Conference Agenda

Life-centred design decenters humans and considers all life and the far-reaching impacts of design decisions. However, little is known about the application of life-centred design tools in practice and their usefulness and limitations for considering more-than-human perspectives. To address this gap, we carried out a series of workshops, reporting on findings from a first-person study involving one design academic and three design practitioners. Using a popular flat-pack chair as a case study, we generatively identified and applied four tools: systems maps, actant maps, product lifecycle maps and behavioural impact canvas. We found that the tools provided a structured approach for practising systems thinking, identifying human and non-human actors, understanding their interconnectedness, and surfacing gaps in the team’s knowledge. Based on the findings, the paper proposes a process for implementing life-centred design tools in design projects.

Embodied Sensemaking Theory describes how people make sense in ongoing interactions with the social and material world. It has potential in projects aimed at changing embodied practices. However, designers often find it challenging to use this complex theory. We build on recent research on tangible ‘Theory Instruments’ for designers. We designed a Theory Instrument for embodied sensemaking with design students who design for social interactions and with young people who investigate their energy consumption. Our analysis of 12 experimental sessions shows how Embodied Sensemaking Theory helps reimagine human practices towards more sustainable futures. Our contribution is two-fold: We show that experiential actions (e.g. weaving lines, shaping textiles, wearing bodybands), rather than the tangible things as such, can represent theory key-aspects in use. We develop a logic of how to disentangle the complexity of lifeworld, socially situated practices, skills and affordances, action-perception couplings, rules and signs.

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 appreciation of the systems' complexity, the recognition of interdependence relationships among its elements, and the framing of the system's boundaries to set the systems' new vision. Our findings contribute to envisioning new definitions and uses of prototyping to respond to the demands of the systemic design practice.

Sustainability Transitions and Futures is a mandatory course of the Creative Sus-tainability master’s program in the Department of Design of Aalto University de-livered jointly by the co-authors. It aims to provide a basic understanding of how sustainability transitions projects unfold in practice and the ways through which designers can contribute to these projects as part of interdisciplinary teams. For two consecutive years, we focused on multispecies sustainability. We have pro-vided the students with the necessary theoretical and critical lenses through a curated selection of guest lectures from fields including law, philosophy, urban ecology and planning. For the practical part, the students in groups reimagined the Aalto University campus in the year 2050 as a multispecies campus and de-veloped pathways to demonstrate how their visions can become anchors for re-directing campus development plans. This paper reflects on our experience and provides pointers for systems change-related courses to engage with post-anthropocentric future-making.

Material waste from manufacturing poses substantial challenges. European compa-nies generate more than 2.2 billion tons of waste annually. The utilization of already circulating resources plays a vital part in reducing the use of raw materials. The state-of-the-art methodology for designing from waste outlines a linear process with three phases: optimization, analysis, and design. However, there is limited un-derstanding of the critical leap from analysis to designing with waste. Considering the co-evolutionary nature of design activity, it may not be efficient to separate these stages. In fact, research states design outcome is improved when problem-solution co-evolve. This study examines the process of design material assessment performed by industrial designers and technical experts. Through observations and participatory questioning of 13 cases of waste assessment from different industries, we examine and identify four modes of inquiry: 1) primary material sorting, 2) un-derstanding material potentials, 3) identifying areas of application, and 4) value-ranking utilizations.