Conference Agenda

Translation as a practice, has many applications and histories. In a research context, the translation of knowledge from one domain to another brings scientific knowledge and critical ideas to people and industries. Translation between different forms of knowledge can enable collaboration between research, industry, policy and society to enable systemic knowledge co-production and impact. This paper explores the ways that design is intrinsically translational, and why translation is now becoming an expanded and explicit practice in design research. As the complexity of multidisciplinary and multistakeholder collaborative research increases, the translational nature of design could play a vital role in convening knowledge and creating impact through synthesis and interpretation into tangible artefacts and interventions. This raises the question: how might design explicitly define its role as a translator in new contexts of research and practice?

Social prescribing (SP) refers patients to community and social services that sup-port the individual’s social needs and that can bolster their overall health and well-being. SP offers a promising approach to addressing wide-spread mental health issues, social determinants of health, and growing social isolation. While SP is integrated into the national health systems of countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan, it has only recently begun to take root in the United States (US). This paper presents “Design for Social Prescribing”, a re-search project led by the Design Laboratory at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that explored how the structured use of design could help expand and accelerate the SP in the US. The research was structured on advanced design models to support multi-stakeholder collaboration in three phases. This paper outlines key learnings from these phases, including their processes, approaches, and outcomes.

This paper explores how collaborative design methods can facilitate the translation of situated knowledge embodied in expert practice. We draw on a long-term collaborative research project with a major national museum in the UK aimed at catalysing sustained transformation in the practice of staff members. We describe two interdependent generative modalities of our collaborative design research intervention. Firstly, a mode of collaborative translation from staff member’s existing practice into shared language, prototypes and tools. Secondly, a mode of collaborative translation into the situated practice of staff, resulting in new shared behaviours and capabilities. We describe the methods used in this work, the outputs produced and the unfolding impact on practice that resulted from these interventions. We discuss the potential of collaborative design methods to facilitate translational research that treats impact on practice as a means and measure of success.

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 of 1) facilitation of interdisciplinary research, 2) participation of stakeholders, and 3) accessibility and adaptation of process and findings. By reflecting on our disciplinary configurations and their engagement with external stakeholders, we hope to reduce the gap between research and societal impact.

This paper documents the design research, concept design and digital fabrication process of UV Wear - a collection of smart non-digital 3D printed accessories developed by a multi-disciplinary team of designers, materials scientists, and digital fabrication technicians. The project utilised the multi-disciplinary expertise of the team to create UV responsive accessories that embed interactive capability with aesthetically appealing and customisable designs. This was achieved through integrating diarylethene photoswitch material into the 3D printing process. Through the documentation of our multi-disciplinary Research-through-Design (RtD) workflow process, which fuses work across the chemistry lab, design studio, and design fabrication lab, the contributions of this paper are: 1) We present our multidisciplinary RtD workflow model as a case study, providing detailed descriptions of the design research phases conducted within this model; 2) We reflect on challenges that multi-disciplinary RtD projects face, and offer prompts for future translational design work.

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 of cross-disciplinary jewellery practice. By offering a nuanced perspective on the roles of 'Contextual Examples' in this project, the paper contributes to the understanding of communication, knowledge flow, and the evolution of cross-disciplinary jewellery in collaborative settings, expanding the concept of boundary objects within design and creative practice.