Maria Vitaller del Olmo, Amalia de Götzen, Nicola Morelli, Luca Simeone
Within transition theory, practices have been identified as the focus unit for transforming established landscapes. Operating at different levels of everyday life and responding to needs, practices are embedded in our societies and contribute to existing sustainability challenges. While previous research focuses on the theoretical integration of social practice theory and transition theory, there is still a lack of studies focusing on the methodological implications for designers working within transition design processes on operating with practices. This paper examines the role of prototyping, a widespread design methodology, in the transformation of complex sociotechnical systems. More specifically, we focus on the methodological implications of prototyping existing and new practices that can contribute to establishing sustainable landscape transitions.
Following the Jerez de la Frontera case study in the PALIMPSEST EU-funded research project, we apply grounded theory-building techniques to examine 1) the methodological and practical application of prototyping to practices and 2) the influence of prototyping ‘hacked’ practices in design processes addressing sustainable landscape transitions. The Jerez team started from existing practices (e.g., ceramic crafting, traditional flamenco performances, vine growing). These practices, despite being strongly rooted in the local context, were unrelated among them, some even enacted outside the local landscape. Early prototyping allowed the team to deeply understand the elements and actors participating in the targeted practices, so they could envision a solution ecosystem ‘hacking’ such practices. That is, the practices were reconstructed either in relation to the socio-technical system – becoming more endogenous and/or bundled – or in their components – by altering the materials, meanings, and competences associated with them. Then, the team prototyped the ‘hacked’ practices and evaluated their adoption, enactment and potential in relation to the envisioned landscape transformation. Our longitudinal study provides relevant contributions to transition design theory and practice. Theoretically, we describe the perceived difficulty in separating ‘prototyping’ and ‘testing’ activities, unfolding academic reflections on the redefinition of long-established design practices when applied to complex system transformations. Methodologically, we appreciated clear differences between the filtering and manifestation dimensions of earlier and later prototypes in this process that can guide and inspire the work of practitioners in similar projects. For example, our analysis indicates four categories of the prototyping activities according to their focus on aspects of the practices that had been edited – their elements, their enactment by local actants in the local landscape, their newly-established interrelation, and the necessary adjustment of norms for the practices to operate in the context. Another important methodological implication of our study refers to the predominance of high-fidelity prototypes to engage participants and trigger the envisioned transformation in socio-technical systems.
Keywords: prototyping, practice prototyping, sustainable transitions