(Archive) Design United | EXPO

Transitions

These transitions impact the things we create and investigate, the questions we ask, and the tools and methods we develop and use. Technological developments in Artificial Intelligence, Bio-engineering, and networked systems trigger us to make and study things where the natural ends and the artificial starts. It also evokes questions such as: ‘What makes us human?’ or, ‘How to live our lives in times of planetary and economic crisis?’.

5 Themes address different transitions in design research, from the natural to the artificial, from the past to the future, and from traditional to novel methods of creation.
Discover the challenges we face today in design research!

5 Design Research Themes

1 More than Human Design
We entered an eco-age, which spans and traverses the social, natural, and artificial. How can we create value for future habitats that are natural for the ‘life’ and growth of humans and nonhumans?

2 Futuring
Design is a future-oriented practice. Ways to envision the future, speculate and reflect on it, and even to rehearse what it may feel like to inhabit alternative futures, are all critical components of the designer's toolkit.

3 Politics of Design
What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? How do designers navigate the complex intersections of social structures, cultural differences, biases, stereotypes, and domination?

4 Entanglements with AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be fundamentally shaping our future societies. It is therefore of great importance to understand AI as a design material.

5 Neo Craftsmanships
While critical debates on the future directions of design are in full swing, crafters of advanced enabling technologies have already started to make the new everyday a reality; the crafts of tomorrow are taking shape today.