Applications for systemic design
Perin Ruttonsha
In this workshop, we will discuss the key intellectual, social, and political trends that have been unfolding over the past sixty years, which are reflective of a regenerative paradigm. Generally speaking, these shifts represent an interest in cultivating well-being for people and planet, combined with an awareness of the cross-scale complexities that can arise across globalized systems. They might be summarized as follows:
(a) the designation of a unique set of eras;
(b) rising concern over environmental degradation, natural resource consumption, extreme poverty, and social inequality;
(c) counterplay between utopic and dystopic, optimistic and pessimistic narratives;
(d) critique and amendment of conventional methodologies in research, innovation, and governance, amidst uncertainty and high-stake problem scenarios;
(e) extension of power, agency, and governance as lenses of critical analyses;
(f) hyper restructuring of modern modes of thought, organization, production, and development;
(g) vacillation between micro- and macro-level frameworks in problem analyses and management;
(h) extrapolation of ecological into complex systems and relational worldviews; and,
(i) reinvention of the sacred.
Workshop participants will map these intersecting areas of thought and action, identifying the conceptual and methodological advancements implied, therein. The workshop will close with groups pitching ideas for related applications in social, service, institutional, product, industrial, architectural, landscape, and urban-based systemic design.
Keywords: complex systems thinking, regenerative paradigm, global transition
