Abstract
Since 2014, an international collaborative of design leaders has been exploring ways in which methods can be augmented, transitioning from the heritage legacy focus on products and services towards a broad range of complex sociotechnical systems and contemporary societal problems issues. At the RSD4 Symposium (2015), DesignX co-founder Don Norman presented a keynote talk on the frontiers of design practice and necessity for advanced design education for highly complex sociotechnical problems. He identified the qualities of these systems as relevant to DesignX problems, and called for systemics, transdisciplinarity and the need for high-quality observations (or evidence) in these design problems. Initial directions found were proposed in the first DesignX workshop in October 2015, which were published in the design journal Shè Jì. In October 2016, another DesignX workshop was held at Tongji University in Shanghai, overlapping with the timing of the RSD5 Symposium where this workshop was convened. The timing of these events presented an opportunity to explore design education and research concepts, ideas and directions of thought that emerged from the multiple discussions and reflections through this experimental workshop. The aim of this paper is to report on the workshop as a continuing project in the DesignX discourse, to share reflections and recommendations from this working group.
Highlights
The Fifth Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD5) symposium that convened in Toronto in October 2016, provided an opportunity to gather intelligence from a wide range of design practitioners with perspectives on design research and associated educational programmes and to make progress in developing a community on systemic design
Co-evolution of Systemic Design(X) Are DesignX and systemic design developing in parallel or coevolving? If they are coevolving can we identify complementary programmes or research agendas for current and future studies? How do they align with other design advances? We conclude the workshop review with an overview of design research frames relevant to a DesignX research agenda
The RSD5 DesignX workshop provided for continuity and discourse building between members of various design programmes, practices and allegiances
Summary
The Fifth Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD5) symposium that convened in Toronto in October 2016, provided an opportunity to gather intelligence from a wide range of design practitioners with perspectives on design research and associated educational programmes and to make progress in developing a community on systemic design. Dr Jones was a participant in the October 2015 DesignX workshop in Shanghai, where he was invited to present one of the core case studies for discussion Following the workshop, he provided a commentary (Jones, 2015) in Shè Jì that emphasised the influence of social complexity in all sociotechnical design contexts. One emergent theme was support for designers in communities of practice and attractor contexts, raising questions about the elements necessary for the effective communication, dissemination and germination of ideas This echoed changes that should be observed in design practice today, as published in the first issue of Shè Jì: Based on observed changes in design focus largely due to the widespread availability of technology, design research and its role in education and practice need to be newly situated.
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