Conference Agenda

Teaching and learning systems-thinking can often be abstract and, for new students, difficult to grasp. In our first-year Bachelor of Arts design theory seminar our goal was to connect systems theory to practice and thus allow for systems to become more tangible and visible. We asked ourselves: How might systems thinking become more concrete through doing, researching, reflecting, and discussing, therefore leading to a deeper understanding? In this text we present and discuss 'breakfast as a system', an evolving step-by-step and enquiry-based approach to learning. It involves background research, giga-mapping, and how researching and presenting information can lead to more embodied learning and a deeper understanding of systems thinking and complexity, while also becoming aware of pluralism. Moreover, researching and mapping in small groups allow students to acquire a more concrete understanding of the hidden complexity behind everyday products and modern conveniences, including globalisation, infrastructure, and labour conditions.

Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry, one of the world’s largest garment exporters, is under growing pressure to shift from labour-based to design-led and sustainable business models. However, applying Western co-design frameworks within the hierarchical and production-driven context of large enterprises reveals significant cultural and structural constraints. Drawing on in-depth interviews and reflexive journaling, this paper reports findings from two phases of an ongoing project and examine how design participation is understood and enacted across Vietnam’s fashion eco-system, contrasting the relational practices of micro and small enterprises with the fragmented processes of large manufacturers. It introduces đồng-design, a culturally situated approach grounded in the Vietnamese value of togetherness, as a systemic way of designing collaboration across scales. By articulating đồng-design as both a conceptual and practical framework, the study contributes to pluralistic understandings of systemic design and highlights pathways for building design capacity and collaborative agency.

What is the status quo of contemporary design education in the context of sustainability as a holistic and timely training, a binding professional ethos, and materialised everyday practice for future designers? This research investigates how contemporary tertiary design education is responding to polycrisis discourse and the multilaterally demanded paradigm shift towards sustainability. This includes a critical reflection on the political dimension of the term itself. A mixed-methods approach, combining systematic programme mapping, discourse analytical case studies of tertiary design education, and interviews with educators, investigates the translation of sustainability rhetoric into pedagogical practice across design and architecture education worldwide. A considerable variation exists in the conceptualisation and pedagogy of resilient design, transformation design, eco-social design, democratic design, slow design, and many more across institutions. Are design schools, in their capacity as (trans)formative entities, effectively nurturing the ‘resilient designers‘ of the future?

Design is playing an increasingly important role in the liberal arts and in general education at various grade levels. Integrating design into a curriculum can take many forms, from teaching general design literacy to specific disciplinary practices and using design methods to support topical learning. Over decades of teaching game design in various contexts, we have observed how students gain a deep and systemic understanding of topics when designing games on them. Synthesizing our experiences from higher education, we expand on Hanghøj’s model for game-based teaching to include teaching through game design as a pedagogical method. We argue that to leverage the potential of game design in educational settings and further develop this approach, educators and designers must improve their gaming literacy and call for collaboration across disciplines.

This paper proposes speculative co-imagination, a design approach that integrates design fiction with participatory visualization to explore alternative futures. In the post-AI era, as automation replaces standardized tasks, designers increasingly focus on framing critical questions. Design fiction creates plausible yet fictional scenarios to provoke reflection, but often lacks audience engagement. By incorporating participatory visualization, users become co-creators of speculative narratives through data input and interaction. Drawing on the project Sky Protocol, which imagines the urban sky as an algorithmic visual platform, the paper demonstrates how user-driven data shapes collective perception. The practice is guided by a five-stage framework consisting of fictional system framing, participatory input modelling, position formation dynamics, negotiated visualisation construction, and systemic recursion modelling. This study positions visualization as a medium for public speculation and socio-technical critique.

This paper examines how design space for engaging with complexity was constrained, negotiated and expanded within a Dutch public sector organisation providing occupational disability services. While systemic design calls for transformation and embracing complexity, practical understanding of enacting this within a political-administrative context remains limited. Through critical analysis of a participatory action research project, we trace six key moments where possibilities for transformation were opened up or constrained: from processing the initial individual-centric framing, through recognising relational complexity, to translating insights into interventions. Our analysis reveals tensions between systemic aspirations and organisational realities: while the project successfully reframed reintegration from an individual-centric to relational understanding, translating this perspective into design interventions proved challenging. The paper offers actionable insights for systemic design practice in public sector contexts, demonstrating both the promise and limitations of design for transformation and systemic change within established organisational environments.