Conference Agenda

Prototyping is a fundamental part of the design process. The iterative as-semblage and manipulation of shapes, textures, colors, and volumes generate re-flections not only about formal qualities but also about possible affordances, functionalities, and meanings. Prototypical artifacts emerge from the negotiation between the informed rational thinking coming from research, the mechanical behavior of the material, the human body ergonomics and dexterity, and the serendipitous discoveries happening in the process. Analyzing the creative dy-namics happening during prototyping, it is possible to observe similarities be-tween model-making and play. Such dynamics of reflection in action have the creative potential to foster speculative inquiry. The aim of this contribution is to present, through a case study workshop, playful prototyping as a speculative de-sign methodology: a playful approach that can generate extreme, thought-provoking, and radical outputs in the form of diegetic prototypes of speculative design and design fiction.

We need new methods for generating policy insights that ensure people's lived experiences are not flattened and fixed to a moment in time and that visions of possible futures are not curtailed by a 'crisis of imagination'. In response to this challenge, we have developed a creative, play-based method called the Tomorrow Party, which invites participants to travel forward in time and share co-created stories of the desirable futures they find themselves living in. As a future story-making process, the Tomorrow Party generates novel ways of sharing affective perspectives on possible futures so we can collectively anticipate what is at stake and work out what policy responses would contribute to the futures we want. We present the method as well as key findings and insights from a series of Tomorrow Parties commissioned by the Policy Lab at the Wellcome Trust, spanning locations across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

In an AI-dominated landscape, creative, collaborative, and open-ended problem solving are increasingly critical skills. Traditional science and design toys pair stepwise instructions with single-configuration forms, while pixel-based building systems become an extension of the user’s existing capacity. By requiring creative re-imagination of everyday objects, chain reaction (rube goldberg) machines are a promising concept for practicing and expanding creative design skills through play. We calibrated formal and instructional constraints across two major design iterations, utilizing ethnographic interviewing, behavioral observation, and documentation of creative output to understand, quantify, and react to the impact of design changes. Paired with appropriate creative restraints, a chain reaction-based play experience led children to intuitively, independently, and successfully engage with the design process from problem identification to functional solution, expanding and enhancing their design abilities. This product and the play experience it creates are significant in proving play as a vehicle to develop 21st century skills.

In this paper, I will trace the ‘drift’ that has happened in my PhD project, ‘De-signing for Playful Democratic Frictions’. I argue that it has been driven primarily by the friction that emerged between the diverse components in my ‘research-assemblage’. The aim is not to resolve the friction, but rather to enhance and fol-low it as far as I can. I suggest that a playful attitude is helpful for lingering with this friction, and that such a stance can allow us to see things otherwise ob-scured by tales of historical necessity. This notion of drifting by friction may in-spire strategies for design research that allow us to question the ontologies of design, potentially generating small openings for different conceptions of design to emerge.