Meta-Design and System Thinking to Address the Complexity of Global Challenges. Designing for Networks of Human and Non-Human Actors.
A collaborative initiative to build common ground and foster shared actions
Dietmar Offenhuber started the event by welcoming all attendees and speakers on behalf of CAMD and pointed out that research about the topic in mention is fundamental for the development of the practice of design and society as a whole. Dietmar was followed by Paolo Ciuccarelli, who emphasized that these kinds of conversations are key components of the Center for Design (CfD) at CAMD and is part of its mission to continue to broaden up the conversation to find better ways of doing design especially when it comes to tackling current and future complex issues. Narrowing it down to the theme of the event, Paolo shared an example of metadesign in practice – the Design for Emergency initiative – intended to be a platform with potential design solutions against Covid-19 open to everyone (especially designers) to explore and further develop them. He argued that, in planning this event, the CfD explored existing initiatives about rethinking/reframing design and found a strong convergence on the importance of thinking holistically and embracing a systemic approach when researching and acting through design.
The event was then followed by the introduction of speakers and their initiatives in an attempt to state the fact that many people are invested in and exploring metadesign, systems design, and systemic design approaches for the advancement of the field of design; at the same time, expressing he CfD’s desire of making this conversation “a convergence of intent”. All these condensed convergence of intents – and especially this initial conversation, marked the beginning of a subsequent set of [conversations, events, moments] for building common ground of knowledge and collaborative action. At the CfD we envisioned designing something like a mega-metadesign platform as a first step to connecting with other stakeholders, and hopefully, broaden it up to bigger movements like the Festival of Emergence from the Design Research Society [DRS].
It was amazing to see that though speakers had different experiences and takes on metadesign and systems approaches to design, they all share the belief in a need for advancing the field of design through these approaches.