Organised by Cheryl May
Doctoral researchers: Wen Lu, Fanjasoa Louisette Rasoloniaina, Lara Rodgett, Nicolas Roussignol, and Xiaolin Shen
Reviewers identified these projects, led by post-graduate and early career researchers, as noteworthy and relevant to systemic design—and a way to extend the conversation on research directions in systemic design.
Opening presentations
The doctoral researchers presented their opening summaries in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) format.
Online fishbowl format
The researchers presented the first round with a three-minute thesis, and the moderator opened up the fishbowl to all participants. When ready, discussants joined the fishbowl with a follow-up comment, tagging the person who sparked their remarks. That person stepped out to maintain the same number of discussants in the fishbowl and evolve the conversation across disciplines and worldviews. Participants joined multiple times, keeping comments to ~one minute so that the discussion could continuously shift and evolve.
Papers
The following papers are included as part of the RSD11 proceedings.
Every Schoolboy Should Know that Patterns are Connecting Patterns and Threads are connecting Threads
Fanjasoa Louisette Rasoloniaina
École nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Val de Seine (ENSAPVS), EVCAU & ICT research labs, Université Paris Cité, France
This article traces the influence of Gregory Bateson’s thought on the construction of a new epistemological, didactic and praxeological framework based on the systemic analysis of the Swahili territory and community, the observation of the use of the Environmental Genetic Code (EGC) systemic matrix by Master students of the architectural project studio “Conjuring Social and Natural Catastrophes in the Post-Covid Area” at ENSAPVS.
Rethinking the Business Model Concept in the Anthropocene Era: Proposal for a systemic approach to the business model
Nicolas Roussignol
PSL Paris-Dauphine University
This paper presents the state of progress of Roussignol’s doctoral research with PSL Paris-Dauphine University, France. The project applies systems thinking principles and working with stakeholders to rethink their business models through systemic design-oriented workshops. Biocoop, a French network of specialised organic food shops, is engaged in the research, which includes interviews and workshops with stakeholders—employees, customers, producers, and association representatives.
Systemic Design for Elderly Healthcare: Analysis of the current responses in China, Italy and Japan
Wen Lu, Silvia Barbero, and Amina Pereno
Politecnico di Torino, Italy
The systemic design approach is built around four additional key principles that contribute to environmental, social and economic sustainability (Silvia B. & Agnese P.,2017). Therefore, this paper attempts to add key criteria for whether healthcare policy considers elderly care, which mainly considers whether community care can reduce the burden on home care stakeholders brought about by long-term care and whether it considers effective age-appropriate design.
Abstracts
The following abstracts were also presented at the session.
Leveraging Well-Being: Toward an integrative framework for a service design approach
Xiaolin Shen and Daniela Sangiorgi
Politecnico di Milano, Italy
In recent decades, there has been an increasing awareness of the impact that design can have on supporting well-being in different aspects. Design researchers have proposed disparate design concepts related to well-being. In this paper, the authors aim to propose an integrative framework for a Service Design approach in design for well-being that can better promote a more systemic perspective. The paper develops a critical literature review of design research for well-being and its key theoretical constructs in the different fields of product design, interaction design, and, lately, service and systemic design. It intends to understand the multi-faceted and multi-level understanding of design for well-being. By reviewing the literature, the authors found that the goal of design research has been evolving from simply offering users enjoyable positive experiences to enhancing the long-term well-being of individuals and then to the collective well-being of communities and societies through design. The authors then summarise and divide these design conceptualizations into three levels: design to bring pleasure or positive emotion or reduce pain to individuals; design to meet people’s individual fulfilling needs; and design to improve external conditions or resources collectively. After that, the authors suggest the potential to introduce transformative service research to construct the notion of well-being in a nested and ecosystem perspective. In the discussion part, the authors introduce a service ecosystem multi-level perspective on service design and its potential application in the developing field of service design for well-being.
Transgressing Creativity
Lara Rodgett
Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom
Creativity is a right. It should not be a privilege or a necessity. But many of our top-down human-focused systems inhibit our understanding of this, which is having a detrimental impact to us and the planet. Accessibility is a key barrier, and the semantic boundaries of creativity urgently need to be reframed. This body of research was driven by how we might engage with the climate crisis in a non-direct manner – but the research could be applied to multiple systems.
This research is motivated by the importance of integrating dialogue, reflection and care within social and ecological systems to generate behaviour change. By reframing our understanding of creativity through the Four C Model of Creativity, and in particular, focusing on Little-c or, as it’s known, everyday creativity, we can shift the boundaries of understanding from an external-facing skill that focuses on the ‘who’ and ‘what’, to an internal-facing tool that explores the ‘where’. This internal shift could allow the activation and leverage of two particular behavioural traits – a tolerance to ambiguity which enables us to address the unknown, and a willingness to grow, which could lead to connections with others.
Through introducing design methods and tools to the psychological model, the research explores and assembles a framework for dialogue-focused and accessible micro-scale interventions that question how we can easily share knowledge within the everyday to expand the individual and collective understanding of creativity.
