Social Innovation through Design. A Model for Design Education (original) (raw)
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Design Education for Social Innovation: Preliminary Explorations
Studio-based design education in the United States has often been constructed to reflect the demands of design practice. Traditionally, this has been consumer-driven and responsive to local market trends and the private sector. Due to this, pedagogical strategies for social innovation are not often primary considerations for studio coursework within design curricula. While participatory design methods are increasingly being recognized as valuable sources for innovative solutions that facilitate the process of engaging and empowering people, these new opportunities for design have not yet been formally embedded in many curricular structures. Two university courses serve as case studies to illustrate the significance of participatory design methods in social innovation. This paper examines the potential of alternative design pedagogy, one that is set within an ethical discourse based on social innovation and one that is grounded on an ethical construction of practice, which more accurately responds to the pressing needs of society and social change. It discusses the challenges to be faced, new tools and methods for research and design, and the change in mindset needed to address social transformation.
NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL DIMENSION OF DESIGN FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION
Increasing research in design for social innovation has influenced how education in design may change to deal with social problems. The educational dimension of design, in its turn, is commonly referred to as the relationship between professor and design students. However, when designers work together with communities, they suggest new ways of acting and, consequently, inspire changes in people's behavior. In this sense, they also play an educational role. This article presents a vision of designers as educators, not only in the relationship between professors and students, but also in the relation between designers and community. In order to illustrate this, the theme of ageing population is used as an example of a social issue, suggesting approaches to deal with this subject during a design course and as a project with an elderly community. As a result, it demonstrates strategies to work with social issues along with students and communities: in the first case, as a way to reflect and redefine problems, in order to design creative solutions; secondly by explaining practical applications of the designers’ work and considering people’s prior experiences, as a way to facilitate a process of local change.
International Journal of Advance Study and Research Work, 2020
Design and designer's role have changed. It is now not only about adding aesthetic value and functionality to a product. The human centric approach of design generates questions of how design education can adapt and modify to magnify the role of a designer as a social leader and be responsible towards socially conscious design. Social innovation does involve the convergence of human involvement with contemporary society for a significant change. Hence, the role and scope of design is increased towards creating an impact on society and culture. Through the study of secondary data in the form of case studies, this paper attempts to identify how through design we can have innovative solutions towards social issues.
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This paper describes the methodology of a workshop done with design students during the Design Week of Mérida, at Universidad de Extremadura – Spain. The activity was based on the premise that – due to the growing complexity of the challenges faced by society today – designers need to act as part of the solution being agents of change. The workshop discussed the skills, methods, and partnerships for design to achieve such a change on its approach and how Design Education plays a part in preparing the future generation of designers to tackle social innovation and sustainability problems. The results showed how the students understand the future of design and the possibilities for improvement in a system that struggles to be resilient and respond at a faster pace.
From the specificity of the project in design to social innovation by design: a contribution
This contribution aims to understand the specificity of thinking and making social innovation, within and through the design field and its practice. The first part of this paper frames the relationships between project and design, characterising their definitions and goals. Design is presented as a discipline and field of action, where both thinking and the project process are directed at reaching a sustainable change in society. The second part of the paper presents how social innovation by design leads to new epistemological questions and dimensions within design's practices and challenges. Consequently, the University of Nimes' pedagogical and research--driven design initiative illustrates how a commitment to social innovation by design has fostered new productive practices and knowledge, in turn leading to new forms of participation, collaboration and interaction between actors and users. In our experience, mixed methods and interdisciplinary dialogues are key elements in achieving social innovation by design.
Design for Social Innovation as a form of Design Activism - An action format
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This paper presents and discusses an in-progress action format developed through a reflection on several design experiments aiming to make things happen. It brings to the already rich debate on social innovation a designer’s perspective mainly focused on action research and field actions. It is an action format of design for social innovation, the ‘Social Innovation Journey’, structured on a non-linear sequence of steps and actions that progressively engage a community and help it to set up and prototype a social innovation. This happens through an event-like pilot initiative: a ‘farewell’ initiative that, while prototyping the innovation, releases its full ownership to the community. The action format is illustrated through research projects and training activities which have brought designers to design ‘with’ the social innovators, that’s to say side by side with the them, in a pretty immersive way. The ‘Social Innovation Journey’ is an open, in-progress, framework for intervention set up by the Polimi DESIS Lab, the Politecnico di Milano based laboratory of the international network DESIS – Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability. It comprises a network of researchers adopting a strategic and systemic approach to design, with a specific focus on designing for services and design activism. It explores how design can enable people, communities, enterprises and organisations to kick off and manage innovation processes by co-designing and setting in place experiments of new services and solutions.
Participatory Design as an Approach to Social Innovation
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is the Head of Undergraduate Courses at University of the Sinos Valley (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos) and design professor at Unisinos Design School. His research is focused on innovation, social innovation and learning organization, in which he is also consultant for companies.
Design and Social Impact: A Cross-sectoral Agenda for Design Education, Research and Practice
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Social impact design -- one term that refers to the practice of design for the public good, especially in disadvantaged communities -- has attracted powerful interest in recent years. Increasingly, both practicing designers and students are seeking opportunities in this burgeoning discipline. But are the professional and academic structures in place to support them? And how might such structures be improved? On February 27, 2012, the "Social Impact Design Summit" was convened at The Rockefeller Foundation headquarters in New York to address the challenges and opportunities within the field today. Organized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, with the National Endowment for the Arts and The Lemelson Foundation, the one-day event brought together 34 leaders of social impact design and a dozen representatives of foundations that support social programs. The summit participants -- who represented both nonprofit and for-profit organizations, as well ...