3983 research outputs found
Sort by
Cultivating sustainable conditions for citizen(s)... Through ‘engaging design’
No full textDesign is transitioning modalities, from participation to deep engagement, creating active citizen(s). Authors define, communicate, and navigate post-participatory sustainable design, (interviewing 50+ project leaders), catalysing sustainable activities. Engaging Design, enables creative individuals, communities & collective action(s) to craft/design synergies: motivated by mutual respect, designing ‘with’ not for, and shifts understandings’ of public engagement, transcending disciplines, providing sustainable value. Analysis and insights, yield recipes to cultivate sustainable active and Ecological citizen(s)
HomeMade Cambodia
No full textHomeMade Cambodia is a civic infrastructure project I developed through Steve Jensen Design in collaboration with the Peaceland Foundation. It emerges from my long-standing research into adaptive reuse, cultural continuity, and what I have termed “hollow communities” - places that appear administratively resolved yet are severed from livelihood, memory, and civic agency. Working in the socio-cultural context of the Angkor region, I became increasingly concerned with displacement-driven heritage management associated with UNESCO protection frameworks. While monument preservation is essential, the relocation of communities beyond protected zones has often resulted in loss of jobs, weakened social networks, and the erosion of intergenerational knowledge. Families are rehoused, but economic ecosystems and community structures are disrupted. Stability is delivered physically, yet hollowing occurs socially and economically. HomeMade Cambodia is my response to that condition. It is not a housing product; it is a spatial and organisational system designed to restore production, participation, and continuity. The project integrates micro-enterprise, craft workshops, shared kitchens, and incremental domestic space within a modular framework. The small house frames are concrete - deliberately robust, durable, and climatically appropriate - forming a stable civic armature that residents can infill, adapt, and extend over time. The architecture is structured yet intentionally incomplete, allowing life and livelihood to shape it. In my parallel project Angkor Voyager, these frames become timber - lighter and more mobile - but here concrete provides permanence and collective grounding. At the heart of the proposal is the HomeMade main building, conceived as a civic machine. It enables learning, practical training, fabrication, shared meals, and social gathering. It acts as a springboard for self-help and empowerment, supporting residents to generate income, exchange skills, and rebuild community networks. The research underpinning the project involved extensive fieldwork across rural Cambodian communities, meeting elders, leaders, and craftspeople, and translating vernacular material logics and spatial cultures through my Digilogue methodology. HomeMade Cambodia positions adaptive reuse not simply as material conservation, but as civic repair - architecture as enabling infrastructure through which belonging can be rebuilt
W(hole): An alternative perspective on weave structure visualisation
Full text linkThis thesis is an exploration into the notation of weave structures. To do so, it analyses weave geometries from the perspective of negative space — here referring to the empty area in-between vertical warp threads and horizontal weft threads. Central to the research are the questions: what is the potential role and value of negative space in weave structure visualisation and can a holistic approach to the visualisation of weave structure uncover a new understanding of cloth construction and properties? Sparse attention has been given to weave structure notation prior to the First Industrial Revolution. This suggests that early weaving knowledge was likely to be tacitly passed on and learnt through the experience of making. Today, the modern notational system — a grid-like matrix of coloured squares — only indicates the movement of yarns on the machine (chapter 03). While weavers understand very well this way of visualising weave structure, others outside of the discipline struggle to make sense of it or understand woven cloth’s fluid nature — hindering innovative engagement with the craft and limiting its construction methodology to what the machine can/not do. The thesis investigates the potential development of an alternative weave structure visualisation for others to understand the tacit and experiential knowledge that cloth creation necessitates; and for weavers to approach their craft in holistic ways. This could help step away from understanding weave structure notation as a sole manufacturing tool. Following a practice-led methodology based on a ‘make-think’ approach to research, the study focuses on visualising the ‘unseen’ by asking: what is it that is not being looked at? (chapter 02). In order to understand empty space as a ‘material’ space (chapter 04), research draws on concepts within textile theory, semantics, fractal geometry and architecture for the purpose of using negative space as a practical tool to investigate weave geometries. Weave structure visualisation is explored through making processes while also including digital methods often used in material engineering (chapter 05 and 06). Initially, two experimental case studies present qualitative exploration both in the physical and virtual realm. First studied as a ‘structure unit’ and then within a ‘repeat’, findings identify that negative spaces repeat themselves in irregular ways — challenging the core parameter of repetition. The idea that rigid construction principles that produce fluid woven textiles places weaving as an antithetical craft — a notion that inspired its binary model is then put into question. This was explored through grey nuances (chapter 06), which reveals empty and occupied space’s interdependence. The study finds that although grey shades hinders the readability of weave structures, the proposed visualisation highlights the importance of craft weaving methods in order to develop a more holistic understanding of the technique. By questioning the fundamental knowledge contained within woven cloth construction, this alternative approach enables the craft to open up to interdisciplinary research (chapter 08). This is pertinent in regards to the development of novel assembly systems, which increasingly demand non-linear and organic modes of thinking. As a result, the research has value for weaving and other disciplines that aim to find alternative ways of doing things
Flight as method: A sick women exchange in material encounters, and the time it takes to care
No full textFollowing Johanna Hedva’s ‘Sick Woman Theory’ (2016/2022), this co-authored, epistolary essay theorizes and practises the letter-like ‘flight’ as an affective, attentive writerly form and intimate historical encounter, which makes possible new readings – speculative, slow, suspended – of the careworn lives, works, and representations of two ‘sick women’ subjects: Liliana Amon (writer, actress, portrait sitter, 1892–1939) and Cookie Mueller (writer, actress, portrait sitter, 1949–1989). Through a series of flights exchanged – which evolve across non-linear, murmuring timelines; projections through the air, eye, mind; through time and space – we bring archival research on and with Amon and Mueller’s sickened lives, works, and materials into cross-historical correspondence, tracing scenes and relations across the medical and non-medical that are both care-less and full-of-care. This is proposed as a queer-feminist research method that draws its reparative effects from looking, waiting and writing. In correspondence with our subjects’ own living, making and writing of belatedness, our flights seek to register and revitalize the possibilities of temporally deviant care – beside mothering beside sickness beside writing. In our shared flights, we dare to look at them as the mother and not-quite mother; to wait with them and the pressure-points for thought that they pose; and to do so in the endurance, remembrance, belatedness and ongoing goodbyes of our writing-as-flight, which in turn revitalizes the complexities of our sick women subjects’ creativities and cares
Factors for scaling a circular supply chain for clothing locally and nationally in the UK
Full text linkThe fashion and textiles industry operates a global supply chain that causes harm to the environment, emitting pollution and generating waste across all stages of production, consumption and disposal. The implementation of a local circular economy would reduce impact, shorten import and export distances while retaining the value of materials through practices like reuse and recycling. However, current local and circular initiatives operate in a system that is incomplete to provide sufficient support structures for their operations, meaning they are often small, fragmented, and at risk of cessation. To address this, five focus groups with fashion industry stakeholders were conducted where factors for scaling at a local and national level were discussed. Data analysis revealed 17 factors for scaling, two of which were unique to scaling nationally. These offer ways for local circular clothing supply chains to stabilise, speed up, grow, replicate, transfer, spread, scale up and scale deep. The results provide a new insight on how to increase the scale and transformative impact of local circular initiatives emerging in towns and cities across the UK. The research is useful for the industry and policymakers in informing the development of purposive interventions that seek to step beyond current niche and fragmented solutions and build circular systems that can overtake the current linear, energy intensive, pollutive and waste generating system. Significantly, this will facilitate a shift away from global production and distribution, to grow more locally and systemically robust initiatives at the local and national scale
Advancing autonomy for all: Countering future transport exclusion through the inclusive design of shared autonomous vehicles
Full text linkThe emergence of Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) offers an unprecedented opportunity to reconsider how vehicles and transport systems are designed and begin to address long-standing transport exclusion and inequity. Yet, without early and deliberate consideration of the needs of the whole population, these technologies could perpetuate the transport exclusion already experienced by many or even create entirely new forms of exclusion. This thesis investigates how inclusive design can be applied from the earliest stages of SAV development to ensure equitable access for groups historically marginalised in transport systems, with a focus on exclusion linked to age, disability, and gender. An inclusive design for transport framework was developed, expanding the traditional scope of inclusive design to fully capture the range of groups and types of exclusion experienced within transport. An inclusive design-led, action research approach was utilised to understand and respond to the needs of excluded groups through exploratory and focused co-design workshops with older people, women, and disabled people; expert interviews with vehicle engineers; and industry engagement through surveys and focus groups. These activities identified needs of various excluded groups throughout an SAV journey, including those relating to psychological and interpersonal factors as well as physical, informational, and service-based barriers. Design concepts were developed iteratively in response to these findings, addressing multiple points of exclusion across vehicle architecture, interior layout, exterior design, and information systems. Prototyping in full-scale mock-ups and virtual reality environments enabled participants to evaluate and refine concepts, ensuring feasibility and relevance. The outcome is a single, holistic SAV design configuration capable of serving a broad user base without reliance on specialised vehicles, thereby reducing service-related exclusions caused by limited fleet availability. The thesis makes three principal contributions: 1. A comprehensive, multi-dimensional framework for inclusive design in transport 2. Empirical insights into the mobility needs and barriers experienced by transport-excluded groups in relation to SAVs 3. A set of actionable, industry-relevant vehicle and service design concepts. These outputs provide practical starting points for manufacturers, service operators, and policymakers seeking to ensure the inclusivity of SAV development. By embedding inclusion into the process of designing an SAV, this research demonstrates that it is possible to create vehicles and services that meet the needs of excluded people groups while retaining their utility to the rest of the population. In doing so, it offers a replicable model for the design of future transport systems that are not only technically innovative but also socially inclusive from their inception
Designing conditions for ecological citizen(s): Design cases that enable(d) others
No full textEcological Citizenship is a means for anyone to enable place-based transition(s) to more sustainable and preferable futures. In isolation, Design cannot, and will not, solve climate challenges. Design (as a practice) does, however, offer opportunities to; leverage economies, unite communities and/or cross-disciplinary propositions, present preferable futures, provide strategic leverage points or interventions and most importantly… create conditions for citizens and/or civic organisations to enact sustainable changes. In contemporary times, there is a constant tension between ‘designing’ or ‘creating solutions’ as opposed to honing the skills that catalyse or uplift others. ‘Design Futures’ can play a role in this, as a powerful pillar of the ‘not yet’, but also by presenting tangible possibilities for others to comprehend and contribute to – more specifically “Preferable Futures” ie. those that we would choose, and also positively engage with, rather than, eg. speculative ‘science-fiction’ (Voros, J., 2008). Designing the Conditions for Ecological Citizens presents a series of cases to; borrow from, expand on, or critique. Authors are humble and see this as a set of learnings/methods to build-on, crossing design practices and theory. Furthermore, these strategic perspectives unpack ‘where’ to intervene and ‘what’ leverage points to support. These are not easy ways to ‘design’, but open opportunities beyond traditional capitalist models seeking profit over planet. Notably Ezio Manzini comments on the importance of “designing the conditions”, as we are in a new age of materiality including; communities, policy, social innovations, place-based scenarios, regeneration and the realms of the ‘not yet’ that Design Futures offers (2020; Fry, 2009). This particular work has a UK-specific focus, due to its UKRI funding remit but delivers parallel lessons worthy of scale, cascade or scaffolding. We do not know the readers' culture, origins, processes or situations (nor assume to do so) but we believe there is fertile soil within this design space that can be appropriated. Ecological Citizen(s) | Ecological Citizen(s) (EC), is an approach (and network) to create agency and foster sustainable actions within contemporary times (Phillips, et al., 2023). Ecological Citizenship is a design-led approach intent on catalysing/inspiring/invoking a ‘citizen relationship’ with our natural world. We focus on citizenship as a practice ie. something that is “claimed, enacted and performed” (Arruda, et.al., 2020). It concerns the agency to mutually benefit others and the planet through sustainable means. The definition of Ecological Citizenship is “accessible activities and skills which establish sustainable practice(s) and/or address ecological inequalities. Unsustainable practices (and consequences) are not constrained to individual countries, single industries, or discrete societies” (Phillips, et al., 2025). Examples are often altruistic in approach and execution, but are financially viable, often scalable, presenting citizen(s) with sustainable alternatives, choices and autonomy. EC values build conditions for others and the planet, intent on creating a digitally sustainable society. Authors foreground that sustainable practices are the duty of brands and corporations, but are often differed solely to the general population. For many of this population, volunteering or ‘altruistic acts’ are out of reach due to their financial circumstances. Authors also emphasise that this approach is not a silver bullet, that not everything has to be scaleable, that some propositions work just in one setting, and that this is completely acceptable. We should not need to wait for top-down interventions and can instead look at more distributed means, nor should we replace basic rights that municipalities should create. We have long become disconnected from our natural worlds and our efforts must be to; preserve, cultivate, regenerate and protect them. Designer as Social Entrepreneur | The Design Council (UK) identified the developing roles in designers; as Designer and Maker, Systems Thinker, Leader & Storyteller, Connector and Convener (2021). The role that slips through the frame is the designer as Social Entrepreneur ie. someone who establishes an enterprise with the aim of solving social problems or effecting social change. Ecological Citizen(s) must work “with” people and not design “for” them. The role of the designer as Social Entrepreneur builds on a cross-disciplinary space that nurtures transition over time (but not as a bolt-on), often by leading the place-based / culture-based actions of ourselves. Designers can be ‘catalysts’, creating the conditions for ecological citizenship, sustainable design, and also social-or research-design-led entrepreneurs. Noted father of ‘transition towns’, Rob Hopkins, leverages Design Futures through ‘What if?’ provocations, as they “help us to unlock the imagination. The question simply begins to open the door, creating a crack through which we might push and rush to the other side. It is an invitation” (Hopkins, 2019). Hopkins does not speak of lone discipline design practices identifying ‘product, digital and service design’ and being connected through the materiality of ‘social entrepreneurship’, ie. uplifting the communities and society around us. It has also long been contested how to initiate these activities – the Authors believe it is cultural/contextual and can start with; funding, collaboration(s), or some other… but it must start with; the alignment of mutual benefits, the intention of more sustainable worlds, be non-exploitative and ‘designing for exit’ before the work has begun. Designer as Chef Designers can create conditions of change, from stock materials, menus to working with what grows within our surrounding natural environment. These elements shape the scales of things we make… their intent is to nurture people. And he came to me one day and he asked me, he said, “Thomas, do you know why cooks cook?” And I’m like okay, I’m trying to think. He said, “We cook to nurture people.” I know people call me a chef, but our trade is cooking… You’re nurturing yourself. You’re nurturing the team you’re cooking for. You’re gonna be nurturing our guests. We’re even nurturing our farmers, our fishermen, our foragers, our gardeners, who are bringing us all these wonderful ingredients (Storer, C., et al., 2022). Design Futures offers the space for propositions of the ‘not yet’. Authors see a parallel practice with the role of a ‘chef’, in seeking to work with local materials, learn about produce, create speciality dishes, learn novel techniques and always be searching for new (sustainable) flavours. Chefs rely on teams with varied expertise, all culminating in a parallel objective. Chefs might even be courageous and publish their recipes for others to build-off or prepare, akin to Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione (1974). This bravery to navigate conventional systems and Intellectual Property gives propositions a life of their own, outside of the designer’s (or researcher’s) control. Finally, chefs align with Meadow’s intervention points (2015) as they are constantly looking for new places, tools, and perspectives through which to intervene and have impact. Examples (included in the chapter) overarch; education schemes in UK prisons, novel mental health/social venues, communal garden creation (in respite care), new businesses, approaches to research and contemporary examples from the territory. This embodies the perfect mix of; leveraging social entrepreneurship, citizen(s) and treating new opportunities with a ‘materiality’, to create conditions for Ecological Citizen(s). In summary, authors cover; What is Ecological Citizenship?, Designer as Social Entrepreneur, Design Futures, Designer as Chef, and territory coalescence. We unpack how to look for, collect and make use of signals as a material in Design Futures, testing and trying combinations that nurture the abductive reasoning process. Share project examples, strategic insights and methods for their conception, sustainment and deployment. We openly navigate how we ‘can’ design instances, conditions and perspectives enabling citizen(s) to build proposals
Architecture as a frail, literary object: Neurasthenia and the works of Geoffrey Scott and Bernard Berenson
No full textThis book considers the motives, ambitions, and malaprops of writing archi- tectural history during the early-1900s – a moment that coincided with the emergence of modernity. In reference to a series of eccentric Anglo-American cultural figures, it considers the relationships between architecture, human per- ception, disease, and frailty to provide original ideas regarding the writing of architectural history and the literary construction of architecture. Architecture is not typically associated with frailty. Indeed, one of the founding principles of architecture is that it should aspire to be stable, resilient, and indefatigable. In addition, architecture is also not typically thought of in terms of its literariness. Tracing this contradictoriness, this book considers architecture as a frail, literary object by examining the eccentric architectural criticism of Geoffrey Scott, author of The Architecture of Humanism (1914), together with the opportunistic connoisseurship of Bernard Berenson, the leading authority on the attribution of Italian Renaissance painting. Through a reading of their works, it interprets architecture as both “frail,” when viewed through the diffracted lens of nervous illness, and a form of “writing,” in which architecture assumes concrete form through literary description. This book will be of interest to academics, students, and researchers in architecture and architectural history
Curatorial theory as practice: A critical analysis of curatorial anthologies, symposia and case-study writing
Full text linkThis thesis aims to interrogate the effects that the main formats of curatorial theory have had on curating as a field. The context where my research sits is curating’s shift towards non-exhibitionary, collective forms of practice and the abandonment of authorial curating in favour of a more self-effacing, less hierarchical type of practitioner. The thesis explains how curating’s main formats of reflection (the anthology, the self-reported case study and the symposium) behave; and how they do so, through their enactment and circulation, in ways that might be at odds with certain strands of curating that have avowed a desire for horizontality. Because it has been those strands of curatorial practice that have also championed the production of theory as an expanded form of curating, my research’s aim has been to demystify the assumption that these formats, curating’s rhetorical production, are innocent or less hierarchical for being non-exhibitionary—or, more broadly, for being “discursive”, to use curating’s prevalent understanding of discursive practices as those where speech acts occupy a central role. While I show that these formats are not unproblematic, it has also been my intention to explain how they might have other repercussions that are not necessarily negative. These formats, as I elaborate in the conclusions, hold the field together, transform curatorial thinking into a body of knowable objects and generate a shared consciousness among practitioners. My critique draws on Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Louis Althousser in order to operate with key concepts such as discourse, performativity and ideology, respectively, as well as on various scholars that have contributed to literary theory (Terry Eagleton, Stanley Fish, Mary Louise Pratt) and performance studies (Peggy Phelan and Philip Auslander) to further nuance my understanding of the different formats I have analysed. Key practitioners whose contributions to curatorial theory I have unpacked are Paul O’Neill, Beatrice von Bismarck, Irit Rogoff and Mick Wilson, among others. The introduction sets the scene and outlines the structure of the thesis as a programme of analysis. It also includes a breakdown of the methodology, positionality, scope and limitations of the thesis. The first chapter focuses on anthologies of curatorial theory and their relationship to ideas of programming and readership. The second chapter unpacks self-reported case studies as a primary writing strategy in curatorial thinking. The third chapter traces the various places where discursivity and rhetorical production appear vis-a-vis non-representation and community instantiation in the evolution of curatorial thinking. The fourth and last chapter interrogates the role of the live audience in the production of curatorial thinking
A design‐led study on the coupling of human wellbeing and circular consumer experiences
Full text linkThis paper reports on an exploratory design‐led case study on how to achieve a stronger coupling of human wellbeing and material resource flow as a strategy to contribute to reducing textile consumption for the Circular Economy. The significance of wellbeing and sustainability for consumer experiences is discussed. The Wellbeing Framework for Consumer Experiences in the Circular Economy of the Textile Industry is introduced, this engages with both hedonic short‐term pleasure‐seeking—usually associated with fashion consumption and eudaimonic dimensions of wellbeing. The study methodology consists of a novel ‘living lab’ in the form of a speculative retail environment consisting of alternative circular consumer experiences, products and prototype services in the context of circular textile consumption. The study participants' experiences and the meanings of wellbeing to them in the context of sustainable consumption are presented and discussed. These findings flesh out, validate and refine the Wellbeing Framework elements and dimensions and demonstrate its operationalisation as a design strategy to facilitate meaningful sustainable consumer experiences. The paper concludes that designing consumer experiences to amplify human wellbeing is a viable circular strategy and that the Wellbeing Framework can contribute to this design process