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Lluny d'emprar el terme transmèdia com un simple adjectiu que pot qualificar a certs substantius, actualment es pot considerar la transmedialitat com una veritable manera d'executar projectes abordant la complexitat de l'escenari mediàtic contemporani. L'objectiu d'aquest treball és definir la disciplina de Disseny Transmèdia mitjançant la descripció de les activitats de projecte i d'investigació desenvolupades en el Politècnic de Milà, amb especial atenció al projecte Plug Social TV. Plug Social TV és un projecte posat en marxa el 2013 en dos barris perifèrics de la ciutat de Milà amb la participació dels estudiants del curs de Disseny de Comunicació, dirigits per l'equip d'investigació Imagis Lab. L'objectiu principal del projecte és experimentar els processos i els instruments de comunicació que, a través de la construcció de mons narratius i la seva distribució estratègica i multicanal (analògica i digital), poden suportar la formació d'un diàleg entre els interessats presents en el territori.

Lluny d'emprar el terme transmèdia com un simple adjectiu que pot qualificar a certs substantius, actualment es pot considerar la transmedialitat com una veritable manera d'executar projectes abordant la complexitat de l'escenari mediàtic contemporani. L'objectiu d'aquest treball és definir la disciplina de Disseny Transmèdia mitjançant la descripció de les activitats de projecte i d'investigació desenvolupades en el Politècnic de Milà, amb especial atenció al projecte Plug Social TV. Plug Social TV és un projecte posat en marxa el 2013 en dos barris perifèrics de la ciutat de Milà amb la participació dels estudiants del curs de Disseny de Comunicació, dirigits per l'equip d'investigació Imagis Lab. L'objectiu principal del projecte és experimentar els processos i els instruments de comunicació que, a través de la construcció de mons narratius i la seva distribució estratègica i multicanal (analògica i digital), poden suportar la formació d'un diàleg entre els interessats presents en el territori.

Tot producte està pensat perquè es vengui a nombrosos consumidors potencials; per això, les responsabilitats associades a aquest procés són grans. Els compromisos mediambientals, socials i ètics dels dissenyadors industrials estan establint principis universals en un esforç comú per fomentar una societat sostenible i més harmoniosa.

Tot producte està pensat perquè es vengui a nombrosos consumidors potencials; per això, les responsabilitats associades a aquest procés són grans. Els compromisos mediambientals, socials i ètics dels dissenyadors industrials estan establint principis universals en un esforç comú per fomentar una societat sostenible i més harmoniosa.

En aquest món en constant evolució, els objectes "intel.ligents" (amb tecnologia incrustada) han envaït la nostra vida quotidiana. Aquestes superfícies intel.ligents que emeten llum poden crear ambients o assistents de navegació de l'espai interior, a la vegada que ofereixen als dissenyadors opcions d'il.luminació sostenibles i flexibles. Quin efecte té la interacció amb aquestes superfícies il.luminades en l'experiència personal que es té dels ambients interiors?.

En aquest món en constant evolució, els objectes "intel.ligents" (amb tecnologia incrustada) han envaït la nostra vida quotidiana. Aquestes superfícies intel.ligents que emeten llum poden crear ambients o assistents de navegació de l'espai interior, a la vegada que ofereixen als dissenyadors opcions d'il.luminació sostenibles i flexibles. Quin efecte té la interacció amb aquestes superfícies il.luminades en l'experiència personal que es té dels ambients interiors?.

Quan semblava que la crisi ens empenyia a formats digitals en comptes del paper amb olor de tinta, quan els e-books i els arxius PDF començaven a substituir a més velocitat de la prevista els llibres i catàlegs de paper, quan semblava que arriabava la fi de les arts gràfiques... algunes empreses del sector no han volgut llençar la tovallola i ens sorprenen amb noves propostes sensorials en impresos que, a més de ser atractius a la vista, aporten experiències olfactives i tàctils i fins i tot reaccionen a la temperatura corporal. Innovació i interacció en estat pur.

Quan semblava que la crisi ens empenyia a formats digitals en comptes del paper amb olor de tinta, quan els e-books i els arxius PDF començaven a substituir a més velocitat de la prevista els llibres i catàlegs de paper, quan semblava que arriabava la fi de les arts gràfiques... algunes empreses del sector no han volgut llençar la tovallola i ens sorprenen amb noves propostes sensorials en impresos que, a més de ser atractius a la vista, aporten experiències olfactives i tàctils i fins i tot reaccionen a la temperatura corporal. Innovació i interacció en estat pur.

This paper presents an ethnographic case study of DIY design practices at a skatepark in London, UK. The skatepark is presented as an urban commons, offering a framework for DIY infrastructuring that contrasts top-down and inequitable urbanisation processes. Three key themes emerge from the fieldwork that demonstrate the capacities and limitations of DIY design. Firstly, DIY practices are viewed as “learning-by-doing”, wherein skateboarders not only learn how to construct a skatepark but also an array of vocational and soft skills. Here, DIY’s qualities of low barriers to participation, multidisciplinarity, and low risk of failure foreground a rich environment of vernacular knowledge exchange that underpins the research methodology of this paper utilising skatepark construction as object-orientated, research-through-design. Secondly, DIY design is found to support a community of practitioners that transcend the space as just a skatepark, incorporating a community garden, collaborative theatre project and arts-based workshops that transcend male-dominated histories of DIY skateboarding cultures. Here, Participatory Design (PD) notions of ‘infrastructuring’ mirror an emergent and open-ended design process that supports inclusive socio-material worldmaking. Thirdly, DIY design practices influence the ways in which the space is governed, in which there are found to be contradictory notions of “prefigurative politics.” Here, the space is argued to be inclusive and anarchic yet centres agency around notions of “core skateboarding” that reinforce masculine hegemonies. Collectively, this paper argues that DIY design has the potential to serve as a worldmaking agent underpinned by a unique set of values and modes which are well-suited to times of uncertainty, flux and crisis, yet highlights the necessity for critically engaging with the politics and practices of both DIY and skateboarding communities.

The practice of ecological restoration spans a wide range of human interventions in socio-ecological systems. These interventions include activities ranging from plant propagation to river rerouting, and are done with the intention of bringing about desirable futures in response to ecosystem degradation. Through restoration, post-industrial sites have been transformed into thriving oases, and forests decimated by severe fire have been revegetated. This ever-expanding global body of work offers concrete, longstanding examples of people working together to design for transitions and create restored human habitats. In this paper, I frame this widespread movement of multiple epistemic cultures and their restorative projects as examples of designing for transitions. This paper concentrates on one specific subculture within restoration: the international Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement, which is a network of more than fifty restoration communities across thirty different countries working at the grassroots level to restore degraded land. I analyse the case of the Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement using the lens of “theories of change” from the Transition Design framework, bringing the two fields into conversation. Transition Design scholarship argues for greater consideration of the theories of change that drive designing. As such, those who design for transitions need concrete examples of how a theory of change may be translated into a design strategy and designed artifacts as part of a change-making process. To this end, I present four themes of change theories present in the Ecosystem Restoration Communities network. I discuss how they are translated into restoration approaches and subsequently into designed artifacts through individual Ecosystem Restoration Communities. I present this case to strengthen the connection between designing for transitions and restoration, as well as to illustrate how theories of change can guide the work of designing transformative change.

The word “literacy” has come to be used to describe a wide range of competencies, including design literacy – a term that, despite its presence in design discourse, is still characterised by a certain fuzziness. In this paper, we explore this highly discursive theoretical field in order to gain a more nuanced and expanded understanding of the topic. In doing so, we argue that these divergent positions are also due to the ambiguity of the term “design”. We understand design as the perpetual de- and reconstruction of the world, as a way of worldmaking, both physically and conceptually. Thus, design literacy can be understood as a way to perceive traces of design and its processes, to perceive the world as contingent: a circular cognitive process of recognising that something – if not everything – in our cultural pluriverse is designed, understanding how it was designed and that it can potentially become the subject of design again and again. In our paper, we emphasise the contingency of design – and the ethical level that can arise from understanding the possibility of a different design. Ultimately, our aim with this paper is to emphasise that design literacy is a crucial competence for encouraging pluralistic perspectives and initiating transition processes, as it helps to acknowledge the temporary necessity but long-term non-necessity of things (which particularly includes the transitory nature of one’s own creations).

This paper shares observations of the limitations of the existing design practice within architecture for the inclusive design of space and architecture. This paper specifically focuses on what could be missing during the study of perception within architecture, among observations of architects’ simplification of phenomenology and tools that visualise phenomena. This paper reflects on an ongoing case study of Matt, a YouTuber diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, and the potential bias within today’s architectural design process. Openly acknowledging this bias will begin limiting its potential, encouraging the observation of others as unique – inclusively studying perception in architecture – and proposing the assessment of theories, methods and tools in architectural phenomenology – continuously testing their inclusivity to eliminate notions of an ideal.

This paper is a contribution to the discussion on the ethical and political limitations of institutionalised, dominant design practices and on the need to rethink the ways in which they operate. It points out that institutionalised design processes act as a dispositive of power that not only capture and colonise forms of life, but that also shape territories, bodies and languages through normative models that are exogenous to them. This discussion is crucial when thinking about the role that design has played in nurturing current crises. This paper is an inquiry into the possibility of design practice that is not institutionalised either by sovereign designing designers or by subordinated designed users, but that constitutes itself according to dynamics where design emerges as a common project-process of creative possibilities of being and becoming. Crucial aspects for a non-institutionalised design practice are identified through the analysis of a design experience with communities in Rio de Janeiro favelas. This paper shows how this design experience is based on a design approach that, through discursive structures, dynamically supports and is informed by dissent and consensus, and by the interplay between resistance and counter-resistance.

This paper explores the capacities of design to interrogate the socio-spatial context in order to foreground conflict, dissent and dispute as creative practices to fuel urban transformation. In today’s urban habitat, spaces and actions do not mesh seamlessly. The city is characterised by a disjunction between the physicality of the urban fabric as a materialisation of ideologies and the relationality of contested supremacies and entropic dynamics that inhabit it. Consequently, the practices of contemporary transformative city-making need to be reinvented through temporality and impermanence, accounting for disorder and embracing instability. In that sense, antagonism is a key element to harness in critical design practices aimed at promoting urban diversity. In this paper we study how incorporating antagonism in design practices can trigger processes of urban reformulation by constituting liminal spaces of opportunity where democratisation emerges as a spatiotemporal practice. Two related case studies carried out in 2020 in the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona (Subjective Cartographies: A Mirror of Diversity and Infrastructures for Public Space Interaction), are presented to explore how design can support dissidence and plurality, whether through identification and visualisation or by catalysing them as situated practices of active citizenship. In both case studies, design fosters de-hierarchisation and trans-linearity in the city, reclaiming the right to direct action in collective urban spaces. In this sense, this paper explores how design contributes to activating multiple processes of emancipated citizenship, harnessing conflict and constructive dissent as situated spatiotemporal practices to promote diversity. Facilitating the proliferation of counter-hegemonic notions of cosmopolitics, territory, domesticity and publicness, the design practices revisited in this paper operate between politics, space and affect in order to promote intersubjective relations in public spaces, using the material, temporal and affective dimensions of design to co-create diverse and resilient urban habitats.

This article explores design’s relation with the future by analysing a collection of exemplars from design fiction and speculative design for their potential to democratise and anticipate visions of future everyday life in design. Future visions – both implicit and explicit ones – have a realising power of their own. This is especially true for design, the products of which co-shape the lives of millions of users. Rather than calling for a “better” future vision however, this paper draws on research from the social sciences and futures studies to argue for the importance of diversifying and enriching visions of future everyday life within design. Critical design is well equipped to contribute to this objective because it questions the status quo and is relatable and actionable for designers. The paper reviews exemplars from critical design for their potential to democratise and anticipate future everyday life. To analyse their ways of engaging with future everyday life, the exemplars are positioned in the future cone model of probable, possible and preferred futures. Through this positioning, a distinction emerged between two forms of critical future engagement: alternative fictions and extrapolative fictions. Alternative fictions are explicitly positioned outside of generally expected futures, while extrapolative fictions are explicitly positioned within them. Both have their own strengths and limitations for democratising and anticipating future everyday life. Alternative fictions enrol actors as “future people” and create scenes to depict future contexts, but can also include deployments in present day contexts to explore alternative human-artefact relations. Alternative fictions tend to be accompanied by alternative design practices. Extrapolative fictions do not include deployments and rarely propose alternative design practices, but they can play an important role in highlighting the underexposed risks of mainstream design pursuits. Critical design can and should play a role in democratising and anticipating future everyday life. Alternative and extrapolative fictions can complement each other in this pursuit. Extrapolative fictions question the status quo from within and use the power of design to highlight underexposed aspects of expected futures. Alternative fictions question the status quo from without and use the power of design to creatively generate different objects that can be used to flesh out alternative ways of living and their related context. Further research is needed into how critical fictions are best integrated into mainstream design practices.

Odradek, a strange creature in Franz Kafka’s tale “The Cares of a Family Man,” outlives the narrator, thus becoming a device to think about a world devoid of any narrative necessity. In the story, Odradek sends semiotic ripples into the vectors of a future, where its reverberations spread into an ontologically withdrawn world, inaccessible to human thought. Odradek is a symbol, a strange totem of the agitation caused by the thought of human extinction as it embodies the fear of being outlived by a non-human entity. The semiotic relationship of Odradek with the narrator is synonymous to our relationship with the Anthropocene — the geological epoch in which human-induced activities have drastically altered the Earth (Crutzen et al. 2011). At the very core of the Anthropocene is a glimpse of a future in which the human subject, similar to the narrator, cedes its sovereign executive functions in the face of an abstract reality. This paper outlines my practice-based journey, seeking the materialization of an incalculably weird universe of Odradek into a speculative design object. It presents a fashion wearable, a face mask, captured through computational design and materialized through digital fabrication. Through this process of inquiry, the paper asks: how can we think and narrate a non-anthropocentric narrative or fictive thought? How can we mold, compute, and design fashion through the contingencies of the Anthropocene? The presented work explores the generative capacity of Odradek as a means of searching and computing an aesthetic proper to a non-anthropocentric perspective on the human body. I have used Object-Oriented Ontology as a means to access Odradek, especially the notion of a hyperobject - a thing of scale and temporality beyond human comprehension, as posited by Timothy Morton (2013a). The practice opens up creative research methodologies into a disruptive nomenclature by oscillating between the binaries of material and immaterial, exteriority and interiority, organic and inorganic. In the process finding, a practice is found that forms an asymptote with the troubled shores of the Anthropocene — in which contingent aspects of the real reclaim and fundamentally shake the course and hierarchy of relationships between human and non-human. In this regard, it twists fashion design practice with a narrative capacity that provides conditions for an ecological model of thinking.

This paper discusses present and future roles of materials in sustainable design with a focus on design education. With a multifaceted understanding of materials, from an educational perspective, the challenge is to ensure that students are able to navigate within the materials in the design field and to reflect on its potentials and limitations in the process. Moreover, when further targeting materials within a design for sustainability agenda that is complex in itself, it has been observed that students find it overwhelming. Accordingly, the paper unfolds ways of understanding the role of materials in sustainable design education as a way to demonstrate the positions they can take as future designers. Based on a study conducted during a materials course in a sustainable design engineering program, research was done on how students perceive the role of materials in sustainable design. This was done by extracting statements from students’ final assessments that were framed as essays on the topic. The statements, clustered into categories, illustrated the diversity of approaches students take. For teaching, this underscores the necessity to not only apply a broad perspective in the field of materials in sustainable design, but also to emphasize the large degree of entanglement and interdependency between perspectives. To further discuss this in an educational context and to facilitate developing teaching within this topic, a space unfolding two frameworks, one that considers key competences in working with sustainability and another that discusses the increasing number of approaches embracing design for sustainability, was introduced as a means to describe the complexity in the field. The space was first used to position categories of students’ approaches from the empirical study, then expanded to propose four future roles of materials: as environmental impactors, as re-establishing connections, as moderators for social innovation and as media for critical and speculative design.

Materials can be considered the interface of a product as they mediate between user, environment and object (Karana, Pedgley and Rognoli 2014). They characterize the physical world and generate a continuous flow of sensory interactions. In this age of mass production, engineers and designers are in a unique position to use the opportunities presented by materials development and apply them in creative ways to trigger meaningful user experiences. Dynamism is considered a very promising material experience in terms of creating meaningful interactions, and, consequently, user attachment to a product (Rognoli, Ferrara and Arquilla 2016). Dynamic products are those that show sensory features that change over time in a proactive and reversible way, activating one or more user’s sensory modalities and aiming at enhancing the user’s experience (Colombo 2016). Smart materials could be considered the most suitable candidates to provide dynamic experiences. They react to external stimuli, such as pressure, temperature or the electric field, changing properties such as shape or colour. They are capable of both sensing and responding to the environment, as well as exerting active control of their responses (Addington and Schodek 2004). Compared to understanding traditional materials, smart materials involve additional technical complexity. The aim of this paper is to share how the Material Driven Design (MDD) method (Karana et al. 2015) has been applied and to analyse a set of 10 projects, grouped into 5 case studies, developed by students from ELISAVA over the last 3 years to improve ways to implement the method. We have analysed the case studies in terms of the changes observed in the sensory features, using a sensory map proposed by Sara Colombo (Colombo 2016). By comparing different projects, the paper shows how the sensorial aspects are invoked by different smart material properties. The 5 case studies have integrated the smart materials into functional prototypes for different application sectors, such as healthcare, energy harvesting or fashion. We have found that only three sensory modalities (sound, sight and touch) were involved in the user experience, with sight being the most predominant sensory perception. This study aims to serve as a springboard for other scholars interested in designing dynamic products with smart materials.

The paper illustrates a case study developed within the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai), focusing on the future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The interest in the topic of aerial transportation followed a recent partnership between Hyundai and Uber Inc., aiming to commercialise an electric flying taxi service in 2028 in the city of San Francisco. In response to the increasing need for sustainable options, this research project explores the risks, alternative trajectories, and socioeconomic and environmental implications for the future of UAM. The work is generated at the conjunction of the Anthropocene, Aerocene and Biocene, which, besides representing both the conceptual and operational context, provide the inspiration for a multilayered conceptual framework. The Anthropocene, characterising the human species, flows into critical practices; the Aerocene, as a future scenario, engages with speculations; and the Biocene, as a new environmental order, fosters a post-human-centred approach.

The System in the Room is an art installation inspired by mathematician Mihai Botez and architect Mariana Celac’s book The Systems of Spatial Planning, published in 1980 in Romania. Developed and presented in the context of the Utopian Cities, Programmed Societies (2019-2020) project, the art installation reinterprets Botez and Celac’s ideas on housing in a contemporary context using playful and participatory methods. It aims to allow the players to experience and reflect on the housing concepts advanced in the book. The practice of urban planning has changed dramatically since the book was published. Still, it fascinates by its attempt to define urban systematisation as a science that deals with the organisation and complex remodelling of territorial structures and cities to ensure the optimal framework necessary for the development of human activities and the mutual relationship between the environment and its inhabitants. It is one of the first of its sort to address systemic thinking and, in the context of a socialist country, the book points to the role of science (mathematics in particular) in the planning and management of urbanism and economy. By performing and representing housing concepts, we sought to bring back a historical perspective, its resurgence into today’s urban studies debates and the role of citizens and urbanists in today’s political decisions regarding the city. By using games and participatory methods we aimed to critically discuss a specialist book in urban studies and to encourage more engaging perspectives in today’s urban planning decision-making contexts. At the intersection of urban studies, cultural studies, STS, game design and artistic research, this paper takes an urban planning book and its contemporary context as a starting point and discusses an original art installation as a form of critical reading and participatory engagement in the urban planning decision-making process.

Racial justice activists tend to turn to science fiction to imagine better, freer worlds. Speculative futures in design are rarely fantasy-based. Design speculation relies more on unfamiliarity and exaggeration than fantasy to challenge assumptions and norms. This paper proposes that design, futuring, and utopian thinking can offer a new path to justice movements, and a new purpose for speculative design, to envision optimistic long-term possibilities based on realism. Designers, with their unique ability to ‘change existing situations into preferred ones,’ can build realistic and plausible visions of equitable, liberatory worlds. Such visions that amplify the missions of justice efforts can help enlist new supporters and motivate advocates through complex, disruptive change. This article describes eight workshops structured to explore the value of imagining radically hopeful visions co-created through critically conscious collaborative futures. In each workshop, designers acted as facilitators to help foster solution-finding with participants from various racial justice projects in both community and academic organisations. Workshops introduced participants to the joy and strength of thinking about long-term futures. Still, their visions often did not last beyond the workshop. Only in later workshops, when design prompts provided new formats for evoking participants’ futures, did their visions become tangible and long-lasting. The results show that designers’ creative skills can complement and give shape to the deep knowledge of justice advocates.

People's priorities have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with impacts on architectural experiences and work spaces in particular as teleworking and technology have become increasingly relevant in this new reality. Moreover, there is increased interest in the impact that spaces have on health, productivity and well-being as variables such as lighting, acoustics, biophilia, shape, composition, size and more influence perception and emotional, cognitive and behavioural states. Evidence-based design makes it possible to scientifically understand information about the situations present before and after an action, providing a more holistic view of the phenomenon through parameterisation and producing an impact on decision-making as seen in the case of this study. This article presents a case study developed through a mixed methodology that combines theoretical research methods to gain scientific knowledge on the topic and trends in the sector, as well as empirical methods to study the specific context of the corporate headquarters at Tous in Manresa. As to the theoretical side of the paper, we have conducted a literature review in the WOS (Web of Science) database, complemented by two trend reports on the future of workspaces. Regarding the empirical study, we programmed three different sources to compile data from workers at different times, spaces and platforms. In parallel, we measured the parameters of the built environment in different locations over two work days. Among the results, the following stand out: the universe of relationships, evidenced by cross-disciplinary departments such as HR (human resources) and IT (computer technology), as well as the relationship between the Product, Sales, R&D and After-Sales departments; the status of employees, with neutral or positive values in cognitive states, and of the environment, space lacking colour and with little brightness and neutral in terms of light colour, atmosphere and ventilation; the detection of the positive aspects to improve and to incorporate; and the measurement of the physical parameters of the environment, high noise level, CO2 within the comfort range, high temperatures and over illuminated or poorly lit spaces, and their perception. Finally, we propose scientific evidence and trends arising from the relationship between objective and subjective data as a result of design strategies focused on people's well-being. These results are taken as the basis for making the changes implemented within a space.

El paper del disseny als pa ïsos postsocialistes encara en transició al capitalisme ha canviat radicalment en les dues últimes dècades. El declivi industrial ha donat pas a una crisi de la legitimitat social dels dissenyadors industrials, que havia estat el sector capdavanter fins llavors. No obstant això, encara que han sorgit esporàdicament noves formes d'identitat dels dissenyadors, aquesta crisi de legitimitat reclama un canvi radical, des de la imatge tradicional d'aquests professionals cap a la d'aquells dissenyadors que reconeixen el nou paper cada cop més expandit del disseny.

El paper del disseny als pa ïsos postsocialistes encara en transició al capitalisme ha canviat radicalment en les dues últimes dècades. El declivi industrial ha donat pas a una crisi de la legitimitat social dels dissenyadors industrials, que havia estat el sector capdavanter fins llavors. No obstant això, encara que han sorgit esporàdicament noves formes d'identitat dels dissenyadors, aquesta crisi de legitimitat reclama un canvi radical, des de la imatge tradicional d'aquests professionals cap a la d'aquells dissenyadors que reconeixen el nou paper cada cop més expandit del disseny.

We live in a dysfunctional world led by white-male dominated, patriarchal and capitalist societies that perpetuate continuous oppression. The public space is culturally perceived as a man’s world while women have been traditionally confined to the private one. Because claiming a safe public space for all is a political act, I want to actively cultivate a creative experience that facilitates dialogue, ideation and agency for self-identified women to reclaim their right to exist safely in it. My paper will focus on this creative experience, as a collective resistance, that started in Gainesville, FL at the Civic Media Center and has now become an ongoing, online and worldwide endeavour.

Making prototypes of fictitious artifacts has long been applied in corporations as a design-led way to envisioning the future. These techniques make use of design to explore speculative futures translating abstract questions into concrete objects and bringing the human dimension and experience into futures techniques. The design-led strategic foresight techniques follow making activities – including visual synthesis, prototyping and storytelling – and result in experimental and experiential artifacts offering concrete, hands-on and specific images of the futures. An example of these techniques is the making and sharing of concept cars, a long-standing practice in the automotive industry. These artifacts facilitate the sharing of future visions, which embody future ideas, to diverse people. Whereas corporations use these design-led strategic foresight techniques as a driver for innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of society and the global economy, have been deprived of these kinds of explorations due to their being resource intensive. To help these enterprises, we developed DIVE (design, innovation, vision and exploration) based on design-led strategic foresight techniques developed by corporations but adapted to the scale and needs of these small players. DIVE helps external designers and company representatives in making and sharing artifacts to envision the future of their company. The technique follows an analogy that invites participants to make a hole in the world as it is and descend underwater to the speculative futures and then come back to the reality. Along with this plunge into fiction, participants identify trends, create ideas about the future, and make a prototype of an artifact that is subsequently used to motivate people to talk about the company’s future and present. This artifact, the vision concept, includes ideas about the future product or service, the context and the business itself. This paper aims to evaluate DIVE as a design-led strategic foresight technique and focuses on the benefits and limitations of its application. It includes two cases that explored the future of the shopping experience for the company Solutions Group. It is a Colombian medium-sized enterprise that develops and produces point-of-purchase materials for consumer goods corporations such as Procter & Gamble. In both cases, the participants employed DIVE activities to make and share a vision concept. At the end of the cases, the DIVE outcomes were validated by three external innovation experts. DIVE proved its efficacy in supporting designers in setting future visions, prototyping vision concepts and stories and making recommendations for different time frames, and participants also learned about the strategic value of design.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a new conceptual foundation for design fiction. Much attention is dedicated to theorising how design fictions relate to our so-called actual world. This work can be seen as an attempt at securing the seriousness and legitimacy of design fiction as an approach to design research. The theory of possible worlds has proven promising in this regard. We argue, however, that a detailed understanding of design fiction is still lacking. In design fiction literature, authors often engage in critiquing techno-centric approaches while paying less attention to how design fiction has a potential to foster social change in situated actual affairs. We argue that analysis should start from the messy unfolding of the design event itself rather than from big ontological discussions of the boundaries between fiction and reality. To grasp the messiness of design fiction, we offer an interdisciplinary framework, bridging knowledge domains such as literally theory and design anthropology.

Developments of advanced textile manufacturing techniques—such as 3D body-forming knitwear machinery—allows the production of almost finalized garments, which require little to no further production steps to finalize the garment. Moreover, advanced knitting technology in combination with new materials enables the integration of localized functionalities within a garment on a “stitch by stitch level.” There is potential in enhancing the design tools for advanced knitting manufacturing through the use of technologies such as data gathering, machine learning, and simulation. This approach reflects the potential of Industry 4.0, as design, product development, and manufacturing are moving closer together. However, there is still limited knowledge at present about how these new technologies and tools can have an impact on the creative design process. The case study presented in this paper explores the potential of predictive software design tools for fashion designers who are developing personalized advanced functionalities in textile products. The main research question explored in this article is: “How can designers benefit from intelligent design software for the manufacturing of advanced personalized functionalities in textile products?”. Within this larger research question three sub-research questions are explored: (1) What kind of advanced functionalities can be considered for the personalization process of knitwear? (2) How to design interactions and interfaces that use intelligent predictive algorithms to stimulate creativity during the fashion design process? (3) How will predictive software impact the manufacturing process for other stakeholders and production steps? These questions are investigated through the analysis of a Research Through Design case study, in which several predictive algorithms were compared and implemented in a user interface that would aid knitwear designers during the development process of high-performance running tights.

Tot el que veiem i toquem són materials. Els productes que ens rodegen estan fets de materials amb unes propietats específiques. Aquests tenen colors, textures, olors, gustos i inclús poden emetre sons. Si els observem de més a prop veurem que estan formats d’àtoms que es composen d’electrons, protons i neutrons, els quals són una combinació de leptons, quarks i antiquarks. Si aprofundim en aquestes escales de la matèria veurem que tot el que estem veient és energia expressada en forma de llum, calor, magnetisme o altres manifestacions. És, doncs, la suma i combinació d’aquestes energies el que conforma el que socialment anomenem “materials”. L’evolució de l’ésser humà ha depès totalment dels materials, de les seves propietats i de l’energia que aquests contenen. Mitjançant processos de transformació bàsics, els nostres avantpassats van aprofitar les propietats de materials bàsics com ara la fusta i el sílex per produir les primeres eines de caça. Durant el segle xx, gràcies en part als combustibles fòssils i als processos industrials moderns, es van sintetitzar o es van desenvolupar nous materials com ara els polímers, les ceràmiques tècniques, els materials compostos, els materials adaptatius o els aliatges tècnics. Aquests van permetre el disseny de noves solucions (productes i serveis) que van canviar la nostra manera de viure, de fer, de sentir i de comunicar-nos. Els materials han estat, són i seran fonts d’innovació que dissenyadors i enginyers fem servir per donar resposta als reptes passats, presents i futurs de les nostres societats. Durant els últims anys, els dissenyadors i enginyers hem entès els materials des de noves perspectives. Hem après que els materials també poden tenir propietats emocionals, socials o ambientals i que poden obrir nous camins creatius i d’innovació. Alhora, l’aparició dels darrers materials avançats, com ara el grafè, o l’exploració del desenvolupament de materials biològics in vitro, obren un ampli ventall d’aplicacions que, de nou, ens permetran innovar per afrontar reptes de futur d’una forma més responsable i coherent amb les nostres societats i amb el planeta que habitem. En l’actualitat, la recerca sobre els materials i el disseny dialoga contínuament amb altres disciplines. Aquests diàlegs estan donant lloc a l’estudi de les relaciones entre materials i coneixement, materials i societat, materials i llenguatge, materials, sostenibilitat i economia circular, materials i tecnologia o materials i procés de disseny, entre altres. Aquests plantejaments obren espais de debat que donen lloc a noves preguntes de recerca amb relació als materials i el disseny, com ara: Com podem aprendre per mitjà dels materials? Com poden generar els materials nous coneixements? Com han influït els materials en les nostres societats i en les nostres cultures? Com afecten els materials al significat? Com influeixen els materials en els nostres models de negoci sostenible, com ara l’economia circular? Quines són les noves i futures tecnologies relacionades amb els materials que ajudaran en els processos de disseny guiat per la innovació? Quins nous mètodes i noves teories barregen els materials amb el procés de disseny? El número 34 de Temes de Disseny, titulat “Interaccions materials en un entorn creat per humans”, proposa obrir nous debats i generar coneixements que ens permetin entendre les diverses maneres que tenim de dissenyar des dels materials per donar resposta a les preguntes de recerca mencionades. Probablement, dins aquesta edició no trobarem respostes concretes a totes les qüestions plantejades, però sí eines o solucions que poden servir de font d’inspiració i exemples de petits canvis que, sumats entre si, podran donar lloc a un canvi de paradigma impulsat des del disseny i l’enginyeria. En aquest nou format de revista acadèmica, les lectores i els lectors de Temes de Disseny trobaran principalment dos nivells de contingut. En primer lloc, l’estructura general de l’edició està composta d’un conjunt de set articles acadèmics que treballen la relació entre disseny i materials. Gràcies als articles de Mette Bak-Andersen i Karen Marie, coneixem noves propostes d’ús dels materials per dur a terme un disseny sostenible per a una economia circular. Amb la seva aportació, Kirsi Niinimäki ens presenta el procés de creació d’una nova seda desenvolupada mitjançant la combinació de les disciplines dels materials, el disseny, la biologia sintètica i l’art. Per altra banda, Marta González i Silvia Pizzocaro descriuen com han posat en pràctica amb estudiants la metodologia del disseny guiat pel material (MDD, Material Driven Design) com a eina d’inspiració que permet treure el màxim profit de les propietats de la matèria durant el procés de disseny. Per acabar, Marina Castan i Maite Bravo exposen sobre el paper la influència dels materials i els processos en els futurs dissenys arquitectònics. Les seves contribucions mostren que la combinació del món digital amb el físic, o bé l’ús de noves tecnologies de producció associades als drons, poden donar lloc a nous paradigmes en la formalització i construcció d’estructures. En segon lloc, les lectores i els lectors podran gaudir de dues càpsules il·lustrades en què predominen les imatges per sobre del text, l’objectiu de les quals és servir de font d’inspiració a dissenyadores i dissenyadors. Aquestes ens apropen al projecte de Jeanne Vicerial, que mostra peces de roba inspirades en la musculatura humana que han estat produïdes artesanalment mitjançant un procés que evita la generació de residus, i a l’experimentació de Claire Romain, que genera una descontextualització dels materials com a eina de provocació que ens força a qüestionar la relació que tenim amb els objectes quotidians que ens rodegen. D’aquí en endavant, donem pas a les autores i a l’autor del contingut d’aquesta nova edició, als quals agraïm profundament les seves aportacions. Esperem que les lectores i els lectors puguin gaudir d’aquest nou format acadèmic de Temes de Disseny que pretén difondre la recerca en disseny amb rigor científic, sense perdre mai la pròpia essència estètica de la disciplina.

This article presents the argument that a conventional, form-focused design process causes a lack of knowledge regarding materials and, as a result, creates a knowledge barrier between the designer and the product – a barrier that acts not only against the implementation of so-called advanced materials and new technologies, but also ends up as a major obstacle to the creation of sustainable industrially produced products. A new type of design process is emerging, in which the material is present from the outset and can be seen as the driver of the process. This material driven design process breaks down the aforementioned knowledge barrier and has shown potential for being a design process that enables design for sustainability. However, simply starting with the material does not ensure a sustainable outcome by default. Thus, the overall aim of the research behind this paper is to define the specifics of material driven design for sustainability with the objective of testing to which degree it is possible to design a process that guarantees results compatible with a circular economy. The research is based on constructive design research with a predominant Lab approach and elements from a field in which a new reality is imagined and built to test whether it works. This was done by running a series of five design trials in which the material driven design process was continuously tested, evaluated and adjusted through reflection-in-action. In total, the process was tested one hundred eighteen times by students with the involvement of expert designers and specialists from four different companies and institutions. This article presents the quandary in the relationship between form and matter in established contemporary design processes and specifies the cross-disciplinary field in which material driven design for sustainability is placed. The methodology and the definition of a ‘design trial’ as a method is described, followed by the progress of the process through the five trials. Finally, the material driven design process for sustainability is outlined step by step, including relevant approaches for the experimentation. This article presents a design process that delivers products which are compatible with a circular economy at the end of their life. The process does not necessarily have to be used as a ‘standalone’ design process but can be combined with others and has reached a point where it is sufficiently developed to be tested in an industrial setting.

En el primer número de Temes de Disseny, l’any 1986, amb una visió de futur pionera, Jordi Pericot mencionava les següents paraules: “Temes de Disseny respon a la necessitat d'agrupar iniciatives en matèria d'investigació que ens permetin formular noves propostes pel que fa a les expectatives de futur. En uns moments en què la discussió sobre el disseny no només no sembla esgotada, sinó que, al contrari, sembla que gaudeixi cada vegada més d'una millor acceptació tant en el camp de la investigació com en el camp de la pràctica, aquesta nova publicació es proposa exposar les qüestions capdavanteres que suscita la pràctica actual del disseny des d'una perspectiva pragmàtica”. Temes de Disseny va néixer com a canal de comunicació i reflexió entre estudiants, professionals i investigadors al voltant de la cultura del disseny. Després de 33 edicions, podem afirmar que es tracta d’una revista consolidada i de renom entre els amants del disseny. Avui, amb el número 34 de Temes de Disseny, iniciem una nova etapa que pretén tant abordar reptes socials, ambientals i econòmics actuals del disseny i l’enginyeria, com garantir el rigor científic de les nostres publicacions. Entre els objectius i l’abast de la revista destaquen incloure la recerca mitjançant disseny pel seu gran potencial com a agent integrador entre disciplines i reforçar el disseny com a disciplina d’investigació que demana assolir el mateix valor que qualsevol altra disciplina per esdevenir un àmbit i una àrea de coneixement. Per tal de satisfer els criteris de qualsevol revista científica, s’ha dotat Temes de Disseny d’una estructura organitzativa que inclou editors en cap, un gestor de la revista (Managing Editor), un editor convidat per a cada número anual i un consell editorial (Editorial Board) format per una selecció d’experts locals i internacionals de diferents disciplines. El paper d’aquest consell editorial internacional és principalment detectar temàtiques i causar impacte des d’una perspectiva global. En l’esperit d’altres revistes que s’apropen més a les necessitats de la recerca en disseny, les variants tipològiques de les publicacions de Temes de Disseny contemplen articles originals, estat de la qüestió, casos d’estudi i càpsules il·lustrades. Prèviament a la seva publicació, cada una passa per un procés de revisió (blind peer review) de dos investigadors internacionals reconeguts en l’àmbit de recerca concret de cada article. També volem fer una menció especial a la reconfiguració gràfica de la revista, que combina els trets característics que normalment associem a una revista científica amb els d’una publicació de disseny de caire més visual. Aquesta nova senya d’identitat posiciona i distingeix Temes de Disseny com una proposta innovadora per a la recerca científica en l’àmbit del disseny. En aquesta nova etapa, sota el guiatge del grup de recerca emergent ELISAVA Research, Temes de Disseny es transforma en una revista científica d’accés obert que no només pretén seguir sent un referent en l’àmbit del disseny i fer de pont entre el marc estratègic local i l’internacional, sinó que també vol ser un referent dins les comunitats científiques d’altres disciplines. Esperem que ens acompanyeu i que gaudiu d’aquest número “Interaccions materials en un entorn creat per humans”.

L'article planteja un paral.lelisme entre el que va passar després de la Revolució Industrial i el canvi vers una era postindustrial que vivim en l'actualitat. Se suposa que el canvi cap a una reconversió del consumidor en usuari i del producte en servei deixa fora de lloc el dissenyador industrial, de la mateixa manera que havia deixat superada la figura de l'artesà. Al llarg dels text es planteja un seguit d'estratègies per donar valor a l'entorn material i un nou sentit al paper del dissenyador.

L'article planteja un paral.lelisme entre el que va passar després de la Revolució Industrial i el canvi vers una era postindustrial que vivim en l'actualitat. Se suposa que el canvi cap a una reconversió del consumidor en usuari i del producte en servei deixa fora de lloc el dissenyador industrial, de la mateixa manera que havia deixat superada la figura de l'artesà. Al llarg dels text es planteja un seguit d'estratègies per donar valor a l'entorn material i un nou sentit al paper del dissenyador.

L'article, basat en una conferència impartida dins el cicle educar els dissenyadors per una ciutadania global , celebrat a la UWC de Cardiff el novembre de 2005, qüestiona el paper del disseny i reconeix el seu potencial com a eina per al canvi social, més enllà d'una professió destinada a satisfer les necessitats de la producció industrial, més enllà de consideracions locals-globals i des del context d'un país com l'Índia. Argumenta que les escoles han de facilitar la hibridació de difenets processos creatius i facilitar el desenvolupament d'una consciència social comunitària.

L'article, basat en una conferència impartida dins el cicle educar els dissenyadors per una ciutadania global , celebrat a la UWC de Cardiff el novembre de 2005, qüestiona el paper del disseny i reconeix el seu potencial com a eina per al canvi social, més enllà d'una professió destinada a satisfer les necessitats de la producció industrial, més enllà de consideracions locals-globals i des del context d'un país com l'Índia. Argumenta que les escoles han de facilitar la hibridació de difenets processos creatius i facilitar el desenvolupament d'una consciència social comunitària.

Into(context) és un projecte de recerca de disseny desenvolupat pel grup Design for Sustainability de la Universitat Tecnològica de Delft, Kiva.Org i amb el finançament de la Digital Inclusion Initiative de Microsoft Research. L'objectiu d'aquesta iniciativa és finançar recerques que explorin el paper que la tecnologia de la informació i la comunicació pot tenir per crear solucions que superin les moltes barreres que ha d'afrontar el món en desenvolupament.

Into(context) és un projecte de recerca de disseny desenvolupat pel grup Design for Sustainability de la Universitat Tecnològica de Delft, Kiva.Org i amb el finançament de la Digital Inclusion Initiative de Microsoft Research. L'objectiu d'aquesta iniciativa és finançar recerques que explorin el paper que la tecnologia de la informació i la comunicació pot tenir per crear solucions que superin les moltes barreres que ha d'afrontar el món en desenvolupament.

Aquest treball sintetitza els resultats de l'estudi realitzat per TNO Strategie i Technologie en Beleid (2004) per encàrrec de la fundació holandesa de disseny Premsela i el Ministeri d'Educació, Cultura i Ciència holandès. El treball té la finalitat d'avaluar el paper del disseny en l'economia dels Països Baixos.

Aquest treball sintetitza els resultats de l'estudi realitzat per TNO Strategie i Technologie en Beleid (2004) per encàrrec de la fundació holandesa de disseny Premsela i el Ministeri d'Educació, Cultura i Ciència holandès. El treball té la finalitat d'avaluar el paper del disseny en l'economia dels Països Baixos.

En la comunicació creativa, el camí comú forma part del design d'anar cap endavant que sempre ha tingut la humanitat, un design interioritzat i vital. És el camí que traça la intel.ligencia, en el qual la creativitat és un viatge i el seu destí és trobar la veritat i la bellesa. Perquè, precisament, allò que la creativitat pretén és harmonitzar la recerca amb la trobada. Un recorregut per una nova intel.ligència creadora, que se'ns apareix ja amb un paper protagonista com a dinamitzadora de la societat futura, que ja no és la societat del saber, sinó la societat del saber saber: de la metacognició. I un bagatge atractivament confús en què es barregen la psicologia, l'epistemologia, l'hermenèutica, l'observació sociològica i, per descomptat, l'heurística.

En la comunicació creativa, el camí comú forma part del design d'anar cap endavant que sempre ha tingut la humanitat, un design interioritzat i vital. És el camí que traça la intel.ligencia, en el qual la creativitat és un viatge i el seu destí és trobar la veritat i la bellesa. Perquè, precisament, allò que la creativitat pretén és harmonitzar la recerca amb la trobada. Un recorregut per una nova intel.ligència creadora, que se'ns apareix ja amb un paper protagonista com a dinamitzadora de la societat futura, que ja no és la societat del saber, sinó la societat del saber saber: de la metacognició. I un bagatge atractivament confús en què es barregen la psicologia, l'epistemologia, l'hermenèutica, l'observació sociològica i, per descomptat, l'heurística.