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Developing A Tool To Empower The Disempowered: The Components Of The Feeling Of Home
No full textThe rate of homelessness is rising, resulting in a need for better-designed services to support those affected. Building on the sector\u27s acknowledgement that personalised support is needed to reverse this trend and based on the psychological concept of the emotional home, we propose a tool that helps those experiencing housing issues feel empowered to better express their housing needs to support teams. The tool breaks down the complex concept of \u27home\u27 into tangible components of the feeling of home, developed through qualitative studies. Here, we discuss the process of working in partnership with a local charitable service provider to refine the components, and we present the tool\u27s initial assessment and potential to mitigate the inherited power dynamics in a situation where help is provided for vulnerable individuals. This research will be helpful to those involved in the design of services to support vulnerable people affected
Workplace wellbeing and interior design: A systematic literature review
No full textThis paper offers a systematic review of the literature on workplace wellbeing and interior design, exploring the creation and evaluation of appealing environments that enhance employee wellbeing. This paper adopts a systematic approach to review using the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Multiple databases were searched. The final review included 55 studies out of 472 that examined factors related to workplace wellbeing. The findings of this study suggest that background noise and open-plan workspaces negatively affect workplace wellbeing, while visual connections with plants and natural objects enhance it. This paper extends the current literature in two ways. Firstly, by highlighting key factors that impact workplace wellbeing. Secondly, it divides factors that contribute to workplace wellbeing into three categories: positives, negatives, and moderate impact factors. Design professionals and workplace managers can utilize this information to identify features that contribute most to the overall work environment
Empowering Through Design: Designing Inclusive Sheltered Workshop Environments for Trainees with Special Needs in Hong Kong
No full textIntellectual disability (ID) affects approximately 1% of the global population, repre-senting diverse support needs. Sheltered workshops in Hong Kong, as elsewhere, aim to maximise the potential of individuals with ID (trainees), acknowledging their equal rights to be full members of the community, though their needs are often overlooked in design research, and space constraints pose developmental challeng-es. This study conducts case analyses of sheltered workshops in Hong Kong and globally, focusing on spatial layouts, interior design, and developmental goals. User personas provide insights into the experiences of trainees and supervisors. This re-search proposes a comprehensive framework featuring 3 aspects that contain 13 critical design variables for designing inclusive interior environments for sheltered workshops, emphasizing mixed-use spaces and adaptable furniture for flexible utili-ty in confined spaces. This framework guides the creation of inclusive, supportive environments for shelter workshops that respect and harness the unique abilities of trainees with special needs
Training designers in the Pluriverse: The experience of Studio Wudé with leather crafts in Senegal
No full textThis article reflects on design and the training of designers from a West African perspective, based on the experience of Studio Wudé, a workshop which has been working in Senegal since 2006 to transmit endogenous knowledge about leather transformation. Through an analysis of the Studio\u27s pedagogical design approach, the aim is to question in West African contexts the relevance of the historical dissociation between thinking and doing, at the genesis of a Western industrial capitalist design culture whose spread in West Africa has accelerated over the past five years via the emergence of higher design education based on a Western model in crisis. Studio Wudé adopts an unprecedented position by embracing within a single reflexive space the dual challenge of training designers and craftsmen in Africa : it advocates the singularity of an African design trajectory within the Pluriverse, conveying a different relationship to the world
Hybrid Ecologies of artificial intelligence: prototyping terrestrial practices through a design installation
No full textIf AI is usually represented as an immaterial and deterritorialized agency, this paper seeks to rematerialize the development of this technology, making visible water consumption in AI model generation. Drawing on studies of post-anthropocentric design and the notion of more-than-human interdependencies, we describe Hybrid Ecologies, an installation that problematizes the relationship between AI and the more-than-human agency of water. The installation is a design exploration to overcome the dichotomy between nature and technology, evidencing how AI inhabits a hybrid ecology, made of interdependent relationships between human agencies and terrestrial ecosystems. We try to move the reflection on AI from a human-centered-design approach to a planet-centered design based on the idea of interdependence and more-than-human futures. Hybrid Ecologies is an experimental effort to open the discussion of the terrestrial condition of AI, urging design to use its capacities to generate better alliances with the more-than-human worlds we inhabit
Using a Mutualistic Design Methodology to Exhibit the Benefits of “Suboptimal” Product Design
No full textHuman-centred design has evolved to the point where much of what is considered optimal is projected as a result of the anthropocentric design process itself. To investigate what unexpected and beneficial outcomes might be produced by intentionally equating the needs of humans and nonhumans, a “Mutualistic Design” methodology was created. This paper discusses the process and results of an exhibition guided by this method, and how it encouraged a dialogue for professionals and academics regarding more-than-human and suboptimal” design principles. Artefacts included in the exhibition were sitting furniture, coffee tables, walls, a piece of literature, and a card game. Each item was created to help designers and non-designers explore what sacrifices and benefits could come from escaping the threshold of “optimal” human-centred design. Additionally, this paper discusses a framework for translating similar methods to other contexts, as well as Mutualistic Design’s place among other related philosophies and practices
Advancing Design With Generative AI: A Case of Automotive Design Process Transformation
No full textGenerative AI has greatly enhanced the production of digital content and has had a significant impact on the creative activities of designers. However, generalized generative AI falls short of designers\u27 expectations in semantic understanding and image generation, and thus been poorly used in specific design domains (e.g., automotive design). This paper aims to explore the integration of generative AI into the design process, focusing on the generation of automotive design. We deconstructed the process of automotive design through user research, extracted the needs and pain points of designers, and transformed them into fine-tuning tasks for generative models. We trained three models in different styles based on Stable Diffusion: abstract forms, digital painting, and realistic rendering, and integrated them into the design workflow for practical automotive design. Performance evaluations and user studies indicate that our auxiliary models and generative design process can produce satisfactory automotive design and enhance efficiency
What Kind Of Futuring Is Transition-Oriented Futuring? Conceptualising And Expanding Notions of Futuring in Transition Design
No full textTransition design employs futuring to navigate change towards more sustainable and just futures. Although the development of transition design has been informed by futures studies, it could benefit from more detailed investigation of its futuring practices in relation to established concepts and approaches. A further exploration of, and integration with, futures studies offers opportunities to develop more conceptual and practical guidance. This paper aligns transition-oriented futuring with Slaughter’s levels of futures work (1996b, 2002), and Amara’s (1981) and Björeson et al.’s (2006) scenario typology to better understand what kind of futuring transition design engages in. An expanded applied approach is proposed to support a more rigorous and comprehensive practice to transition-oriented futuring by learning from established knowledge in its neighbouring field
Designing with more-than-human temporalities
No full textTime is a crucial element in design, and even more so when it comes to designing for sustainability. Many designers approach sustainability from a problem-solving perspective, according to which time is linear (and therefore quantifiable) and the future is predictable (and therefore designable). Designerly time appears quintessentially modern and human. A welcome antidote can be found in more-than-human design perspectives, where a multitude of actants and agencies and their appropriate temporalities are given consideration and space. In this paper we add to such approaches by suggesting two ways to engage with more-than-human temporalities: noticing and care. We illustrate how these approaches may give way to new design practices by discussing the conceptualization and construction of a music festival stage in France. We argue that such design practices integrate ecological care into the design process by attuning the designer to the different scales and rhythms of ecosystems and their more-than-human members
Repositioning design as the new attractor in sustainability
No full textDesign’s increasing participation in sustainability raises questions on what sustainability it serves and how. Contextualized in a cartography of sustainability discourse and its four typologies, we establish that design’s efforts on sustainability to date are largely affiliated to the mainstream socio-technological pathway, a continuation of the modernization project deepening the crises. This affiliation, while granting design access to the increasingly active field of sustainability, risks reducing its versatile epistemology to amusing representation. Drawing from Human-Nature Relationships (HNR) research, we propose the utilization of the sustainability space as an analytical tool. The processual, embodied, and affective qualities inherent in design are evident in the reconfigured sustainability space . This analytical lens highlights the unique potential design practice and research holds in becoming a new attractor for an alternative path of sustainability transformation. We offer three research directions and provide key theoretical repertoires for this emerging research agenda