2024

Embodied Prototyping In Vr: Ideation And Bodystorming Within A Custom Vr Sandbox, Joshua Robin Mcveigh-Schultz, Elena Márquez Segura, Katherine Isbister

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Social virtual reality platforms present new opportunities for embodied design processes. This paper illustrates a range of embodied design techniques made possible through social engagement with VR/XR technology. Drawing from a case study involving the prototyping of a conversation visualization system for VR meetings, we present several novel embodied design methods in VR (also applicable to XR). These include: new techniques for supporting embodied ideation; new ways of acting out and improvising scenarios together; and new opportunities for preparing and manipulating assets, environments, and lo fi interactions for embodied design processes. These novel techniques and approaches point to exciting new …


Questioning Empathy As Care In Human-Computer Interaction Design, Elizaveta Kravchenko, Philip Doty Jun 2024

Questioning Empathy As Care In Human-Computer Interaction Design, Elizaveta Kravchenko, Philip Doty

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper considers the semantic function and rhetorical roles the terms “empathy” and “care” carry through the context of user experience design. By considering feminist formulations of the ethics of care, we situate a compassionate moral orientation of “care” to better interrogate implementations of the concept of “empathy” in the design of information systems. We suggest the latter term borrows on the emotive connotations of the former, while not elucidating the same moral commitment to individual contexts, relationality, and personal well-being. Empathy thus is granted a more quantifiable legitimacy than care in professional design contexts, while simultaneously reducing agency of …


Experiential Futures Through Immersive Design Fiction, Joshua Robin Mcveigh-Schultz Jun 2024

Experiential Futures Through Immersive Design Fiction, Joshua Robin Mcveigh-Schultz

DRS Biennial Conference Series

A key political challenge of addressing climate change has been that, despite its deep involvement with so many aspects of our society, its threat can at times feel abstracted from our daily lives— a gap futurists lament as the “experiential gulf” between our ability to imagine the future and our capacity to experience it. Immersive Design Fiction Experiences (IDFEs) use virtual reality as a way of bridging this experiential gulf by positioning participants as embodied subjects within a virtual storyworld. With IDFEs designers can explore a rich palette of experiential phenomena—such as speculative social rituals, embodied interactions with objects, and …


Activating Key Principles Of Systemic Design Through Exploratory Prototyping, Maria Vitaller Del Olmo, Nicola Morelli, Amalia De Götzen, Luca Simeone Jun 2024

Activating Key Principles Of Systemic Design Through Exploratory Prototyping, Maria Vitaller Del Olmo, Nicola Morelli, Amalia De Götzen, Luca Simeone

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Working towards sustainable futures demands competencies and methodologies that support system thinking and action. While prototyping has been designated as a promising method to facilitate complex systemic design processes, studies proving this potential are scarce, and scholars call for a shift in the definition and use of traditional prototyping when applied in design processes targeting complex systems. This paper describes the observed contributions of exploratory prototyping in the emergence of systemic design principles. Results from three systemic design workshops illustrate the role that exploratory prototyping played in the understanding and framing stages of design processes targeting complex systems, particularly in …


The Space Between Procedural And Situated Ethics: Reflecting On The Use Of Existing Materials In Design Research On Children Affected By Stroke, Pleuntje Jellema, Piet Tutenel, Birgit Moser, Anne-Sophie Schoss, Maja Kevdzija, Andrea Jelić, Ann Heylighen Jun 2024

The Space Between Procedural And Situated Ethics: Reflecting On The Use Of Existing Materials In Design Research On Children Affected By Stroke, Pleuntje Jellema, Piet Tutenel, Birgit Moser, Anne-Sophie Schoss, Maja Kevdzija, Andrea Jelić, Ann Heylighen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Conducting design research in hard-to-enter care environments with children affected by stroke poses important ethical questions. Research focuses on procedural ethics or on situated ethics, emphasizing a hard-cut between research practices be-fore and during fieldwork. This paper explores this duality through an investigation of publicly available existing materials (i.e., biographies and YouTube videos). What was intended as a preparatory step before ‘entering the field’ becomes the primary way to better understand the role of the built environment in everyday lives of families affected by childhood stroke. In this paper we reflect on the shared space the investigation creates within a …


Issues In Future Autonomous Public Transport Solu-Tions For Children With Intellectual Disabilities, Johan Blomkvist, Mattias Forsblad, Henrik Danielsson, Mattias Arvola, Mikael Wiberg Jun 2024

Issues In Future Autonomous Public Transport Solu-Tions For Children With Intellectual Disabilities, Johan Blomkvist, Mattias Forsblad, Henrik Danielsson, Mattias Arvola, Mikael Wiberg

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Public transportation in urban environments should be inclusive and accessible to offer this service for all people. This research aims to identify issues in the devel-opment of autonomous shuttle services in future public transportation systems for children with intellectual disabilities. An issue-based information system (IBIS) anal-ysis was retrospectively conducted based on a concept generation phase. Four con-cepts were evaluated by five experts. The findings show that the main tensions in this context can be categorized as interaction, physical, and independence. Interac-tive elements can both create value and lead to confusion for the target group. The physical design of concepts affects …


Creating A Mess! Design Strategies For Managing Visual Complexity In Second-Hand Shops, Lea Becker Frahm, Linda N. Laursen, Bo T. Christensen Jun 2024

Creating A Mess! Design Strategies For Managing Visual Complexity In Second-Hand Shops, Lea Becker Frahm, Linda N. Laursen, Bo T. Christensen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Enhancing the consumer experience in second-hand shopping is essential to support the sustainable reuse of products. Up to 80% of shopping decisions are unplanned, making store design significantly important. However, knowledge of the design strategies utilized in second-hand shops is limited. Second-hand shops grapple with store design challenges due to their vast array of unique products, resulting in high visual complexity and clutter. Current literature links such visual clutter to consumers' feelings of cognitive overload but also shows it connotates creativity. This study investigated the design strategies of professional second-hand retailers through observations (n = 25) and interviews (n = …


“Feelings About The Other Body:” Caring Through And Forward In Design For Play, Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jørgensen, Harun Kaygan Jun 2024

“Feelings About The Other Body:” Caring Through And Forward In Design For Play, Ida Kathrine Hammeleff Jørgensen, Harun Kaygan

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper considers designers’ embodied engagements while designing for play from the lens of “care.” We consider such engagements as socio-material rela-tions of care, following recent theorizations of care within care studies. Relying on observations from a variety of activities undertaken by students during a two-week design workshop on embodied play design, we present a theoretical model that identifies two orders of care in design activities: First order, “care through,” indexes the immediate objects that designers attend to in the here-and-now while implementing procedures, practices and tools provided by diverse design methods. Second order, “care forward,” indicates the future beneficiaries …


Unleashing Creative Ideation Through Stakeholder-Related Learning: The Ripple Effect With Stakeholder-Nexus Tool, Ziling Liang, Zihan Zhou, Chu Liang, Yiming Bai, Yunxiang Shi, Yunfei Chen, Ying Hu Jun 2024

Unleashing Creative Ideation Through Stakeholder-Related Learning: The Ripple Effect With Stakeholder-Nexus Tool, Ziling Liang, Zihan Zhou, Chu Liang, Yiming Bai, Yunxiang Shi, Yunfei Chen, Ying Hu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Extensive learning and comprehensive consideration of the dynamic connections between stakeholders are the keys to tapping into novel insights, especially in service design. However, due to their lack of professional experience, novice designers usually struggle with the complicated network of stakeholders which results in incomplete design solutions. We created the Stakeholder-Nexus, a knowledge graph-based heuristic teaching tool based on reliable service design examples, to address this problem. By conducting pre-post comparison experiments, we revealed that using the tool significantly increased the effectiveness of stakeholder learning and ideation of design solutions yielded heightened creativity with increased appeal and improved feasibility. Furthermore, …


Designing In Argentina With Indigenous Groups, Catalina Lucía Agudin Jun 2024

Designing In Argentina With Indigenous Groups, Catalina Lucía Agudin

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Indigeneity in Argentina has historically been oppressed. The project presented here is a collaboration between design researchers and students from Buenos Aires and Indigenous groups in Northern Argentina that combines anthropologi-cal and design methods. Participatory experiences are at the core of the pro-posal. Interactions within the communities led to various lines of work. The top-ics varied from textile production, natural coloring, traditional nourishment, and construction to didactic materials for schools within intercultural bilingual edu-cation. The results show not only material outcomes, but also how the project moved its participants. In light of the widely differing worldviews, the learning process became …


Designing A Crossover Multisensory Picturebook With Older Adults At A Care Home, Serpil Karaoğlu, Aslı Günay, Ilgım Veryeri Alaca Jun 2024

Designing A Crossover Multisensory Picturebook With Older Adults At A Care Home, Serpil Karaoğlu, Aslı Günay, Ilgım Veryeri Alaca

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Picturebooks have often been studied in the children’s literature field with a focus on child readers, but recent studies have begun to discuss the cross-age aspect that embraces wider audiences. This study explores the design space for a crossover multisensory picturebook that would also engage older adults via positive design approach. In this multidisciplinary study, we aimed to nurture the positive sides of aging by transforming life-long experiences into narratives in the form of a picturebook that embodies memories and transfers heritage in an engaging way during shared reading. Within this scope, we conducted interviews and design evaluations with older …


Tapestries Of Trust: Using Interdisciplinary Design Research To Weave In Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives In The Public Sector, Bhuvana Sekar, Uttishta Sreerama Varanasi, Rūta Šerpytytė, Viivi Eskelinen Jun 2024

Tapestries Of Trust: Using Interdisciplinary Design Research To Weave In Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives In The Public Sector, Bhuvana Sekar, Uttishta Sreerama Varanasi, Rūta Šerpytytė, Viivi Eskelinen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In complex contexts involving stakeholders including public sector actors and vulnerable groups, design can help in untangling disciplinary perspectives and translating research to create shared knowledge. This paper explores the role of design research in understanding trust between civil servants and migrants in Espoo. Employing a multi-method qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews, ethnographic studies and participatory workshops to investigate the diverse dimensions of trust. Through this paper, we aim to demonstrate the value of methodological diversity in translating research findings into actionable outcomes and influencing collaborative, interdisciplinary knowledge creation. We examine the suitability of the used methods in terms …


Research On The Relationship Between Urban Green Spaces, Perceptual Dimensions, And Psychological Restoration Among Students: A Case Study Of Different Landscape Types, Haixia Liao, Xuefei Lin, Yingjun Zhu Jun 2024

Research On The Relationship Between Urban Green Spaces, Perceptual Dimensions, And Psychological Restoration Among Students: A Case Study Of Different Landscape Types, Haixia Liao, Xuefei Lin, Yingjun Zhu

DRS Biennial Conference Series

With the rapid development of society and the increasing pressure on education, campus psychological issues have become more prominent. Previous studies have demonstrated the positive effects of natural environments on mental health. However, research on campus landscape environments has primarily focused on the impact of campus facilities on student health, neglecting the degree of openness of natural land-scape spaces. This study utilized virtual reality technology to simulate campus green landscape spaces with different degrees of openness and explored the influence of these different spaces on individual psychological recovery. The results indicate that the degree of openness of campus green spaces …


Situating Imaginaries Of Ethics In / Of / Through Design, Sonja Rattay, Marco C. Rozendaal, Irina Shklovski Jun 2024

Situating Imaginaries Of Ethics In / Of / Through Design, Sonja Rattay, Marco C. Rozendaal, Irina Shklovski

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Within the last decade a large corpus of work in HCI as well as the commercial design practice has focused on systematically addressing questions of ethics, values and moral considerations embedded in the design of digital technology. Recent critiques have highlighted that these efforts fall short of actual transformative impact. We use the sociological concept of imaginaries to argue that value and ethics work needs to be considered within the larger context of socially shared visions of a desirable future and outline how existing sociotechnical imaginaries pre-frame contexts in which value work is deployed. We demonstrate that imaginaries provide the …


A Framework For The Agency Of Sketching, Annemiek Van Der Wal, Janwillem Hoftijzer, Martijn Haans Jun 2024

A Framework For The Agency Of Sketching, Annemiek Van Der Wal, Janwillem Hoftijzer, Martijn Haans

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Previous scholars have advocated the significant value of sketching in design process-es. This paper first explores how design sketching functions as an agent for design, building on insights derived from both theory and practice. Interviews with professional designers in the field reaffirm the functions and importance of sketching. Not only for designers themselves, but also for their clients and consumers. Given the value of sketching and the variety of stakeholders involved, this paper then aims to structure the affordances of design sketching in a practical framework. Considering that af-fordances must be discoverable and perceivable in order to be effective, this …


Empowering Urban Wellbeing And Biodiversity Through Design-Driven Citymaking, Laura Cipriani, Francesca Foglieni, Francesco Leoni, Stefano Maffei Jun 2024

Empowering Urban Wellbeing And Biodiversity Through Design-Driven Citymaking, Laura Cipriani, Francesca Foglieni, Francesco Leoni, Stefano Maffei

DRS Biennial Conference Series

This paper presents a practice-based account of the roles that design can play in the realization of a biodiversity-driven approach to citymaking, specifically as part of urban regeneration. The authors first retrace the evolving relationship between design and citymaking in light of contemporary urban regeneration challenges, to identify the potential roles design can play in these contexts. Urban biodiversity is then explored as a factor relevant to urban well-being, ecosystem services, and proactive citizenship, clustering the types of actions that can support a biodiversity-sensitive urban regeneration. Following these premises, a portfolio of initiatives centered on urban biodiversity within a large-scale …


Imagination Meets Algorithm: Redefining Design Practices In The Coming Ai Age, Mario Ciaramitaro, Pietro Costa Jun 2024

Imagination Meets Algorithm: Redefining Design Practices In The Coming Ai Age, Mario Ciaramitaro, Pietro Costa

DRS Biennial Conference Series

The summer of 2022 marked the advent of accessible text-to-image tools, revolutionizing image rendering with distinctive styles swiftly. This generated a creative shift among designers, generally addressed as “prompt design”, although this expression scarcely captures the profound interaction between design and digital tools. This paper elucidates the potential synergy between designers and AI through two pragmatic exercises engaged by university students. Our approaches were polarized: in one exercise we fostered a rich imaginative process before the text-to-image creation; secondly we asked students to elaborate a possible user interface over an artifact drawn by AI, following a very simple textual description. …