Strategic Foresight and Innovation, MDes 2025
Mapping is a central practice within the Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI) programme at OCAD University. Synthesis mapping is taught as a method to engage with complexity, synthesise diverse perspectives, and communicate insights. Consistent with gigamapping (Sevaldson, 2011), the synthesis map enables the exploration and representation of interrelationships among actors, institutions, and forces that constitute contemporary challenges, functioning as an introduction to generative practice that supports foresight and design interventions.
The following maps are presented by the designers, followed by a discussion of their reflections, learnings, and critique of the experience. They also reflect on the time and place of their development: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2024–2025.
The Myth of Work-Life Balance: Mapping Unsustainable Work, Patterns of Canadian Work Culture by Mursal Ashrafi, Jillian Harris, Aavrati Kushwaha, Beyza Ozmen and Mursal Ashrafi
Understanding the Primary Care Crisis in Ontario by Janine Pierre, Luke Correia-Damude, Brandon Meawasige, and Danielle Pierre
Ontario’s Universities: An act of public imagination by Jennifer Murphy, Cheryl Green and Ian Rolson
What’s the problem with public education? by Reshmi Bisessar, Katrina Heschel, Nathalie Robertson, Doug Reid and Allison Campbell-Rogers
OCADU maps are below.
The synthesis map operates at multiple levels. At the diagnostic stage, it supports problem framing and boundaries. Layered techniques of stakeholder mapping, journey mapping, PESTLE and STEEP-V. Ecosystem diagrams are used to situate problems within broader contexts and highlight relationships of power, influence, and equity. As a tool for exploration, this mapping approach informs futures and foresight work by surfacing signals, drivers, and trends that can be carried forward into scenario building. The resulting artefacts are highly detailed visual representations of systems, representing the facets of complexity while also being readable by diverse audiences. Synthesis mapping has become an established method at OCADU, developed to transform heterogeneous sources of knowledge into coherent and communicable system-level insights (Jones & Bowes, 2017). As the maps presented in this session illustrate, mapping is neither a neutral nor purely technical activity and there is also the opportunity for a map to serve as a conversational device, allowing stakeholders to recognise themselves in complex systems and to envision potential pathways for change.
References
Jeremy Bowes and Peter Jones (2016). Synthesis maps: systemic design pedagogy, narrative, and intervention. Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD5. Article #037 (online-first number). https://rsdsymposium.org/synthesis-maps-systemic-design-pedagogy-narrative-and-intervention/
Sevaldson, B. (2011). GIGA-mapping: Visualisation for complexity and systems thinking in design. In Proceedings of Nordes 2011: Making Design Matter. Nordic Design Research Conference. [view a detailed page by Birger with the article embedded https://systemsorienteddesign.net/what-is-gigamapping/]
OCADU Maps
No Place Like Home: Housing futures
Helen Bae
Ontario’s Universities: An act of public imagination
Jennifer Murphy, Cheryl Green, and Ian Rolson
The Myth of Work-Life Balance: Mapping Unsustainable Work, Patterns of Canadian Work Culture
Mursal Ashrafi, Jillian Harris, Aavrati Kushwaha, Beyza, Ozmen, and Mursal Ashrafi
Understanding the Primary Care Crisis in Ontario
Janine Pierre, Luke Correia-Damude, Brandon Meawasige, and Danielle Pierre
What’s the problem with public education?
Reshmi Bisessar, Katrina Heschel, Nathalie Robertson, Doug Reid, and Allison Campbell-Rogers
