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New Old Architectures: Interdisciplinary spatial practice
No full textArchitecture as a profession is intricately linked to power and development structures that reflect and reproduce societal values. The majority of work done in this field reproduces the existing order and inequitable implications for the planet and those living on it. How might we expand the scope of architecture to reorient around different priorities, enact different systems and make space for different forms of living together?
This presentation discusses how an emergent interdisciplinary network of action research – ab__ – is starting to explore how this might be possible. By using key research questions to frame and inform live projects, ab__ is concerned with design not only as a physical and material concern but also as working through organisational and relational cultures.
Ab__ emerged from the award-winning architectural group Assemble, and the two organisations are collaborating on a project working to engage directly with land distribution and commodification. House of Annetta is a new social resource centre growing in a semi-derelict house, previously occupied by cybernetician and polymath Annetta Pedretti. There are many shapes of systems intersecting through the project for which we are developing and noticing various methodologies to engage with. These range from meaning-making to architectural design to a multi-layered engagement with spatial justice
Indigenising & Decolonising Social Innovation: Lessons for Systemic Design
Get PDFNinanâskomon enahipayik ôta kâwîcihitâsoyân, ôma kahatoskâtamân, kawihtamâtakok niya niteyihcikewin kahkiyaw ohci kiyawâw.
Sâkihitowin ahcahkowan.
I give thanks for the opportunity to be here, to do this work and to share my thoughts with each of you.
In the spirit of love.
Indigenous worldviews have been rooted in systems thinking for thousands of years. Many Indigenous epistemologies are based on holistic, universalist, and de-centralised modes of perceiving the world and its natural systems. These stand in contrast to dominant Western epistemologies, which are based on linear, hierarchical, and discrete modes of thinking. The creation and imposition of settler colonial systems from these modes of thinking, rooted in values of competition and dominance, bear responsibility for many problematic events that occurred under colonisation, such as the creation of the Indian Residential School system.
Viewed this way, I remember that systemic design is a tool envisioned to leverage social change, but even as a well-intentioned application of mostly Western philosophies for making systems change, I can clearly see the systems it purports to reform have harmed and continue to cause harm to Indigenous peoples today. Additionally, where Indigenous perspectives have informed and shaped Western epistemologies about complex systems, it has often been done without credit. An example of this is in our own backyard, with Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” based in some part (and largely unacknowledged) on the Blackfoot teachings from Southern Alberta (Blackstock, 2011) that Maslow himself experienced.
Given these impacts, we must tread lightly. Social innovation shows promise as an important tool in the reparation of our customary laws, our languages, our kinship practices, and our cultural traditions. It can reform and reimagine policy work in ways that are flexible and adaptable and can support our communities’ and nations’ needs, given the right contexts. It would be a mistake to seek out a pan-Indigenous approach, but engaging in multiple Indigenous epistemologies, building relationships and grounding our work in relational accountability provides a valuable first step in working together under the right relations. As Indigenous communities and the Canadian state untangle complex issues such as child and family service systems, address the needs of nations like constitution-building, or ask ourselves how we might create a fully immersive school system rooted in the land, social innovation represents a way in which Indigenous communities can come together and explore the magnitude of where we are now, how we got here, and what we will need to move forward
Design Journeys—A methodology, for a systems change
No full textThis is a presentation and discussion on the new systemic design book, Design Journeys through Complex Systems. Peter Jones presents the core ideas in the book, with a focus on the unique methodology, referred to as Design Journeys. Along with the seven-stage process advanced by the Systemic Design Toolkit, the Journeys book develops the progression of collaborative learning with groups using the tools, and the style of convening workshops with mixed methods.
Design Journeys presents a full lifecycle systemic design methodology, with methods and tools summarized for individual learning and use in workshops. Each tool draws on a method or theory in the systems literature (primarily) and is translated into highly usable, validated analysis or group methods. The Systemic Design Toolkit has been developed with input and feedback from the practitioners since its first presentation at RSD5 in 2016.
The session combines lecture, discussion, and an interactive exercise to learn the methodology. Attention to the scientific support for practices – i.e., stakeholder model, sensemaking methods, tool selection, and co-creation contexts – will be shared. Graduate-level use cases demonstrate how learning systems methods in codesign contexts might be accelerated through Design Journeys and the Systemic Design Toolkit.
Takeaways
- Learn the extended methodology and tools in the evolved Systemic Design Toolkit in a new book based on seven years of research and development of systems thinking tools in design.
- Learn about selected methods, theories, and practices as advocated for systems change (social transformation) applications.
- Learn how systemic design methodology applies across the stages of a comprehensive design projec
Prosperity Thinking: Between the iceberg model and how might we question
Get PDFComplex planetary-scale challenges require tools and approaches that help break down the problem and allow change makers to identify their role and agency in contributing to solving it at their scale. This work aims to help change makers analyze a complex planetary problem, identify its root causes, and frame a focused and specific challenge statement. Through this, the complex problem becomes much more actionable and contextual.
This workshop explores a combination of two fundamental tools from two different approaches – systems thinking and design – to identify an intervention space that keeps human needs and planetary boundaries in mind. The results show that merging the analytical approach of systems thinking and the bias toward the action approach of design thinking are the right ingredients to escape inaction and passivity towards our world’s biggest challenges today.
After this workshop, changemakers often feel energized and motivated by the reduced scope of the chosen complex problem. It has also shown a change in mindset to how they approach business innovation challenges. They are now more likely to consider planetary boundaries while innovating
A Designerly Approach for Transitioning the Construction Industry
Get PDFA case study of cross-sectoral innovation for sustainability.
The systemic nature of sustainability challenges from construction activity necessitates a fundamental rethinking of their operations. However, current value chains for such industries and sectors are deeply entrenched in existing business logic through vested interests and path-dependent regimes. In this sense, actors are locked into business paradigms that are resilient to change.
In response, innovation practitioners seek to address such systemic complexity by exploring opportunities within designerly approaches (i.e. design thinking and systemic design) in the planning and facilitation of systemic innovation, with the ambition of transitioning entire industries to more sustainable futures. Knowledge of the applicability and effect of such approaches is still nascent, and studies of underlying theories are lacking in the literature, suggesting a practice-theory gap in this respect.
ByggFloken, a prominent systemic innovation initiative in the Norwegian construction industry, was studied as a case of a cross-sectoral, multi-actor project supporting the transition towards more sustainable business models.
A multi-level perspective was used to evaluate the project’s potential for sociotechnical change or, more specifically, sustainability transitions.
The subsequent investigation into the methodology informing the innovation project identified challenges in applying dominant innovation methods and tools in such systemic contexts. In conclusion, the study proposes generalizable considerations in the planning and framing of multi-actor systemic innovation projects
A Theory for Enquiry in Design PhD Research
Get PDFDesign PhD research commonly faces conflicting criteria between doing justice to designing (from, systemically speaking, subjective inside perspectives) and doing justice to academic research (subject, systemically speaking, to scrutiny by objective outside criteria). The theory of inquiry presented here takes a cybernetic approach to distinguish different concerns and criteria of design research with reference to applicable systemic boundaries. It aims to facilitate the understanding of and to offer provide strategic risk management guidance for design research inquiries in the presence of conflicts between these concerns and criteria
Asynchronous Ecosystem Development: Micro-mapping using scanning, ZIP-Analysis, and systemic relations
Get PDFCan systemic design optimise on realities of asynchronous ecosystem development and bridge time and space between distributed, often unrelated teams? Does it make sense to work incrementally?
This case study is based on the Canadian Business for Purpose Network (B4PN), hosted by MaRS Discovery District and funded by the McConnell Foundation. The author evaluated network activities from November 2020 to March 2022 and provided inputs to ecosystem development based on strategic clarity work.
In emergent work such as this, uneven development is to be expected. A multimethod research mindset informed the evaluation project. The interdisciplinary research draws on strategic foresight, bricolage, and social R&D and applies ZIP-Analysis and the Library of Systemic Relations to three micro maps.
Reflexivity raised questions about design and designers in social systems, the realities of asynchronous ecosystem development and distributed work, and the wisdom or folly of incrementalism in design (Dodgson, 2019). The project applied interdisciplinary research in practice to leverage asynchronous situations and distributed networks of designers, strategists, and funders.
The idea of a large street mural comes to mind; often composed by several artists, it exists in parts executed asynchronously. While some sections are completed to the finest detail, others are simply pencil lines expressing the outline of shapes. While work is asynchronous, so is the advancement of understanding and progress on goals
At the Intersection of Cosmopolitan Elitism and Oppression: A postcolonial analysis of transnational education systems
Get PDFThis presentation makes a case for using postcolonial discourse as a critical lens to study transnational education (TNE) to identify the structural inequalities and neo-colonial nature of globalised education systems. TNE is an educational system where students live in a country different from their degree-awarding institutes. Higher education services, not students, cross national borders, creating a global flow of knowledge commodified for those who can afford it. These socio-economic networks are a product of globalisation and the internationalisation of higher education which facilitate the connectivity of people and communities across borders. Postcolonial discourses offer a collection of perspectives and theoretical concepts which capture how colonial, neo-colonial, and postcolonial practices shape contemporary educational systems.
Using the example of an academic franchise between a university in England and a private design institute in Sri Lanka, this research offers critical insights into the power structures embedded in British transnational education systems. Ethnographic narratives of stakeholders situated in the design franchise reveal nuanced insights into engaging with TNE. Their lived experiences synthesise social, institutional, and economic motivations with contextual specificities, illustrating the complexity of such educational systems. In this case, analysing empirical data using postcolonial discourses such as agency alongside theoretical concepts such as friction challenge current definitions for franchised higher education programmes and the promise of a global design education offering a neutral, universal experience to all students and facilitators
Cybernetic Musings on Open Form(s)
Get PDFSecond-order cybernetics conceives of human beings as agents and participants in the making of worlds, embedded in the design process. This conception of designing as a practice of living with and in a world grants it both urgency and hope.
The paper proposes that design practitioners, in the widest sense, can learn from design cybernetics when conceiving new methodologies for the post-Anthropocene era. Further, it proposes that these methodologies’ development can take advantage of comparative studies of design cybernetics and design strategies found in traditional Chinese culture. Significantly, Chinese landscape poetry and landscape painting, and, in relation to this, Chinese classical garden design, emphasise elements that are also present in cybernetics discourse: circularity, a floating observer, and the continuity of observer and environment. The paper proposes that these ideas create the necessary conditions for the development of design approaches that reconnect human beings to their environments and permit future agents to initiate change from within. It concludes with an example of a public art installation that implements these ideas
Designing for Mental Health Care Ecosystems Transformation: The role of a territorial co-lab for resources emergence and integration
Get PDFThe role of a territorial co-lab for resources emergence and integration.
Mental health is shifting from focusing on the treatment of disease (clinical recovery) to the promotion of complete well-being (personal recovery) (Slay & Stephens, 2013). This recovery shift requires the innovation of individual services and organisations, as well as the overall transformation of the ecosystem of diverse actors that can assist in the continuity of care. The novel concept of care ecosystem is helpful to describe this transition as it recognises the “dynamic and co-evolving community of sovereign and unique organizations, independent care providers, informal caregivers, care networks, patients and other actors, who directly or indirectly co-produce care or develop care innovations.” (Mohr & Dessers, 2019). Care providers need to recognise and facilitate the integration of this diversity of resources to offer personalised support for the changing needs of individual recovery journeys. Design for mental health has shed light on issues of power dynamics (Farr, 2013) and mental models change (Vink et al., 2017), as well as systemic dynamics when aiming for transformational change (Sangiorgi et al., 2022).
This paper suggests that attention should also be paid to how design initiatives could enhance the capability of care ecosystems to generate and integrate diverse and relevant resources to support individual recovery journeys better. In order to do so, we will first review the role of resources in mental healthcare transformation, their articulation within the service-dominant logic theory, and the recent understanding of care and service ecosystem design. This background will inform the developmental analysis and working model of Recovery Co-Lab, a territorial lab for mental health that illustrates how collective and collaborative design activities can explicitly address the emergence and integration of resources toward recovery-oriented mental healthcare