The designer as agent of community (original) (raw)
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Social Innovation through Design. A Model for Design Education
Social innovation involves the convergence of human involvement and contemporary society, positioning design practice as a co-creative trajectory towards implementing significant and meaningful change. The social innovation concept has expanded the scope of design's role in society by means of fostering transparency and community involvement to produce contributions extending beyond the individual designer to impact culture and society. This humanistic perspective leads to questions of how design education should adapt and change to enhance the implications of socially conscious design and the designer's position as social leader. Through a discussion of participatory and co-creative design, this paper attempts to identify how design education can respond to social needs through innovative solutions for social change. This paper reviews the experiential processes of design activities through a series of case-studies to evaluate the impact of introducing the social innovation agenda as part of the design curriculum through collaborative and collective projects. Theme: Innovation.
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.
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.
The present paper intends to present the early stage on a bigger attempt to discuss design education and its role in a paradigm shift moment, pointing the need to change how designers think and learn to face wicked problems in a more complex society. New active methodologies will be considered in order to promote a teaching-learning process that reinforces the construction of new competencies, which increases students' perception of the reality that surrounds them and makes them evident the impact of design processes and solutions. This conceptual broadening will make them more socially responsible agents, aware of the importance of their civic action and active role towards innovation, social wellbeing, and Sustainability.
Design as an agent of change: Practice-oriented initiatives on Design Teaching
The paper analyzes the role of Design as an agent of social transformation in face of complex challenges. Intentionally embracing reality’s complexity and centering on human values, the Design approach is suited to develop alternative perspectives and radically different strategies for change. The paper explores Design teaching focusing on social change and transition to sustainability, presenting three initiatives and reflecting about methods and impacts of the application of Design for transition. The analysis points to the need of a critical vision in Design research and teaching and the importance to systematize and teach methods and tools to support the interplay among diverse social actors.
2019
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.
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Handbook of Research on Trends in Product Design and Development: Technological and Organizational Perspectives , 2010
Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be said and everywhere to be felt” (2005: 73). Traditionally, not only objects, but design’s presence in general has gone largely unnoticed by the public, but that is changing, due, in considerable part, to the ubiquitous presence of computing technology. Design, as representative of unnoticed and neutral objects, is no longer feasible, but design, as a participative presence in the lives of its users, is fast gaining ground in our complex society. Designers are no longer fully in control of the design process, meaning design practice, and as a result design education, must change to adapt to the increasing pace at which different social groups are evolving new ways of communicating and living.
Design Citizens: Is Education a Catalyst for Systemic Change?
2016
Design programs educate students not just in theoretical aspects of design but in its professional practice and ways to use the skills afforded by their professions to be more competitive, corporate, and exploitative. Many design programs are also centering curriculums on using design as means for systemic change through educating their students on ways to create practices that stem from the concept of being a good “design citizen” – that is, a designer who uses professional practice and the skills afforded by their professions to be inclusive, powerful and cooperative. Using Design Activism as a central tenet makes pedagogical sense as it empowers, directs and engages students on a level well beyond themselves and their “connected” lives. It encompasses a wide range of real-life, business, social and environmental engaged actions. Additionally, it includes processes that innovate forms of creative practice, providing branding models by which designers might work, or challenge exist...
Design Education as a Catalyst for Change
DRS2018: Catalyst, 2018
Figure 1 Design Education as a catalyst for change This Conversation aims to explore the relationships between design education, design practice, and social change. To achieve this aim, the Conversation will bring educators and researchers from a variety of disciplines together to foster new exchanges and collaborations, allowing us to better explore questions about what it is that we learn when we learn to design, why that is, and what impact that has on our societies. During the Conversation, audience members will work in groups to create "prototype" research articles responding to themes and provocations proposed by the convenors.