Articulating a strategic approach to face complexity in design projects (original) (raw)

Applying Theory of Change to strategy articulation cycles in design projects:: Potentials and shortcomings through the Designscapes case study

Strategic Design Research Journal, 2021

Since the 1990s, the framework of Theory of Change has been used to address complex contexts of intervention especially in relation to planning and evaluating social practice. Theory of Change can be defined as the systematic and cumulative study of the links between the activities, outcomes, and context of an intervention. The aim of this paper is to explore through a case study whether Theory of Change can support more strategic approaches in design. In particular, the paper examines how Theory of Change was applied to DESIGNSCAPES-a project oriented, among other things, toward offering a supporting service for all those city actors interested in using design to develop urban innovation initiatives that tackle complex issues of broad concern.

Applying Theory of Change to strategy articulation cycles in design projects

Strategic Design Research Journal, 2021

Since the 1990s, the framework of Theory of Change has been used to address complex contexts of intervention especially in relation to planning and evaluating social practice. Theory of Change can be defined as the systematic and cumulative study of the links between the activities, outcomes, and context of an intervention. The aim of this paper is to explore through a case study whether Theory of Change can support more strategic approaches in design. In particular, the paper examines how Theory of Change was applied to DESIGNSCAPES - a project oriented, among other things, toward offering a supporting service for all those city actors interested in using design to develop urban innovation initiatives that tackle complex issues of broad concern.

Strategic Thinking, Design and the Theory of Change

2023

This book offers insights into how the Theory of Change framework can be effectively employed in a wide range of social interventions. Presenting its potential to support strategy and strategic thinking, this book offers an entry point to understanding how Theory of Change can be applied beyond the typical domain of aid projects.

Reshaping urban lives: design as social intervention towards community networks

2007

This paper aims to show some cases of creative communities based on collaborative services as a way to promote sustainable development. This scenario (creative communities and their services) offers design a different approach and a new opportunity to develop and enhance a sustainable future. The transition from the industrial age to the age of knowledge brings about diverse changes in the way we live. The collapse of the Welfare state and the globalisation have created new problems and, thus, new needs (Beck, 1999; Giddens, 1999; McLaughlin and Davidson, 1990). The urgency in finding new solutions to the problems arisen by this new world is bolstering a phenomenon of rebirth of the idea of alternative or intentional communities (McLaughlin & capacity of being both strategic and tactical, this means that it can potentiate people's and government's visions, creating scenarios according to those same visions. Design is about culture and creativity, is about problem solving, and these projects are solving problems arisen from everyday activities that people have to carry out in this complex society. Ultimately we aim to show that design as a strategic and tactical element is, alongside other disciplines, a critical element in the promotion, implementation and dissemination of these cases and its best-practices. The contents of this paper are part of an ongoing research at the Research Unit DIS-Design and Innovation for Sustainability-of the Politecnico di Milano.

Interrogating the Value of Design Research for Change

The Design Journal, 2020

This paper examines different types of value created by design research in the UK. Given the significant economic, social and environmental challenges we currently face, funding bodies and governments are increasingly concerned with assessing the value and impact of design research. The value generated by design research is not always clearly articulated by the academic community and understood by the public. With this in mind, this paper examines a sample of 67 projects that traverse conceptual, disciplinary and methodological boundaries representing the spread of contemporary design research in the UK. The paper presents an innovative 4-leaf value model that integrates different value theories from economics, sustainable development, and the social sciences. The paper highlights that design research plays a significant role in generating social, cultural, economic and environmental change, outlines synergies between the different types of value produced, and identifies gaps for design researchers to focus on in future years.

Depicting concurrency between the participatory and the strategic design practice within the urban context

Strategic Design Research Jorunal, 2017

The context of everyday urban life is the cradle of more democratic social changes, and on which design practice aimed at the regeneration of urban space towards something more democratic, inclusive, participative and resilient has to focus. However, design practice within the city has hardly been successful from this perspective. In this paper a path to strengthening design practice within the urban context is presented by identifying the points of concurrency and enrichment between strategic design from the perspective of the ecosystem and the participatory design approach of infrastructuring agonistic public spaces. Political design and agonistic democracy are the theoretical thread running in the background of the discussion here presented that results in affirming the need to qualify metadesign, within strategic design, as infrastructuring agonistic public spaces when acting within the city, as well as to amplify the potentiality of the suggested practice through the integration of prototyping and scenario building.

Designing Change - professional mutations in urban design 1980-2020

NAI010 Publishers, 2019

Over the timespan of just one generation the planet’s pace of urbanization has dramatically increased. Through these dynamics and its resulting environmental threats, new challenges have emerged that deeply question the validity of the post-war planning paradigms. Dominant ideologies have been replaced by a problem-solving attitude, increased economic pressure and an urgent quest for evidence. What impact does this have on the work of the urban designer and planner, and how can the profession prepare for the future? Designing Change tries to answer these and many other questions through in-depth conversations with 12 leading practitioners in the field. Conceived as an unpartisan contribution to the discourse about the future of the built environment, Designing Change offers an unorthodox combination of case-study analysis and theoretical debate. It addresses the topic’s complexity through a rigorous focus on process, client relationship and development initiative.