Publications
Design Research Society
(DRS) Conference 2022
Presented in Bilbao, Spain
ELIA Biennial 2022
'No Stone Unturned'
Presented in Helsinki, Finland
International Association of Societies of Design Research
(IASDR) Conference 2023
'Life Changing Design'
Presented in Milan, Italy
IASDR Conference 2023
'Life Changing Design'
Presented in Milan, Italy
IASDR Conference 2023
'Life Changing Design'
Presented in Milan, Italy
Is this alive? Towards a vocabulary for understanding and communicating living material experiences.
Living materials are a nascent material class where living organisms are embedded and kept alive in the design outcome to achieve novel functionalities, expressions, and interactions. Experiential characterisation studies with potential end-users will provide insights for developing these novel materials for meaningful material applications. Nevertheless, the current literature lacks a vocabulary to communicate and discuss living materials in user studies. To bridge this gap, our paper presents the development of a “Living Materials Vocabulary” consisting of 45 descriptive items. Through a term frequency analysis of relevant literature and in-depth interviews with eight biodesigners, we identified a set of descriptions which we clustered under five themes: origin, making, agency and autonomy, temporality, and impact of living materials. We selected representative items from these themes to compile our final vocabulary. We discuss how our vocabulary can be operationalised in living material characterisation studies and further inspire future biodesign practice.
WORKSHOP - A CLIMATE OF CHANGE
Miraculous Futures for Living Materials:
Speculative Storytelling with living materials
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This workshop aims to broaden the perspective of biodesigners and stimulate design ideation with living materials (e.g., bacteria- and algae-based materials) based on speculative storytelling strategies and recent research on designing with living materials. Building on the Miraculous Futures card deck, which is a tool developed by Klasien van de Zandschulp and Ashley Baccus-Clark for designing speculative stories, a special living materials edition of this card deck was designed based on the research ‘Living Material Vocabulary’ (Erturkan et al. 2022) to discuss possible futures for living with living materials. The card deck helps to understand what living materials are by introducing their qualities and stimulates the imagination to speculate on radical futures integrating living materials. During the workshop, this card deck is used to spark ideas and generate concepts. World-building exercises and templates help to develop these ideas further. The workshop results in a speculative story (a scene or situation) that can take place in the world that is created.
Introducing the third space of design for well-being:
Exploring the intersection between problem- and possibility-driven design through a design case on online dating experience
This paper explores the traditional distinction between problem- and possibility-driven design for promoting user well-being. Problem-driven design identifies and addresses unfulfilled needs to reduce ill-being (i.e., the first space of design for well-being), while possibility-driven design seeks to enhance well-being without addressing existing problems (i.e., the second space of design for well-being). The latter is informed by positive psychology, which studies the conditions for human flourishing. Although possibility-driven design has added a valuable new focus to the design repertoire, it confronts designers with some key challenges that are currently unresolved. Examples of these challenges include finding focus, determining evaluation metrics, and convincing stakeholders. To address these issues, this paper introduces a third space of design for well-being that integrates the two approaches with the intention of combining their strengths.
Envisioning the futures of design for wellbeing
The main goal of this three-hour workshop is to collectively envision futures for design for wellbeing (DfW), and more specifically, for Positive Design. We will share our reflections on the first decade of Delft Institute of Positive Design (DIoPD), a Delft-based research institute that stimulates the development of knowledge to support designers in their attempts to design for human flourishing. Like many other DfW initiatives, DIoPD projects adopted theories and methodologies primarily from positive psychology. Since both design research and research in positive psychology have progressed and developed significantly in the past decade, we believe that it is time to take stock and to envision the future of DfW for a fruitful and impactful decade to come. Accordingly, in this workshop, we will celebrate the collective achievements made by the international DfW community to date, identify common blind spots, and discuss emerging challenges and opportunities. We will do this by designing and facilitating a mix of plenary discussions, provocations, and short exercises. Ultimately, we aim to develop an agenda to guide a transition that pushes the boundaries of DfW research further, integrating a more diverse range of disciplines, methodologies, and epistemologies.
Miraculous futures of living materials
Design and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) scholars have shown a growing interest in utilising living organisms, biological processes, forms, information (DNA), and materials in design. These nascent design outcomes, where living organisms are kept alive, offer novel functionalities, expressions, and interactions. Biodesign offers immense opportunities to reshape our current world; however, it is challenging to go beyond our current human-centered reality and start a transformation by designing new, possible radical ecological, social, and economic models that reposition the human and more-than-human. Although there are speculative design examples that question our current human-centred way of looking at these materials, there is a need for methods and tools that can help design researchers and practitioners go beyond their current perspectives and develop new ways of doing and living in a future where we live with living artefacts. We developed a tool and workshop called ‘Miraculous Futures of Living Materials’ that aims to stimulate the imagination to help academics and professionals speculate on radical futures integrating living materials and artefacts and ultimately developing meaningful implications through three guided phases. In the first phase, participants will be introduced brief background information about the topic and the workshop. In the second phase, the card deck will be used in brainstorming and world-building exercises through given templates. In the third phase, participants will build a story illustrating a scene that takes place in their world and present them to each other. The workshop will result in speculative stories and will be concluded with a discussion session.