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The Pattern Atlas of System Vulnerabilities
Get PDFSocietal systems can be thought of as a complex “tangle.” That metaphor can be extended in order to map an array of human-made vulnerabilities. The result is a Pattern Atlas, which can serve as both an analytical and teaching tool. It comes from the forthcoming book How Small Players Change Big Systems (2023). Some 28 types of systemic vulnerability are identified at four levels of scale. The Atlas has several implications for designers.
First, the Atlas explains the “(n) ever-changing world” paradox—how systems adapt to remain more-or-less the same. Misunderstanding that paradox is the source of continual frustrations by those who aspire to change systems for the better. Second, the Atlas explains the scalar dynamics by which small mishaps or design blunders can cascade to become major catastrophes. That is crucial for understanding the Risk Society that has us (mis)directing our collective fears. Third, a lot of designer-led interventions lead to churn or minor changes among systems. The Atlas helps designers target their interventions to make more fundamental changes and (as importantly) reduce the potential for harmful side effects. All three of these implications are central to designing over time. A handout that visually summarises the Atlas is available
Use Systems Oriented Design (SOD) for implementation
Get PDFImplementation difficulties are an important issue relevant to several fields. In recent years, there has been a noticeable growth in the literature on this subject. Based on our anecdotal experiences, promising ideas/solutions are often not implemented. In this paper, we primarily focus on systemic interventions.
Big and complex problems make implementation overwhelmingly complex and can prevent the full implementation of innovative solutions/interventions. In this presentation, we explore how we could shift the focus from developing solutions to how implementing them alongside the design. Drawing on our prior professional experience, we argue that a more overlapping approach to development and implementation is needed to deal with complex issues. With such an approach, we can increase the possibility of creating the desired effect. However, we will also increase the complexity.
We believe that systems oriented design methods would enable better understanding, coping and communication of the complexity of implementation. We hope to trigger a fruitful discussion on this subject, generating vital insights for the further development of this presentation into a paper
Utilising Design Thinking to Reimagine Campus Culture: Learning, engagement, and persistence
Get PDFThis presentation shares lessons learned and strategies from an ongoing systemic design process seeking to improve retention, persistence, and a sense of belonging across one liberal arts university campus. The initiative integrates principles and strategies from design thinking (as defined by the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design/ Stanford d.school method), liberatory design, systems thinking, as well as the latest research on retention and belonging in order to transform policies, processes, and practices, build relationships, and shift campus culture. In particular, the paper explores a relational and situated approach to systemic design practice at a small liberal arts campus that is part of a much larger private university system. The case study explores the value of diverse forms of scaling systems change, utilising a lens that has been historically absent from many studies in systemic change. Ten initiatives and a number of strategies for pursuing a participatory and equity-centred approach to designing and scaling complex social systems change are recommended. As an ongoing case study, the paper concludes by highlighting roadblocks, challenges, opportunities, and additional considerations for scaling complex social systems change with faculty, staff, and students
Made From Parts: Creating emotionally durable products to increase product longevity
No full textThe journey of our consuming self started more than 100 years ago. We have slowly become a community that depends on products for our identity. Material consumption mainly depends on the meaning a product provides to its consumers. It is the sustainability of this meaning which helps in increasing the longevity of products. The role of designers is to nudge people into a path of conscious consumerism and help to create a more sustainable community. As stated by Ikea, “Change begins at home”. It is from the residence that a designer should start making the change. To understand whether involving the user in creating a product could bring a change within the users, I created a research experiment using the Participatory Method. In this experiment, I handed a kit to several participants and asked them to create a lamp for their homes. By doing this, users helped co-create the lamp, and it became valuable to them as it created a bond and a narrative with the product. The experiment resulted in generating a meaningful product that has value and attachment to the user, due to which the users wanted to sustain it for a longer period. This fundamental character of humans, that ‘made from parts’ is trying to tap into
Afterglow
Get PDFYou can see Afterglow in motion at https://tiny.cc/uc_afterglow or https://youtu.be/kjKQr38c7qA.
This mixed media piece explores the relationship between memory and home videos. The chosen scene is an everyday glimpse of childhood recreation: my cousins and I swivel in the sand at the water’s edge. I have a distinct memory of the sunshine wicking water droplets from my skin with its radiant warmth, but when I return to re-watch the home video, the light projecting from the screen is an undeniably overcast grey. Even with this discrepancy between my body memory and the recording, I question how much my recollection is a testimony of the immediate sensory experience and how much it is an adaptation of the home video that I have seen replayed so many times. It is one of few recordings that capture my cousin Oliver and me together; 2022 marks the fourteen-year anniversary of his death. The light that bounced off of our forms, that summer afternoon, is re-animated with each replaying of the video. Memory is re-minded with each re-watching.
My process developed as a response to this shifting palimpsest of recollection. After transferring twelve evenly-spaced video frames to canvas, I hand-painted and beaded the degraded stills to match the coloration of my mind’s image. In their final iteration, the canvases are presented in sequence as a lenticular print. Moving in tandem with the viewer, the effect mirrors the physicality of body memory. Each retouched frame can only be viewed in a fugitive moment. The sequence provokes the viewer to waltz around the scene, back and forth, through impressions of time. In contrast, the vertical plastic lenses of the lenticular print recall the striations of traditional televisions. Painterly textures and interactive motion compete with an impression of flatness and locked recording.
It is false to say that the screen is incapable of putting us ‘in the presence of’ the actor. It does so in the same way as a mirror . . . but it is a mirror with a delayed reflection, the tin foil of which retains the image. (Bazin 97
Gamifying Strategic Foresight for Disruption in the Post-COVID Era
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has disturbed the day-to-day activities of businesses around the world in ways few had foreseen. Despite its various economic and social impacts, however, the pandemic has catalyzed a wave of entrepreneurship that will give birth to a cohort of market disruptions. Although industry leaders are aware that they must innovate to defend themselves against disruption, their behaviours are constrained by cognitive traps that make them path-dependent, ignorant to novelty, and inflexible to change.
The literature on innovation suggests that practicing strategic foresight can help firms break away from path dependency by enabling them to think creatively about the future and imagine how they might be disrupted by their competitors and non-competitors. However, previous research in this domain leaves gaps that may hinder firms’ ability to execute foresight in their organizations. First, it places a relatively high focus on scanning for signals without offering guidance on how to evaluate and act on them. Second, it assumes that foresight is strictly the responsibility of upper management and disregards the role that people at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy could play in the process.
This report offers an exploration into a possible solution to help firms leverage strategic foresight so that they can break away from path dependency and manage the threat of post-pandemic disruption. It culminates with the presentation of a proof of concept for a game designed specifically for business professionals to develop their strategic foresight capabilities and realize the possibilities for disruption. This work includes further secondary research to inform the proof of concept, followed by a user testing session to evaluate its design and performance in addressing the research goals. This research contributes to the business community by providing an engaging and enlightening approach for anyone within an enterprise—not just executives—to think about the future and plan for disruption, even long after the end of the pandemic
BRIDGING PARKS AND PEOPLE: Creating Inclusive Spaces through Cross-cultural Community Participation
Get PDFIn the present time, even the best-designed parks go to waste if no one uses them. Understanding how different cultural and ethnic groups value and use urban parks is crucial in developing appropriate design and management strategies for urban green spaces (Özgüner, 2011, p. 600). Parks are the places which can be used as a bridge between different communities by creating an atmosphere of unity and diversity, hence promoting communal harmony (Business Standard, 2017). Urban parks must respond to the needs of visitors from diverse cultural groups and be designed and managed by people from different social and cultural backgrounds. To address this issue of disconnect between people and public spaces, a people-centered approach has to be used to plan, design, and manage public parks. Placemaking capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential to create parks that promote people's health, happiness, and well-being (What Is Placemaking?, 2007).
Hence the primary research question is how might we create a process that promotes cross-cultural community participation in the design and management of public parks? Since the members of the community need to be part of the planning and design of public parks, Martin and Boaz (2000) defined a spectrum of activities ranging from communication through consultation to co-production – the latter referring to the active and direct involvement of individuals or communities in policy debates, strategy formulation, and the design and delivery of local services. From the viewpoint of this present study, the concept of public participation through various participatory activities represents community involvement towards the higher end of this spectrum. The chosen methodology for this research is that of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, pp. 1–3). This is an inductive method of generating new theory through simultaneous collection, coding, and data analysis. The outcome of the research would be to form a design toolkit to inform others on the methods to make their park and its design and management process more inclusive
Asian ELL (English Language Learners) International Students’ Learning Adjustment
Get PDFStudying outside one's home country can be exciting while posing many adjustment challenges simultaneously. Like me, a lot of Asian ELL (English language learners) international students are both thrilled and struggling. Linguistic and cultural barriers cause a lot of challenges and stress that significantly affect our overseas study experiences. Aiming to help instructors better support their Asian ELL international students in classrooms, I have conducted a focus group to collect empirical descriptions of some adjustment issues of studying abroad and I offer advice for teaching interventions. Six participants from three Asian countries have participated in four activities. Through each activity, participants were gradually stimulated to open their minds, share experiences and ideas, and make new suggestions. The findings showed that all the student participants were supportive of the various teaching interventions to support Asian ELL students, but their feelings about a few specific approaches varied. They also came up with many new teaching intervention proposals
Are We Home Yet: Imagining Persian Carpet as a Movable Home
Get PDFAre We Home Yet: Imagining Persian Carpet as a movable home is an interactive installation that aims to embody the interconnection between body, memories, identity, and home. Through this thesis project, I portray the struggles of myself, as an Iranian immigrant, to preserve my identity and to make a new home for myself after having left the previous, by regularly revisiting my memories of it. In search of developing a sense of belonging to my new home by seeking a displacement for the one that I lost, I converse with the carpets that I have lived on. Persian carpets have prolonged importance in Iranian households as suppliers of warmth, respect, and tranquility, and the tactile bond that is established with the people living on them is exquisite. I explore the possibility of ever finding a new place that I can call home, by exploring the probability of introducing the Persian carpet as a symbol for home, a movable home, benefiting from its many unique characteristics
Inbetweening Beings: An Ecology of Relational Animation
Get PDFMy research uses animation to examine ecology in the Anthropocene, through an immersive installation. Experimenting with the formal process of frame-by-frame filmmaking, installation, and the materiality of landscape, I observe, reflect, and project an array of related living systems, asking where and how humans fit in. Referencing specific ecologies and locations, the assemblage relates human and more- than-human life through moving increments. Using illusion and analogy, I invite reflection, complication, and implication. My installation of relational animation focuses on urban and human-disturbed landscapes, suggesting a distinctly anthropogenic “nature” – jumbled, entangled, polluted, and resilient