Frances Westley, Luigi Ferrara, Greg Van Alstyne, and Perin Ruttonsha
In 2002, designer Bruce Mau initiated the project Massive Change: A Manifesto for the Future of Global Design, commissioned initially as an exhibition by the Vancouver Art Gallery. Organised around the systems-oriented framework of twelve economies—and profiling examples in fields ranging from biology to urbanism—this radio show, book, and exhibition examined the power of design to affect positive change. It also became the point of departure for a unique pedagogical model, inspired by the thinking of Buckminster Fuller, and aimed to prepare a new generation of interdisciplinary designers to engage with complex global challenges. As well, Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth informed an educational process that celebrated experimentation, play, risk, failure, along with hands-on experiential learning. Located at Toronto’s George Brown College, the Institute without Boundaries (IwB) Interdisciplinary Design Strategy (IDS) postgraduate certificate programme has successfully graduated over 159 students and hosted over 100 multistakeholder design charrettes.
In 2006, sociologist Frances Westley and colleagues released Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed. This was borne initially through the McGill-Dupont Social Innovation Think Tank (formed in 2002), which aimed to support and advance the work of changemakers. This groundbreaking book outlined the philosophies and strategies by which individual actors and institutions navigate complexity to change the world, drawing insights from fields ranging across ecology to psychology. Its ideas were quickly extrapolated to inspire the formation of a multi-institutional partnership, comprising the J. W. McConnell Foundation, University of Waterloo, PLAN Institute, and MaRS Discovery District—while also informing a diverse platform of programmes for education and practice-based systems change. Resilience thinking became central to the work, and underneath it all, an understanding that relationships are primary to social systems, as both means and ends to change, in themselves.
These two examples illustrate comparable scenarios, wherein smaller collaborations scaled up into broader programmes by which to train and mobilise leaders to facilitate systems change—whether through design or social innovation. At the time they were introduced, their models were unique in multiple respects: for example, each applied interdisciplinary and systems-oriented thinking; adopted participatory, co-creative processes; and, translated pedagogies into real-world practices, inclusive of multistakeholder engagement for projects in finance, health, food, housing, regional planning, ecological conservation, Indigenous innovation, and climate change mitigation. Approximately twenty years after their launch, this panel brings together faculty, staff, and alumni from these two formative initiatives to reflect on their histories, evolution, novelty, impact, and legacies, while also considering how to catalyse the next wave of cross-cutting systems change.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cahill, G., & Spitz, K. (2017). Social innovation generation: Fostering a Canadian ecosystem for systems change. J. W. McConnell Family Foundation. https://www.mcconnellfoundation.ca/wp-content/uploads/SocialInnovationGeneration_DigitalBook-1.pdf
Mau, B. (1988). An incomplete manifesto for growth. https://brucemaustudio.com/projects/an-incomplete-manifesto-for-growth/
Mau, B., Leonard, J., & the Institute without Boundaries (IwB). (2004). Massive change: A manifesto for the future of global design. Phaidon Press.
Westley, F., Patton, M. Q., & Zimmerman, B. (2009). Getting to maybe: How the world is changed. Vintage Canada. (Original work published 2006).
Profiles
Frances Westley
University of Waterloo
Dr. Frances Westley is a Professor and Founding Director Emeritus at the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR). She is a renowned scholar and consultant in the areas of social innovation, strategies for sustainable development, strategic change, visionary leadership, and inter-organizational collaboration. She has published four books, including the bestseller Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed, and over 100 academic/scientific articles.
Before joining the University of Waterloo in 2007, she taught at the University of Western Ontario (Sociology), McGill University Faculty of Management (Strategy and Organizational Development), and the University of Wisconsin─Madison, where she was Director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. In addition, she has designed and led programs on leadership for innovation, managing in complex environments, and social-ecological transformations, funded by the McConnell Foundation, Suncor Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation.
She has served on numerous advisory/governing/editorial boards, including the Resilience Alliance Board of Science, World Conservation Union—Conservation Planning Specialist Group, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies (SARAS), Evergreen Canada, Engineers Without Borders, the Musagetes Foundation, the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, and Ecology and Society. She is the recipient of awards including the Ulysses S. Seal award for innovation in conservation, the Corporate Knights Award, the World Economic Forum Thought Leader in Social Innovation Award, and the Order of Canada.
She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from McGill University (1978), her M.A. in Sociology from McGill University (1975), and her B.A. in English Literature from Middlebury College (1970). In 2019, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Science by Stockholm University, Sweden.
Luigi Ferrara
Confier
Luigi Ferrara is the Principal of Conifer, a design, strategy, sustainability, and digital transformation company focused on creating new formats for the future through collaborative creation.
For 22 years, he served as the Director and then Dean of the Centre of Arts, Design and Information Technology at George Brown College in Toronto. During his tenure, he directed the renowned Institute without Boundaries for 20 years and then became the founding Chair and CEO of the Brookfield Sustainability Institute (BSI). He was President and is now a Senator of the World Design Organization, which represents the global design professions, academic institutions, promotional organisations, corporations and design cities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, an architect and multi-disciplinary design practitioner who has worked in the fields of urban design, planning, architecture, interiors, exhibition, strategy, research and innovation, branding, product system service design, interaction design, software development and management consulting. He lectures on topics such as digital transformation, sustainability, collaborative design, design thinking and innovation.
From Conifer
Greg Van Alstyne
OCADU
Greg’s arcs of impact span futuring, strategic foresight, social innovation, and digital literacy. Greg’s research interests include designing with emergence, media futures, and the future of reading, writing, and publishing. Prior to OCADU, Greg was the inaugural director of the Institute without Boundaries. His work crosses industries and disciplines, he has maintained an active design practice for over 30 years.
Perin Ruttonsha
artist–designer–researcher in complex systems
Perin Ruttonsha is an interdisciplinary artist, systemic designer, researcher, and writer who integrates strategy, scholarship, participatory engagement, and creative practice to facilitate processes of cross-scale systems transformation for global sustainability. With over twenty years of experience in her field, past projects have covered themes of (i) sustainable, climate adaptive, affordable, accessible, and Indigenous housing; (ii) urban, rural, community, and landscape planning; (iii) healthcare and Indigenous health; as well as, (iv) cultural and international development, working with diverse stakeholders in North, Central, and South America. Specialising in experiential, transformative social, and design-based learning, Ruttonsha has planned curricula for elementary, undergraduate, and graduate levels, along with community arts programmes. Her work also extends the role of the arts in social and environmental discourses, and comprises surrealist photography, graphic illustration, public installation, and poetry. She is currently completing a PhD with the University of Waterloo’s School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability (SERS), whereby she delineates a regenerative sustainability paradigm as one of balancing among multilayered, social-ecological systems complexities, from local to planetary scales.
