Tobias Luthe, Haley Fitzpatrick, Peter Hayward Jones, and Birger Sevaldson
With the ETH Zürich Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems systemic design module content as an opening presentation, Tobias Luthe convenes “north stars,” first as a round with seasoned discussants to provide commentary and context, then opened to all to share perspectives on the possibilities and obstacles to expanding the direction for systemic design as a navigator of the relational value of scientific, engineering, design, embodied methods, and inner practices.
Referencing the Certificate in Advanced Studies in Systemic Design (CAS#3) and its inclusion in the ETH Zürich Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Regenerative Systems, Luthe proposes the emerging field or sphere of systemic design not as a discipline but as a post-discipline—a hybrid combination of science, engineering, design, and embodied practices accompanied by inner processes. The systemic designer navigates real-world challenges in the context of their social environment.
Some familiar guiding questions:
- Why do I need to intervene?
- When do we need to intervene, and where?
- What method or practice is needed, and how does this step inform an emerging process?
Systemic designers acquire guiding skills of systems thinking-sensing, a set of challenge-based methods, processes, techniques and inner processes. The relational value of different modes of inquiry is to be engaged. Eventually, we grow a meta-skillset of “organic emergence,” defined as the capability to befriend emergence, that is, to feel safe, equipped, skilled, and supported, and to deal with unforeseen challenges and obstacles for (non)intervening in living systems (Figure 1).
Therefore, the focus is on navigating the relational practice of methods and building organic emergence.
We are designers, systems scientists, organic engineers, intervenors, weavers, nudgers, holistic planners, collaborative architects, and curious practitioners. Systemic design demands that we combine quantitative scientific methods, such as social network analysis, life cycle assessment, or land use mapping using geospatial data, with qualitative scientific methods, such as interviews or design workshops, designerly methods like visual dialogue or systems narratives, and embodied practices specific to enacting the individual setting, such as didactic systemic cycles or forms of deep listening.
How do we navigate through emergent, largely un-plannable emergent challenges in a direction of desirable resilience, steering toward designing for regeneration within complex systems?
Systemic design necessitates asking questions to enact complexity through reflexive processes that ask how might we?
- Enact uncertainty, immanent in complex systems
- Navigate between science, design and practice for intervening in desired change
- Curate inner processes to build the holistic resilience of social-ecological systems
And whether?
- Systems sensing relates to systemic innovation
- Systemic design spurs regeneration
All this helps us to navigate and guide, along with identified challenges, in the direction of desired resilience and regeneration
The illustration below (Figure 1) engages the relational value of methods and practices and a skill set of organic emergence. What does the map surface about the framing of systemic design as a challenge-based navigation process between different types of inquiry?
Resources
Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems
ETH Zurich Systemic Design Labs. (n.d.). Design Research for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DRSIS). ETH Zurich. https://systemicdesignlabs.ethz.ch/drrs/
Profiles
Tobias Luthe is an academic transdisciplinary hybrid. He is specifically interested in the boundaries between systems. As in nature, biodiversity is highest where systems meet and overlay; complex challenges require timely and evolving “neuronal” approaches, and boundaries can be porous integration zones. He was originally trained as a forest scientist, with majors in environmental economics, wood technology and passive house design, and in education on sustainability, with a PhD in social-ecological resilience of mountain systems to climate change. He is a professor of sustainability science and regenerative design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway, and ETH Zurich, where he heads the Systemic Design Labs group and is the Program Director of a new professional Master’s degree, “Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems.” He is an entrepreneur, co-founding the MonViso Institute, and he co-founded Grown, a design-as-nature lab and experience collective, winning industry awards for bio composites. He is a practising designer with twenty years of experience, such as inventing the first hemp bio-composite skis and designing and building the passive net-positive “regenerator” house Il Doppio. Tobias is a mountaineering guide and photographer.
Raised on a rural farm in Ohio (USA), Haley Fitzpatrick’s respect and curiosity for the natural world has been lifelong. An architect by training and designer at heart, she is intrigued by the intersections of regenerative cultures, landscapes, and systems-thinking to nurture our relationships with nature. Currently she is exploring these threads as a PhD candidate at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO), using the practice of systems oriented design to investigate the regenerative potentials of mountain communities through better understanding the complex socio-ecological systems that shape alpine landscapes. Haley is a design associate at MonViso Institute (Ostana, Italy) and further channels this energy by actively engaging in research and education, especially in mobilizing the co-production of alpine knowledge across diverse communities, from the Regenerative Design Talks to the regional network of local change-makers Here and Now. Outside the “office,” you can find Haley enjoying the mountains’ peaceful solace and playful energy through outdoor sport, thinking-by-drawing, and learning about the great variety of species that also thrive in alpine homes.
From monviso-institute.org/about/people-team/
Peter Hayward Jones is a Distinguished Professor in Systemic Design at Tecnológico de Monterrey, School of Architecture, Art and Design, and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University. He is the founder of Redesign Network and academic director of the Flourishing Enterprise Institute. For systemic design, he is a co-founder and board member of the Systemic Design Association, editor-in-chief of Contexts: The Systemic Design Journal, and scientific advisor to the annual Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium. His research agenda is focused mainly on the theory and application of systemic design in highly complex domains such as healthcare and public sector management. He has written four books about design and innovation, the most recent ones being Design Journeys through Complex Systems (BIS Publishers, 2022) and Design for Care: Innovating Healthcare Experience (Rosenfeld Media, 2013). Peter is recognised for his contributions to systemic design, including new systemic methodologies such as the Systemic Design Toolkit, Systemic Theories of Change, and the Flourishing Business Canvas.
From systemic-design.org/board-of-directors/
Birger Sevaldson [dipl NCAD PhD] is a professor at the Institute of Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO), Institute of Design. He is trained as an interior architect and furniture designer. He has been practising in various fields of design, including architecture and interior design, furniture design, industrial design and art-based projects. He has a PhD in creative design computing and has been researching systems thinking in design since 2006. He is central in the development of Systems Oriented Design, and his research focus is to develop systems oriented design thinking and practice for meeting the increased challenges of globalisation and the need for sustainability. He publishes on various themes, including systems oriented design, creativity, and research by design. Birger is a member of the council of the Design Research Society and is the founder of the Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposia and a co-founder of the Systemic Design Association.
Sketchnote by Patricia Kambitch | Playthink