Search

Today, the world faces a multitude of complex societal issues, that need urgent attention for enhanced quality of life and resilient futures. With the help of a study on the daily mobilities of urban marginalised women (UMW) supported by state-of-the-art literature, this paper presents insights into the aspects of urban informality that can inform the design and planning of future cities capable of surviving the situations of crises. By adopting a combination of new technologies along with mobile methods and ethnography, this research centres around the everyday travel experiences of the urban marginalized women from the peri-urban areas of New Delhi who contest their right to access stationery and mobile public spaces. Following the elements of qualitative research, this study examines the socio-spatial environment comprising the daily mobilities of UMW to reveal certain conditions of informality that enable their access and participation in socio-economic activities. In doing so, the paper highlights the significance of various infrastructures emerging from the social conditions of doing things together (social interdependence), belonging to a community and the aspects of self-organisation that are crucial for the sustained functioning of cities. Moreover, it presents a perspective for designers to identify and embrace temporary ways of existing and operating towards resilient cities of the future. With the help of the findings from this study, this paper presents urban informality as a design paradigm for various systems and services of future resilient cities that are more equitable and inclusive, and at the same time adapt to the dynamic uncertain situations of crises by being flexible, adaptable and leaving spaces for the emergence of bottom-up citizen-led initiatives., Spatial Planning and Strategy

In this paper, we present a framework that combines design principles and approaches from the co-design and commons fields to support a community to create commons. Commons are both a shared resource and the governance strategies used by a collective of people to manage that shared resource. The commons literature offers robust frameworks for analysing an existing commons but lacks approaches to support communities to create commons. To address this gap, we turn to co-design to develop approaches that support communities in commons creation. We draw on co-design’s use of frames, tools, and infrastructuring to develop a ‘commons creation framework’. Infrastructuring approaches seek to design structures that outlast designer involvement for use and adaptation by communities. The proposed framework is a design support to guide communities in their ongoing exploration of the critical components of a functional commons. The commons creation framework is composed of a commons creation matrix that assists people in selecting tools to address critical factors of a functional commons and a tool improvement matrix that assists people to tailor selected tools for localised use. To test this framework, we applied it to a previous co-design project in which a community co-designed tools to transition public libraries into community-based neighbourhood centres. This application provided insights into how the framework guided the categorisation of tools and framed the improvement of tools explicitly for commons creation. Future research involves sharing the framework with communities to gather insights on its evolution.

The concept of disruptive innovation ecosystems relates to a type of ecosystem capable of delivering disruption in underserved markets. This idea can create serendipity for disruption through new ways of thinking and leveraging resources across businesses. However, scant research exists on what and how to design conditions for disruption utilising resources and capabilities at the boundaries of businesses. Based on network theory and characterisation, we evoke an alternative design mode using visuals and speech to generate rich data with participants in makerspaces. The qualitative and visualisation data is analysed using thematic and visual network analysis techniques, respectively. Our findings suggest three main conditions that may be satisfied to create serendipity for disruptive innovation ecosystems to emerge: Navigating high risks, creating new markets, and generating new roles. Our findings also highlight factors under these three conditions that may be promoted to create disruption. Combining the thinking “through design” approach using visuals and speech with network theory and characterisation, we demonstrate the significance of coupling conversations with drawings, thus moving past abstractions and helping participants to see and better understand the inner workings of their ecosystem attributes. Using theoretical constructs embedded in visualisations can help design researchers and ecosystem practitioners design conditions for disruptive innovation ecosystems. The originality of this work is in linking network theory and characterisation with speech and visual data capture and analysis, thus presenting a strategic asset and alternative way of thinking and acting on boundary spanning resources and capabilities in local ecosystems.

Design materials are defined as a combination of what they are, what they do, and the ways they interact with other materials. In this pictorial, we explore the interactions between machine learning (as a design material) and another design material—the human face—in the form of digital portraiture. Employing an exploratory Research through Design approach we consider how machine learning simultaneously enriches and subverts the materiality of the human face. Through a combination of images and text, we offer some considerations and provocations for further research.

For almost two centuries, design, manufacturing and consumption models have exploited Earth’s valuable resources (elements, minerals, flora and fauna) on a profound scale. As resources become depleted, there is a desperate need to develop new approaches for how materials are utilised and fabricated with to reduce or even reverse waste and pollution. The research aims to create a new design and fabrication process that can develop circular materials, which contributes to a circular economy. The research presented documents initial prototyping explorations that build towards a vision of physical products/structures composed of reprogrammable matter. Meaning, an object’s properties (shape, colour, texture) can be updated by uploading information from design tools into matter to avoid redundancies and heal damage. The research is presented as a pictorial in the format of an annotated portfolio that combines photographs and videos to communicate the research-through design process along with our findings and insights.

Waste infrastructure is largely non-digital and resists mapping and datafication. Waste itself can be seen as material information, revealing of its creators, which is lost along with the material resources that are thrown away. Design and HCI can unlock this information. Most people’s engagement with waste begins and ends at the domestic dustbin, with minimal consideration of what is wasted and where it goes. When aggregated waste practices have significant sustainability impacts. Digital technologies designed to raise awareness of environmental issues compete for our finite cognitive capacity with the demands of everyday life. To address this challenge, this paper uses speculative design of domestic waste devices. These speculative ‘data objects’ build on work in speculative design, sustainable HCI, and waste infrastructure mapping. The aim of this pictorial is to provoke debate on digital technology’s ability to engage us with consumption and waste, resulting in behavior change and reduced environmental degradation.

Dominant approaches to developing more sustainable ways of living are often underpinned by the modern values and knowledge that have been instrumental in creating our unsustainable world. Such approaches tend to emphasise reducing unsustainability via technological fixes rather than addressing sustainability more comprehensively. This paper argues that more traditional forms of knowledge (associated with deeper ecological, spiritual and ethical values) are important for addressing sustainability more holistically. To demonstrate this, we present and discuss the Miswak Toothbrush designed by the lead author. The Miswak Toothbrush has been designed to appeal to modern teeth cleaning customs but its brush head is made from Miswak, a natural twig that has a long tradition of use for teeth cleaning in rural India. This paper contributes insights into what contemporary product design can learn from traditional knowledge by discussing the implications of the Miswak Toothbrush for the development of a more meaningful and more sustainable material culture.

The unprecedented speed and scale of urbanization in China calls for advanced planning and design strategies. This paper aims to explore a new pedagogical approach that cultivates morphological regional design studies to develop spatial strategies that acknowledge the complex and diverse urban landscapes of Chinese megaregions. Accordingly, the objective is to compare different morphological themes that form the basis for speculative gameboarding as a regional design methodology in the setting of academic planning and design studios. The paper evaluates a collection of outcomes from four years of collaboration between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design and the TU Delft’s Department of Urbanism. Here, gameboarding was used as a methodology to draft scenarios for large-scale spatial transformation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Firstly, the paper explains the pedagogical trajectory of the studios along their three main phases — analysis, gameboarding, and evaluation. Secondly, it is investigated in how far the given morphological themes informed the design outcomes of the students. These outcomes are compared with regard to their spatial specificity as well as the radicalness of proposed transformations. Lastly, it is discussed if some of the themes are more suitable than others to respond to the socio-cultural and environmental specificities of the GBA. In six design studios, students worked on eight different morphological themes: pointillist, linear, strip, megablock, radial, ring, cross, and edge. It is found that redundancies exist between some of the themes, which suggests that the consolidation of themes might be worth exploring. Furthermore, the different context of the studios in the two universities seems to affect the role that gameboarding takes in the process. Overall, the teaching methodology has proven to generate a wide range of design strategies that point far beyond conventional spatial planning solution, Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Spatial Planning and Strategy

The reasons for a dedicated edition on “design and commoning” are twofold. First, the recent surge of renewed interest in the social conditions of design remains atheoretical. A deeper theoretical and philosophical foundation will help problematize the link between commoning and design, and in doing so define the operative theories, concepts and frameworks that influence design thinking across a series of design contexts and conditions. And secondly, design has become more ubiquitous, expanding both its domain of influence and conditions of praxis. With this expansion, design touches a variety of contested areas. Designers are continuously challenged by conflicts and edge conditions, having to mitigate between both scales of conflict and the vested interests of individuals. In the global climate of population increase and the prevalent reduction of financial resources the question and theorization of shared capacities will remain part and parcel of future of design thinking. The four thematic clusters contained here exploit the theoretical and philosophical themes related to the large commoning “problematique,” providing designers better grounding in the networked context of the twenty-first century. The explicit theorization of design and the commons will explore the implicit relations through each of the collected contributions to show how this philosophical construct can be explicated in the context of network collectives and transdisciplinary approaches that currently inform design practices., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Theory, Territories & Transitions

The notion of territoriality, territory and terrain are all derivatives of ‘terra’ or ‘earth.’ As discourse, ‘territory’ has remained largely land centred for its terminologies, means of representation or in its application within urbanization. Water, conversely, is often considered as a resource or as a specific morphological characteristic but rarely as a key object of discourse. China’s claim within the South China Sea and the subsequent creation of newly formed ‘island outposts’, has brought to light the political welding that water holds, as both territorial claim and negotiating instrument. Particularly significant in the context of increasing pressures on development in this urban age.This paper examines how the substitution of ‘terra derived’ concepts with that of ‘hydro’ driven concepts, impact the domains of territoriality in planning and urbanism. Focus is placed on speculative projections of design work that highlights one possible method of reconfiguring the territoriality of the South China Sea. Consequentially this work questions the assumptions and spatial ideologies in the ‘nine-dash line’ policy.