DRS 2022 Bilbao · Theme - tracks

CHAIRS

REVIEWERS

Nathan Felde, Northeastern University.

Christian Nold, The Open University, Design Group.

Paolo Ciuccarelli, Northeastern University, Center for Design.

Estefania Ciliotta Chehade, Northeastern University, Center for Design.[email protected]

Paul Pangaro, Carnegie Mellon University.

Michael Arnold Mages, Northeastern University.

Silvia Barbero, Politecnico di Torino / Systemic Design Association.

Remy Bourganel, Independent researcher, with Umea Institute of Design & IEP Paris.

Sara Lenzi, Northeastern University, Center for Design.

ABSTRACT

A diffused sense of crisis for design – meaning the urgency of making a critical decision about its future – is producing a number of initiatives that aim at reframing/rethinking design, as a discipline and as a practice. With this track we want to explore the variety of meta-design approaches, where design ‘transcends’ the specificity and the contingency of the single design act to engage in: (a) the reflective practice of re-designing design: its purposes, processes and methods; (b) the design of design systems – sets of generative rules and principles, or spaces of opportunities – that enable further design instances, both by expert and non-expert designers; (c) the (co)design of a shared purpose, of aims and tools that can drive eco-system dynamics and enable a pluriverse of context-sensitive net-positive/regenerative activities.

We aim at finding a convergence in the diversity of all approaches to – and applications of – meta-design, consolidating a long and multifaceted tradition into a reinvigorated framework for both researchers and practitioners.

SUB TOPICS

Papers that reflect the above mentioned approaches (a-c), addressing one of the following sub-topics or opening new perspectives on the role of meta-design in research and professional practices, are welcomed:

1. Meta-design and the pandemic of AI How does meta-design afford a path from pervasive digital AI algorithms with pernicious effects to alternatives that respect our analog, organic, spontaneous selves?
2. Meta-design in the pluriverse How can meta-design work effectively in a world in which many worlds fit and ensure a productive and equitable collaboration between different types of actors in a sustainable system? How can meta-design help shape new paradigms that work across multiple scales and systems?
3. Meta-design as politics How do we go about redesigning design and who gets to do that? Can we change design and its future, aligning decisions and actions, in a non-hierarchical and non-institutional, egalitarian way?
4. Meta-design in education How is meta-design integrated into current design programs and curricula? How should design education be reframed to embrace meta-design and system thinking?
5. Meta-design in practice To what extent is meta-design implemented in the (design) strategies of corporations, small companies and other organizations? Is meta-design able to address the specificities of design actions that span from identity and communication systems to product-service systems and social innovation?