Research Paper
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Trapped in Complexity: worlds and the methods they make
Paper submitted for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design 2022 Symposium, in track RSD: Methods & Methodology, October 2022
Author:
Håkan Edeholt (AHO)
Abstract
After over several years of working with Industrial Design as a tool for exploring the types of radical systemic change that climate change arguably needs, it now seems timely to discuss the systemic approach, per se. Much at odds with current discourse, this article promotes disciplinarity per se and questions the Systems Oriented Design (SOD) assumption, that seems to take for granted that there is an inescapable intimate relation between development and complexity. It is done by revisiting four seminal scholars within system thinking and cybernetics, which arguably were significant for giving rise to the current praxeology of SOD and its continued development. The article makes three brief explorations, covering (i) the ecologic worldview, having nature as a guiding metaphor versus the mechanical having a machine as a guiding metaphor, (ii) the expected turning point for radical climate action and why it has not turned up yet and (iii) the ecology of disciplines and its knowledge production, and how the modes of disciplinary cooperation tend to be, more or less, easy to control. These discussions intend to explore the tensions between the worldviews that direct our understanding and action. The article shows how the ‘worldview makes the methods’ as much, if not more, than the other way around. Finally, the paper tries to establish a creative dialogue with the SOD community by both questioning its current main focus on the current system's complexity and, at the same time, suggesting how the SOD praxeology could be potentially much more beneficial if its view instead were directed towards ways to transcend the current system.
Citation: Edeholt, H. (2022) Trapped in Complexity: worlds and the methods they make. RDS 11-Relating System Thinking and Design 2022 Symposium, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK, October 13-16, 2022.
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Design disciplines in the age of climate change: Systemic views on current and potential roles
Paper published in the proceedings of Design Research Society (DRS) Conference DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao
Author:
Håkan Edeholt (AHO), Jomy Joseph (AHO)
Abstract
After working several years with industrial design as a tool for the kind of radical systemic change, climate change arguably requires; it now seems timely to discuss the systemic obstacles that make such a shift so hard to implement. Much at odds with current discourse, the article defends current design disciplinary skills by focusing on the tension between what designers tend to do for sustaining the present system vs. what designers could do to support transition to a radically different system and why the latter is so hard to achieve but still so urgently required. With the overarching question – "what can design(ers) do?" – the article establish design disciplines as a distinct entity apart from design. Subsequently it gives an overview of how different disciplines have emerged as 'answers' to how societies, have developed and finally suggest a model for how to address climate change through disciplinary cooperation.
Citation: Edeholt, H., & Joseph, J. (2022, June). Design disciplines in the age of climate change: Systemic views on current and potential roles, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.365
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ReFuturing Studio: Designing long term sustainability for the Biosphere
Paper presented at the 2021 ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference: Curriculum for Climate Agency: Design (in) Action, DESIGN AGENCY– ANTI-DESPAIR Track, June 24-25, 2021
Author:
Jomy Joseph (AHO)
Abstract
The trajectories of the Earth’s climate and ecosystem services are unravelling, pushing the life sustaining biosphere on the path towards “biological annihilation”. As the worst climate predictions come to pass, it has become urgent to introspect on the predictable consequences of our global economic system designed for extractivism. Attempting to address and understand these issues seems to create a sense of foreboding and anxiety about our climate futures. This paper will discuss this in relation to the tendencies of defuturing in design, that is, the negation and erasure of our better futures and possibilities when trying to imagine a longterm sustainable future for human and non-human others. The discussions here are based on observations and discussions with design students in a workshop called “ReFuturing Studio” which attempts to engage young designers to confront the urgency of climate breakdown and long-term sustainability beyond “business as usual” (BAU).
This paper argues for a “refuturing”— to reclaim that which is defutured and dehumanized, beyond the homogenizing and hegemonic futurism of BAU by re-imagining, rethinking and ‘re-humanizing’ through a ‘designerly knowing’ of the yet unknown long-term sustainable futures. Refuturing thus critically proposes alternative perspectives, solution spaces where designers and design educators can begin to understand and reconcile design practice with climate action by “designing for the biosphere” by imagining possibilities for co-regenerative practices as a means for human well-being and ecological flourishing.
Citation: Joseph, J. (Presented June 2021, June). ReFuturing Studio: Designing long-term sustainability for the biosphere. ACSA Teacher’s Conference. 2021 ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference: Curriculum for Climate Agency: Design (in)Action, New York, Oslo.
PHD RESEARCH BY DESIGN
THE Open Journal Of ReFuturing
Spring 2131
Centenary Edition
Phd ‘Research by Design’ Fiction by Jomy Joseph
A design research journal from the year 2131 celebrating it’s centenary edition on a planet having experienced and unprecedented transformation of ecology. The fictional research journal discusses and reframes the existential issues we face collectively now and talks of climate reparations. The centenary journal edition is designed as a reviewer’s copy for a fictional journal being read in 2131, where the world is facing climate uncertainties, and human societies have undergone drastic, more “down to earth” pathways of climate reparations by design.
It tries to rethink, reclaim and rehumanise the present such that the future is profoundly different when we arrive in it. The premise as such points out that designers don’t need to be creating ecocidal consumerist desires, but can instead propose and articulate real choices, holistic imaginations for climate just futures. Where radical climate justice and climate action are realised across space and time; making the unthinkable thinkable, and doable— from whole systems change to climate reparations to the rehumanization of the everyday—which seems impossible today. industrial designers have more than just the responsibility to do this, their training allows them to develop the disciplinary skills to do so. To bring these desperately needed creative skill-and mindsets to the table and articulate actions based on these concerns and complement other disciplines in what could become a healthy "ecology of disciplines" for climate reparations. This publication and the artefacts discussed in it are somewhat of a case study for where those choices and alliances might lead to. It is not to claim this is how our collective futures will be, but how it could be— towards a more human, more caring, and radically just society even as we trigger climate tipping points.
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PHD Thesis: Bruce Snaddon
LEARNING FOR FUTURE KNOWING NOW: Investigating Transformative Pedagogic Processes Within a Design Faculty in a South African University of Technology
Bruce Snaddon was awarded the degree of PhD at AHO for “LEARNING FOR FUTURE KNOWING NOW: INVESTIGATING TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGIC PROCESSES WITHIN A DESIGN FACULTY IN A SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY".
In this thesis, Snaddon take up the question of how design educators can actively explore different approaches to design pedagogy that might enable a transition for design education towards long-term sustainability. Such transition includes a critical review of how and where design learning might be carried out, so as to break with hegemonic orthodoxies in design practice, its education, and in broader society. This thesis is a practice-based inquiry into the need to shape design curricular and pedagogical activities to meet future work and professional practice as well as the burgeoning fields of design for sustainability and social innovation in an unsustainable world.
Research Paper
Critical Futures Today: Back-casting Speculative Product Design towards Long Term Sustainability
Paper published in the Conference proceedings of LenS World Distributed Conference, Designing Sustainability for all, Volume 3, 2019http://www.lensconference3.org/images/program/VOLUME3.pdf
Author:
Jomy Joseph (AHO)
Abstract
The age of climate breakdown brings with it an uncertain future, even within our collective imagination we are presented with increasingly dystopian visions of the future. This tendency towards dystopian futures can also be seen in Speculative and Critical Design (SCD) process which emerged as a disciplinary response to challenge commercial design by envisioning radical futures scenarios and artefacts that so far has been limited to museum exhibits. This paper suggests a solution-driven SCD method exploring a ‘designerly’ reimagining of existing solar technology as a “back-casted” design solution into the present—a 3D printed optical solar cell. The solar cell is proposed as a possible, speculative alternative for existing solar cells exploring the “what if ” possibilities of technological forecasting in a futures-oriented practise, ways in which product design can contribute to climate action today while still looking towards visions of better, more thriving paradigms of futures beyond ‘business as usual’.
Citation: Joseph, J. (2019). Critical Futures Today: Back-casting Speculative Product Design towards Long Term Sustainability. Designing Sustainability for All, 3, 904–909. http://www.lensconference3.org/images/program/VOLUME3.pdf
Research Paper
Walk the Talk: Towards an ecological futures framework for our designed cultures
Published and Presented at Cumulus Conference, Rome 2021
Authors:
Håkan Edeholt (AHO)
Jomy Joseph (AHO)
Nan Xia (Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University)
Abstract
Based on the bleak trajectory of the near and far future due to climate change, this paper outlines some of the assumptions that makes relevant actions so hard to implement. We suggest a framework that enables us to radically rethink sustainability as well as both human and design agency. Based on a simple “Walk-the-Talk” model, potential actions are mapped for both (i) established and (ii) more alternative approaches. The former being the one espoused in today’s discourse, while the latter seems to get surprisingly little support. By describing three concrete product concepts we illustrate how by shifting focus to more alternative approaches, we can precisely address the challenges that more traditional approaches have obviously failed to address. In order to find relevant leverage points for both design and required systems change, the paper finally discusses why the traditional approaches still are so dominant in our quest to address climate change.
Talks: AHO 75TH Jubilee OPEN LECTURE SERIES 2020
Håkan Edeholt and Tine Hegli
Håkan Edeholt and Tine Hegli held a joint lecture on the issues of Climate Change and long term sustainability in Design and Architecture.
Talks: AHO 75TH Jubilee OPEN LECTURE SERIES 2020
Jomy Joseph and Jørgen Tandberg
Jomy Joseph presents the concept of ReFuturing from his PhD research at the AHO Open Lecture Series from November 12 2020.
ReFuturing: re-imagining, re-thinking and re-humanising futures today
With the onset of climate breakdown, organized human life is presented with a bleak future and it has become far easier for us to imagine the end the world as we know it. This talk will explore the concept of “ReFuturing” which aims to rethink, reimagine and rehumanize the dystopian futures that we have today. This talk will discuss this “ReFuturing” and its relation to designing for long term sustainability with the help of some provocations and propositions when designing for the futures we need.