Design as a Catalyst for Sustainability Transitions

Sustainability, 2019

Sustainability transitions have formed a vast body of literature on theory and practice of transforming socio-technical systems to achieve sustainability over the past few decades. Lately, a new area has been emerging in the design for the sustainability field, where sustainability transitions theories are integrated with design theory, education and practice. This emerging area is referred to as design for sustainability transitions or transition design. In order to build an understanding of the emergence and growth of this area, this article presents an overview of origins, development and current status of design for sustainability transitions drawing on key contributions. We also provide a comparative analysis of these key contributions in regards to their theoretical underpinnings, definitions of sustainability, conceptual framings for the roles of design(ers) and premises of methods and applications.

The design for sustainability field has evolved considerably over the past few decades. Its early beginnings were marked by addressing single issues in isolation, with a primarily technologically optimistic predisposition and a focus on incremental product innovation. Currently, " the edge " of the field strategically deals with systemic issues in the longer term, with a focus on human and ecosystem well-being. This evolution has been aligned with and partly influenced by the emergence of sustainability science, and system innovations and transitions theories, as well as scientific advancement pointing to the increasing urgency of action. This article presents an overview of the emergence of Transition Design, discusses the current status of theory and practice, and provides pointers for the theoretical and practical advancement of the field.

Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación

Transition Design or design for sustainability transitions is acknowledged as an emerging design research and practice area. Although studied and practiced as part of research consortiums for a while, design for transitions has only recently started to be adopted by design practitioners and consultancies with only few examples worldwide.

11th International Sustainability Transition Conference, 2020

Society is currently facing significant and persistent “wicked” challenges undermining the sustainability of social and natural systems alike (Rockström et al., 2018; O’Brien, 2011). The call for radical transformations that may result in ecological, infrastructural and societal regime shifts to more desirable system configurations, challenges researchers to transcend disciplinary and epistemological divides and embrace new knowledges and skills (Raudsepp-Hearne et al., 2019). The term “wicked problems”, which emerged from a design perspective in the seventies (Rittel & Webber, 1973) has been adopted to describe the complex nature of our sustainability issues from across different fields of knowledge (Preiser et al. 2018). Although design is currently emerging as an integrative, transdisciplinary, explorative and pragmatic discipline (Buchanan, 1992; Brown et al., 2010) with the capability to support different transition pathways –transforming lives, narratives, systems, structures and environments (Irwin, 2015; Ceschin & Gaziulusoy, 2019), it has not been fully engaged by scholars from other fields. Furthermore, following Ahlborg et al. (2019) in their conceptualization of the need to adopt a socio-technical-ecological systems –STES– approach that understands the key role of technology in mediating all human-environment relations, there is a potential to widen the scope of discussions through the reintegration of design as a “science of the artificial” (Simon, 1988). While synthesizing knowledge and skills coming from the sciences and the humanities, design’s material culture represents a distinct discipline that simultaneously addresses understanding, communication and action (Buchanan, 1992; Cross 1982) rendering it particularly apt to navigate the indeterminacy and complexity of our challenges and helping identify and imagine novel opportunities for action and change. Because technology is the result of human endeavour and design, the “socio technical assemblages” that it shapes (Duclos, 2010; Latour, 2019) become active shapers of our realities. By dealing with artificiality and technology –materially and symbolically– design is mediating relations while also shaping and being shaped through its unfolding (Willis, 2006). This has led to a deeper understanding of design’s role in enabling or limiting future possibilities (Fry, 2008) within the comprehension of its current pervasive mediation and existence (Margolin, 2002). To help advance the understanding of technology, and to articulate the potential contributions of integrating design capabilities into teams working towards sustainability transitions and transformations, this work proposes an initial conceptual model that is materialized as visual graphics and tables. These visuals are proposed as tools to enable bridging the STS and SES conceptual models for understanding sustainability transformations and as such, encourage more collaborations across these communities. By particularly highlighting the importance of attending to technology and its links to the field of design, Transition Design is argued as a promising mediator. With a focus on enhancing capacities for transformability and resilience, further correlations between Resilience Thinking and design are drawn, while the relevance of integrating this approach is outlined and highlighted.

Recently, a new area emerged in sustainability design, referred to as "transition design" as a result of integrating system innovations and sustainability transitions theories with design theory and practice, developed at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and quickly gained the attention of academics, practitioners and design activists from around the world, transition design is one of the latest design approaches, geared towards social practice through structural change , it aims to transform societies into a more sustainable future in ways that improve the quality of life. Sustainability transitions are fundamental, multidimensional and long-term transitions through which established socio-technical systems are transformed into more sustainable production and consumption patterns, including products, practical and technological innovations as well as actors and interests involved in transition processes. This paper describes the transition design approach through an overview of origins and historical development as complementing countless other design approaches as well as sustainability transitions based on addressing and providing solutions to global changes in current and future society based on environmental, social and economic sustainability standards.

The paper explores the evolution of Design for Sustainability (DfS). Following a quasi-chronological pattern, our exploration provides an overview of the DfS field, categorising the design approaches developed in the past decades under four innovation levels: Product, Product-Service System, Spatio-Social and Socio-Technical System. As a result, we propose an evolutionary framework and map the reviewed DfS approaches onto this framework. The proposed framework synthesizes the evolution of the DfS field, showing how it has progressively expanded from a technical and product-centric focus towards large scale system level changes in which sustainability is understood as a socio-technical challenge. The framework also shows how the various DfS approaches contribute to particular sustainability aspects and visualises linkages, overlaps and complementarities between these approaches.

Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación. Ensayos, 2020

The following paper aims to purvey some of the design history and theory that is being used by the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University in its effort to constitute the practice of Transition Design. It will explain how the profession and discipline of design is currently undergoing rapid expansion and transformation that afford a rich set of frameworks for transition design. This paper argues that not only can and should designers learn from transition studies, but that design can contribute reciprocally through new approaches to framing problems related to sociomaterial change within the context of complex ecosystems.

Presented at the 6th International Sustainability Transitions (IST) Conference, August, 2015, Sussex. The paper argues that design (and designers) have a key role to play in the emerging fields of transition management and sustainability transitions. It presents an overview of design's recent evolution and ability to address complex problems and outlines key areas of design focus relevant to sustainability transitions. These include design for service, design for social innovation, design and policy and a new area of design study, research and practice: Transition Design.

Designing Sustainability for All, LeNS World Distributed Conference, 2019

This paper aims to understand the value of synergy between the field of design and that of transition management for sustainability. Six potential values of synergy are identified: (1) enriched methods of retrieving knowledge of current objects and current systems; (2) providing boundary objects in transition arenas beyond language games; (3) actively envisioning the effect of design things during and beyond their lifetime; (4) intensified reflexivity in design practices and projects; (5) more prototyping activities to leave traces of transition activities in everyday life; (6) greater focus on building interactions through a broader range of co-creation activities. The paper also identifies four possible pitfalls of synergy between the two practices. The paper is grounded in literature but is meant to be a stepping stone towards experimentation in practice; where knowledge, approaches, methods and experience of both fields are combined to intensify the impact on sustainability.

Sustainability transitions require structural and systemic changes. Transitions research poses creative as well as analytical challenges due to high complexity and uncertainty associated with these projects. In this article we present an initial and exploratory investigation of roles design plays in transition projects focusing on Visions and Pathways 2040 (VP2040) project as a case study. VP2040 aims to develop visions, scenarios and pathways for low-carbon resilient futures in Australian cities. The project adopts a design-led approach, linking research and engagement in design-led future visioning. Our findings indicate that the roles design can play in sustainability transitions projects is various covering very tangible, technical, skills-based roles, to very intangible roles, relating to how information is received, processed and syn-thesised. Our findings also imply that, increasingly more, design practitioners will need to bring in skills and knowledge that have not been part of conventional design education, and therefore, institutions providing design education need to start developing and implementing curriculums that will equip graduates with these new professional capacities.