Designing for the future has an allure - why design for the way things are now when we can be bold, experiment with, and paint pictures of worlds just on the verge of becoming? There's a thrill to making something new, probing the edges of possibility by asking not "How might we?" but "What might be?". So, why is this important? The things we work with are more fluid, more interconnected, and more continuously in flux than ever before. The purpose of technologies is only figured out after they've been made and released: mobile phones are only useful for the ecosystem of services and interactions that spring up around them; the capabilities of new AI systems are only discovered through investigation, often in public, as communities experiment to see what's possible - "does it do this?". At the same time, we can recognise that the value of design is not only in making better systems but in investigating the possible worlds that might be made. This is what Pierce would call 'frictional' design: accelerating current trends, exploring counterfactuals, creating space to imagine how the world might be different, and shaping the direction of travel.

A ritual central to science is the PhD defence. At Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands, this ceremony unfolds in an ornate auditorium where stained glass windows cast coloured light onto centuries-old wood panels. Then picture a procession of senior scholars, each adorned in black robes and peculiar hats as if plucked from a medieval painting.

What makes people truly happy? This question has gained new significance in a world that’s rethinking the limits of materialism. As economic expansion continues to raise social and environmental concerns, designers are looking for a deeper sense of purpose. Many have embraced a modern form of humanism as a guide to creating designs that foster human capabilities. This philosophy, rooted in Socratic thought, advanced by Abraham Maslow, and reinvigorated by the positive psychology movement, adapts a holistic view on human existence, emphasizing the potential for human self-actualization—the flourishing of individuals and communities.

Doenja Oogjes

The idea of 'becoming ' is essential. We need to open up the meaning of the identity concept towards relations with a multiplicity, with others. Through opposition to the idea of identity as something completely closed, already formed, and static. We are subjects under construction; we are always becoming something. Rosy Braidotti, 2019, CCCBLAB (Dossier, Post-humanism)

“Design refusal” is an emerging movement in design research and practice that places social justice at the centre of design processes. It raises broader questions about the limits of co-creation and public participation in design. Design refusal has largely foregrounded the responsibility and agency of designers and engineers to disrupt potentially harmful projects within powerful institutions. One key example of design refusal is the collective action of software engineers at Google, where they mobilised against collaboration with the US military (Robinson et al., 2024). Although these acts of refusal offer important lessons, design scholars highlight how focusing on refusal within powerful institutions creates a flawed theory of change which relies on “the goodwill of elites, rather than supporting people’s agency to shape their relationships to data regimes” (Zong and Matias, 2024: 2).

Changing Gears

Changing Gears

Changing Gears

Changing Gears

Changing Gears

Design is inherently a future-oriented practice. But how can we envision desirable futures on a troubled planet? Does society have a "crisis of imagination"? And if so, can designers help us both speculate about practices of tomorrow, and inspire us to take action? Climate Futures Now! brings together projects from the 4TU community, via the Design United Expo and an afternoon Dialogues session at DDW23. 

Promises of AI and Opportunities for Design.

Last year in this space, Nolen Gertz wrote,

Computers are ubiquitous, surrounding and infiltrating almost every aspect of our daily lives. Everything from our coffee makers to our smartphones operates on code. Yet our interactions with machines and programs remain to the largest extents bound to pre-defined routines or interfaces.

Our material world is in a state of flux. As we all are aware by now, the global overconsumption of natural resources can’t continue. The ecological problems caused by material production, use, and disposal need to be solved urgently.

Making materials and textiles in the postdigital era involves a synthesis of multiple, multi-species skills and mediums. The agency of fibre, substance, algorithm, and AI work in a joint endeavour with human and non-human participants in contexts of the future everyday. An everyday that is changed by these evolving practices. How we live and make tomorrow is already being constituted by how we are living and making today. 

The last years has seen a great surge of more-than-human (MTH) research and design. The field has explored ways of understanding, investigating, and imagining the world anew by going beyond human perception and cognition. Building on a strong theoretical ground of post-humanism, these pioneering works paved the way for studying why there is a need and what it means to have a MTH approach in design. Now it is time to connect these theories to MTH practice and develop our designerly ways of framing the scope and “doing” MTH design.   

Mathias Funk, Sara Colombo (TUE), Philip van Allen (TUD) and Cristina Zaga (UT)

Sara Colombo and Mathias Funk - Eindhoven University of Technology

Marie-Louise Stisen Kjerstein Sørensen, Bjarke Vognstrup Fog, Line Have Musaeus and Marianne Graves Petersen

Ambra Trotto (RISE) and Caroline Hummels (TUE)

Annemiek van Boeien - Delft University of Technology

Robert Collins - Umeå University

Elisa Giaccardi - Delft University of Technology

Nolen Gertz - University of Twente

Dan Lockton - Eindhoven University of Technology

Ron Wakkary - Eindhoven University of Technology

Dieuwertje de Wagenaar (WUR) & Milene Gonçalves (TUD)

Remco de Kluizenaar - Wageningen University & Research

Heather Wiltse - Umeå Institute of Design (Umeå University)

Himanshu Verma - Delft University of Technology

Bahar Barati - Eindhoven University of Technology

Jelle van Dijk - University of Twente

Geke Ludden - University of Twente

Jeroen van Erp - Delft University of Technology

Paul Hekkert - Delft University of Technology