Changing the change

Design research is an activity that aims to produce knowledge useful to those who design: design knowledge that designer and non-designer (individuals, communities, institutions, companies) can use in their processes of designing and co-designing.

Design knowledge is a collection of different cognitive artifacts with different purposes: visions to stimulate and steer strategic discussion; proposals to integrate into the development of numerous specific projects; tools to help understand the state of things and implement design ideas; reflections on the sense of what we are doing or could do. Moving form contents to form, the design knowledge we are talking about must be explicit, discussable, transferrable and accumulable: knowledge that can be clearly expressed (by whoever produces it), discussed (by many interested interlocutors), applied (by other designers) and become the starting point for producing further knowledge (by other researchers).

Research that produces conceptual and operational tools for designing and/or to help understand the nature of what we are designing (research for and on design) is usually carried out adopting methodologies, and adapting them to specific requirements, proper to disciplines endowed with a consolidated research tradition. Vice versa, research that produces visions and proposals usually adopts original methodologies, using tools and skills proper to designer culture and practice (research through design). In this case, clearly the research modes are, and must be, very different from those of traditional scientific research: research through design necessarily brings into play a level of subjectivity that would be inadmissible in scientific tradition. At the same time, this is not typical “artistic research”, totally guided by the subjective dimension. Design is a discipline that combines creativity and subjectivity with a dose of reflection and arguments on its own choices. The same is obviously true for research through design, with the added factor in this case that the knowledge produced cannot be implicit and integrated in the design but, as we said, it must be explicit, discussable, transferable and accumulable.
Exactly what the acceptable level of subjectivity is in design through research is an open question. We have discussed this and we can continue to do so, but I do not believe that a precise definition of this limit is of such great interest. I believe that what is really important is to discuss the results we have achieved case by case and the contribution they can bring to solving the problems we have to face.

The Conference Program is ready! It has been conceived to find an effective compromise between different, equally important demands: to give many design researchers the opportunity to present their work and the time to discuss it with others; to listen to several plenary session speeches; to participate in debates on specific topics and, finally, to have time and spaces for open discussions that prepare the ground for the final statements of the whole conference.

There are 4 main components in the program : 3 conference streams and 1 visualisations exhibition. These are:

1. SELECTED PAPERS MODULES. This is, of course, the Conference core: 138 papers are presented in 6 parallel themes of 4 modules each. The themes and the module sub-themes emerged from the clusterization of selected papers. They are:
   1. VISIONS (Ways of living, Ways of producing);
   2. PROPOSALS (Daily life solutions, Enabling Systems);
   3. TOOLS (Design Theories, Design Methods).
2. PRESENTATIONS BY INVITED SPEAKERS. 8 international speakers have been asked to give an overview of their countries or regions in terms of design research and its contributions in changing the change. As a whole, they outline the state of design research for sustainability worldwide. These presentations will take place each day, in late morning plenary sessions. They are:
   
   Bill Moggridige, USA; Geetha Narayanan, INDIA; Luisa Collina, ITALY; Mugendi M Rithaa, SOUTH AFRICA; Aguinaldo dos Santos, BRAZIL; Lou Yongqi, CHINA; Fumi Masuda, JAPAN; Cris Ryan, AUSTRALIA.
3. EMERGING ISSUES PROCESS. It is a series of activities (a round table, an international project session, an open discussion) that aim to produce the final output of the conference in a participatory way and make the first steps in possible post-conference initiatives. As a whole, they can be seen as a bottom-up process of theme generation. These initiatives will take place in late afternoon plenary sessions, on the first and second days, and in 6 parallel sessions and in the final plenary final one on the third day.
4. VISUALISATIONS EXHIBITION. It is a loop of video projections visualising the output of some selected papers. The aim is to promote the idea that design research can also be a process leading to highly communicative results.

Outcomes

• The meeting of a worldwide community of design researchers is, in fact, both a cultural and a political event. An event like this should leave a trace (in the community’s culture) and give directions (about future steps to be taken). For this reason, the Conference will produce a final document in the form of a short text pinpinting emerging issues and indicating promising directions of research. We can call it: Design research agenda for sustainability:
• In a previous design conference (the Cumulus Design Conference, held in Kyoto the 28th of March 2008) a declaration, linking design and sustainability, was signed by a large number of design schools. This declaration is not only highly symbolic (having being signed in Kyoto) but also potentially relevant. The Design research agenda for sustainability, which will be the main output of the Changing the Change Conference can be considered one of the possible implementations of the Kyoto Declaration: a document that must give research directions in order to develop the necessary design knowledge to become real. That is, for us, to Change the Change.

Final Visualisations deadline expired on June 3rd, 2008. We received about 30 Visualisations of the selected papers. Now we are preparing the Exhibit at Changing the Change. On one hand, we applied the same clusters of the papers: visions, proposals and tools are the main themes of final Visualisations. Most of them are proposals and visions. On the other hand, we can identify different genres and languages for communicating design research. In particular, the exhibition will show photographic sequences and collages or graphs and diagrams.
Of course, the first ones are much more iconographic, visual and imaginative ways of representation. They can visualize subjects, showing actions and telling stories for stimulating the imagination. The second ones refer to a symbolic language, which is useful for defending a thesis. They are able to explain subjects, arguing theoretic thoughts and concepts, building relationships between issues and items. Their final result is abstraction. It is a rational way of communicating to peers, while the other language is much more intuitive and emotional and it can be understood by a wider audience. Of course, we can find also hybrid rhetoric and languages. We think that the brief format requested (35 secs) is an useful exercise of communication. It also allows getting a wide and complete look at the themes presented, stimulating the dialogue on urgent issues. Visualisations Exhibit will offer another way of looking at design research presented at Changing the Change.

This article was co-written by Ezio Manzini and Jorge Frascara.

The Changing the Change Conference’s main aim is to present and discuss the design research contribution to the transition towards a sustainable knowledge society. That is, its capability to generate visions, proposals and tools to re-orient the emerging knowledge society towards more socially and environmentally sustainable directions.

This aim is based on some concepts that have to be clarified and discussed.

Knowledge society: it is the result of a large transformation that is taking place at a global scale. Its meaning overlaps the ones of service, information and network society: concepts that represent different expressions of the same on-going complex phenomenon.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the evolution towards the knowledge society, even if presents some positive characters, as it appears today, is not bringing us to a sustainable direction. It has to be well understood, but, at the same time it has to be re-orientated. In other words, the transition towards a knowledge society is the “big on-going change” that has to be changed.

Sustainability: in recent time the use of words “sustainability” (as a noun) and “sustainable” (as an adjective) has become quite common. This popularity can be seen as the positive expression of a growing concern for the environment. But, at the same time, it presents the risk of being mis-used. That is, used in superficial ways (little environmental improvements proposed as steps to sustainability) or even as “green washing” strategies (presenting some green initiatives to cover deeply un-sustainable ways of doing).
In the Changing the Change conference we use the term “sustainability” only in relation to deep and systemic changes in the ways of thinking, living and producing. In other words, systemic changes, in our view, are the pre-condition to generate visions or proposals that can be presented as “sustainable”.

Visions, proposals, tools: they summarise design’s main results. Visions are images of how a whole context could be like if new conditions where given (what if a new idea of wellbeing, of development, of production, of eating were disseminated?). Proposals are original combinations of products, services and communications capable to face specific issues (such as housing, mobility, health, food,…) in an original way. Tools are conceptual and practical instruments that permit the enhancing of these visions and proposals.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the social learning process that should bring us towards a sustainable society has to be fed by these visions and proposals. And supported by these design tools.

Design research: it is a research activity developed with design tools, skills and sensitivity; where “research” stands for the production of knowledge that can be shared and accumulated to become the starting point for new researches and specific projects; and where the expression “developed with design tools, skills and sensitivity“ stands for a research activity developed by designers who explore complex design issues and generate visions and solutions.
In the Changing the Change conference we assume that the transition towards a sustainable knowledge society is such a large and new challenge that individual design activities are only a good first step, but cannot be enough. They are a good first step because individuals can move with agility, explore possibilities and develop models, but design for sustainability calls for a community of designers working and debating with other actors to build a new design knowledge and a new set of visions and proposals.

If you are a designer and have done work in this direction, Changing the Change is the opportunity for you to share your experience and work toward the creation of the much needed change toward a sustainable society.