Social Design

The observation, analysis and construction of cities and forms of mobility are not always in step with the complexity of urban systems and changes in contemporary societies. It is possible to use time as a key to reading the functioning and dysfunctions of cities and as a springboard for new mobilitiesand sustainable urban development policies. This "chronotopic" perspective makes it possible to approach the complexity of urban systems and reflect on ways of "indwelling" times and mobilities. The researcher, the urban planner, the builder and the citizen are invited to change their outlooks, to think, design and manage the city by simultaneously taking into account urban physicality, flows and timetables in order to imagine, together a "malleable city", a more human, accessible and hospitable one.

This paper argues that responsible designers are responsive to the needs of the community, detailing how social designers can have a global impact through shaping their localities and therefore challenging the neoliberal economy. The author sees co-design — whether it is social, participatory or community design
— as an active agent in initiating the urgent social change needed for political equality, environmental justice and community wellbeing.

Tired of the lack of criticality present in many 'socially engaged practices' in design, I wrote this post as a way of starting a discussion on what 'social design' might mean. The post was originally published in my website / blog, where it trigger some important -and somewhat missing- discussion: http://www.pablocalderonsalazar.com/?p=2430

“Thinking aesthetic reality with Simondon”. As a philosophical program, this title presupposes three things: first, it presupposes that something called “aesthetic reality” exists and can be distinguished from reality in general; second, it presupposes that this “aesthetic reality” can be thought using the method and notions devised by Simondon; third, and more subtly, that we must think “aesthetic reality” with Simondon, which is to say that aesthetic reality poses a problem for Simondon’s philosophy.

Im Zuge der Debatten um ökonomische wie soziale Nachhaltigkeit und angesichts der Tatsache, dass Soziologie und Kulturwissenschaft die Dinge vermehrt hinsichtlich ihrer Rolle in gesellschaftlichen Prozessen reflektieren, sind soziale Dimensionen des Designs in den letzten Jahren besonders virulent geworden. Gegenwärtig entsteht verstärkt eine Designkultur, die ihre Zeitgemäßheit auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise durch soziale Relevanz herauszustellen versucht und im Zuge dessen auch vermehrt mit der Reflexion der eigenen Praxis beschäftigt ist. Das Design wird nicht nur deshalb zunehmend politisiert, weil globale soziale Missstände – wie Chancen- und Verteilungsungerechtigkeit oder Flucht und Migration – medial vermittelt besonders sichtbar sind, sondern auch weil sich das Verständnis sozialer Prozesse geändert hat. Der Beitrag zeichnet diese Änderung des Verständnisses von 'Social Design' anhand einer ethischen, immateriellen und interaktiven Lesart nach und entwickelt ein einleitendes Verständnis der zwischenmenschlichen Dimensionen von Design.

Design and designer's role have changed. It is now not only about adding aesthetic value and functionality to a product. The human centric approach of design generates questions of how design education can adapt and modify to magnify the role of a designer as a social leader and be responsible towards socially conscious design. Social innovation does involve the convergence of human involvement with contemporary society for a significant change. Hence, the role and scope of design is increased towards creating an impact on society and culture. Through the study of secondary data in the form of case studies, this paper attempts to identify how through design we can have innovative solutions towards social issues.

This project is about redesigning the ownership of resources
in marginal territories, in order to understand the complexity
of the issues it generates.
The rural landscape has been the space of collective creativity:
knowledge, practices, tools are parts of this culture, more and
more a marginal, fusing user, maker and thing itself.
In the transition through the industrial system many of the
territorial characters became obsolete or misused.
Today the transition leaves its traces in the landscape.
When nor industrial, nor conventional farming seems to grant
enough reward, what is the perspective for the future of rural
areas?
The rural space, that in the popular imaginary represents
abundance, is stricken with such poverty that it can only keep
producing only if it is constantly filled with material, normative
and intellectual resources derived from the urban-industrial
space.
These are in fact called high-input systems, while to keep on
producing they are strongly dependent from external input.
These input have to be seen not only material but social as
well.
By concentrating on the ownership of these resources
(including methods, knowledge and heritage) means having to
deal with what ties rural to urban geographies.
To investigate deeper this subject I decided to work in an
environment I know, my homeland, in the north-east of Italy.
As you could see in the pictures in these pages what I know
as rural landscape is more problematic than what one could
imagine.
It is important to record the complexity of this process as
well as the of the issues that generates. Seed breeding is
one of the core issues for farmers, while it embeds many of
the contradictions of the material and normative flow of the
market.
Patenting life, homogeneity criteria, dependency from the
distributors are the symptoms of it, but the cause has to be
searched in lack of a counterpart.
Folk crafts represent the medium of dialogue to connect
theoretical discussion with a common activity in the territory
but needs to be twisted in order to play again a social role.
They represent the technological attitude of a lost world
which is now struggling to access new layers of technology:
Mechanical, Chemical and Genomic ones.
Seeds, food, technology, architecture, didactics are all feature
of the same topic, creating a scenario in which singular microissues
become part of a broader view, will make possible to go
beyond the conventional solutions.
It is an investigation into the diversity of a territory, and
it represents a design attempt to participate in its social

This paper presents Tapiskwan, a project focused on developing design workshops for indigenous artisans that aim to encourage their empowerment by bridging tradition and innovation. Developed in partnership with members of the Atikamekw First Nation (Québec, Canada), this approach to design workshops is the result of a long-term commitment to community-based social innovation. Our design team has been collaborating with artisans, artists and community leaders since 2011 to address the challenge of producing crafts as a source of socioeconomic development. Our main activity has been the organization of intergenerational workshops to create contemporary products based on Atikamekw traditional iconography. Over the last four years, we developed an approach that motivates the participants and enhances their creativity, self-confidence and autonomy, and, at the same time, increases the participants' appreciation of their cultural heritage. This paper describes Tapiskwan's guiding principles, which could inspire similar initiatives within other indigenous communities. We suggest that such projects should be conceived as processes of collective discovery, in which designers and artisans learn together the challenges, opportunities and resources available, therefore aligning the intentions of several different stakeholders to the creation of a common vision.

Oftewel de fabelachtige, fantastische, ongelooflijke, onwaarschijnlijke, verbazingwekkende menselijke geest. Het is een term die de respectievelijk Japanse en Finse curatoren Noriko Kawakami en Ikko Yokoyama bedacht hebben voor een tentoonstelling (2014) in Tokio en hebben afgekort tot The Fab Mind. Een verwijzing naar het begin van een nieuwe beweging in design: de fablabs en de fabuleuze ontwerpmogelijkheden die deze met zich hebben meegebracht. 1 Een fablab is, in de meest poëtische betekenis van het woord, een afkorting voor fabulous laboratory. Daarnaast is het ook de afkorting van de meer voor de hand liggende betekenis: fabrication laboratory, met als belangrijkste doelstelling het digitaal fabriceren van dingen in een open proces. Dit gebeurt met behulp van een aantal technisch hoogstaande machines, waaronder een 3D-printer, een computergestuurde lasercutter, een freesmachine en open software, waarmee de gebruikers van het lab binnen een netwerk alledaagse objecten, maar ook veel complexere producten en/of onderdelen kunnen maken. Daarbij ziet bedenker en oprichter Neil Gershenfeld een revolutie van personal computer naar personal fabrication, want bij het bedenken en maken van bijvoorbeeld geavanceerde vliegtuigen zijn het niet de materialen die intelligent moeten zijn, maar de werktuigen waarmee ze gemaakt worden. Als docent aan het prestigieuze MIT zag Gershenfeld hoe westerse studenten op een bepaalde manier verwend zijn door de technische mogelijkheden die ze hebben en daardoor een frisse, creatieve intelligentie hebben verloren. Iets wat hij wel zag in de straatwijsheid in landen als India, waar constant op een creatieve manier gedacht wordt vanuit noodzaak. En waar men anderzijds geen toegang heeft tot slimme machines, die in samenspraak met dat creatieve en wilde denken misschien wel tot baanbrekende nieuwe bedenksels en producten zouden kunnen leiden. Bovendien is er een altruïstische onderstroom in zijn concept: Our mission is to provide access to the tools, the knowledge and the financial means to educate, innovate and invent using technology and digital fabrication to allow anyone to make (almost) anything, and thereby creating opportunities to improve lives and livelihoods around the world. 2 Het idee van het fablab groeide in 2001 uit de populaire lessenreeks How To Make (Almost) Anything die Gershenfeld aan het MIT doceerde. Het vond een eerste toepassing in een sociaal project voor jongeren in de Verenigde Staten. Snel volgden fablabs in onder andere Kenia en India, landen waar het niet voor de hand ligt om te studeren. Gershenfeld en zijn team hoopten met hun labs jongeren aan te trekken die veel verder en vooral vrijer zouden denken dan de studenten aan het MIT. Het belangrijkste kenmerk van de fablabs is daarom dat ze vrijwel gratis toegankelijk en vooral laagdrempelig zijn. In ruil voor de mogelijkheid om gratis gebruik te maken van dit fabuleuze laboratorium wordt gevraagd om kennis te delen – als een soort 3D-Wikipedia, het bekendste

The great design movements in design history were, for the most part, guided by utopian, political, or at least reformist aims. They combined the question of what today is called 'material culture' with the more general question of how we want to live. Today, faced with the global challenge of creating sustainable economies and societies, design has rediscovered its ethical, social and critical tradition. However, due to their global nature, today's problems have reached an unprecedented level of complexity and inertia. These problems are deeply ingrained into global policies – and the chances to face them are the highest when employing political means. As a consequence, if design aims to contribute in these challenging domains, it has to conceive itself as political.

Teoria del type design, la prima teoria completa del di-segno di caratteri, uscirà a settembre 2019 per i tipi di Ronzani Editore in prima edizione italiana. Scritta da Gerard Unger - designer e docente olandese internazionalmente riconosciuto come uno dei più autorevoli esponenti della disciplina - e pubblicata in edizione originale nel 2018, la Teoria si è affermata da subito come un classico della letteratura tipografica. Il libro si articola in 24 brevi capitoli, ognuno dei quali affronta un aspetto specifico del disegno di caratteri, dal rapporto con il linguaggio a quello con gli stili, dall'importanza dei modelli storici all'evoluzione digitale, dalla leggibilità all'espressività. I capitoli sono accompagnati da più di 200 immagini e da esempi pratici; la terminologia è chiarita da un esaustivo glossario. La Teoria si rivolge a chiunque nutra un interesse sincero nei confronti della tipografia; la completezza della trattazione e la chiarezza dell'esposizione la rendono adatta a un pubblico ampio: dai professionisti del settore agli studenti di tipografia e design, fino ai semplici appassionati di questa meravigliosa arte che da più di cinque secoli dà forma alle nostre parole. La traduzione e l'impaginazione dell'edizione italiana sono di Giorgio Cedolin, sul progetto grafico dell'edizione originale e con l'utilizzo dei caratteri Alverata e Sanserata, punto di arrivo della ricerca formale ed espres-siva di Gerard Unger sul disegno delle lettere. Volume rilegato, cartonato, di 240 pagine con numerose illustrazioni ed esempi.

This essay depicts the entangled knots in doing a social design project in a personal real-life experience. The author used to be a member of “The Flying Classroom,” which is a volunteer project that brings design projects to schools and holds workshops in deprived areas of Iran. Going through a detailed report from one of these trips, she asks questions about the social responsibility of designers and the consequences of solutions they provide for wicked problems.

This article explores how placemaking took place in architectural and design studios working with migrant and displaced communities at universities in three countries. Placemaking is a dimension of architectural and urban design practice that is emulated in architectural design studios – and often takes the form of a top-down and expert-driven exercise. In contrast, bottom-up placemaking is constituted through spontaneous and everyday practices in a given locality. The studios engaged with social scientists with a particular focus on displaced and immigrant communities. In Delhi, a multi-disciplinary social design studio at Ambedkar University applied community engagement and a service design approach to sustainable social interventions with a physical design component. At the University of Brighton, UK, an architectural design/build studio aimed at actual construction and transgressed the studio boundary to work closely with a charity supporting young refugees. In Norway, architecture students in an urbanism studio at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design surveyed an immigrant-dominated modernist housing district and proposed architectural and urban space interventions. Across the studios, student projects ranged from visualising futures to physical and social interventions. Learning outcomes varied, including design and planning skills, community engagement methods, co-design approaches and training in reflexivity. Venturing beyond the studio entailed engaging in sociocultural learning practices, engaging urban complexities and challenging expert authority and epistemologies in architecture and design education.

This article has been peer-reviewed through the journal's standard double-blind peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review.

Resumo Este artigo explora o papel dos designers na transformação colaborativa de espaços públicos, sob a perspectiva interdisciplinar do Design Anthropology e o cruzamento de interesses comuns entre duas pesquisas realizadas paralelamente em diferentes bairros do Rio de Janeiro e inseridas no âmbito do Laboratório de Design e Antropologia da ESDI (Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial da UERJ). Tomando o território como cenário e objeto de trabalho e as pessoas como potência de imaginação coletiva, os designers atuam de forma engajada e em correspondência com as interações sociais existentes, para compreensão da realidade local e intervenção de forma integrada com suas dinâmicas, buscando a co-criação de alternativas compartilhadas para o futuro. Abstract This article explores the role of designers in the collaborative transformation of public spaces under the interdisciplinary perspective of Design Anthropology and the crossing of common interests between two researches carried out in parallel in different neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, and inserted in the Laboratory of Design and Anthropology of ESDI. Taking the territory as a scenario and an object of work and people as a potential collective imagination, designers act in a committed way and in correspondence to existing social interactions, in order to understand the local reality and intervene in an integrated way with its dynamics, seeking the co-creation of shared alternatives for the future.

Only recently have we witnessed the inclusion of ethics and global citizenship in tourism debates. The upcoming Tourism Conference in The Netherlands, Connecting the dots, is the first of its kind. The freedom of movement, the right to travel and simultaneously the rise of a multitude of alternative forms of tourism provide sufficient justification to discuss the manifold relationships between tourism, ethics and global citizenship. Although these concepts have been studied by various disciplines and as phenomena in their own right, in order to connect the dots in contemporary political and sociological thinking, it is important that we take a cross disciplinary approach.
In the film “Done Bali” key Indonesian academics discuss with the interviewer Kerry Negara, how in 1930 Bali changed for tourism and in 2016, Bali is changed due to tourism.
This research proposal highlights the need for understanding the relations and effects between the way we, as tourists or hosts, interact with each other and the environment and how people reflect on these encounters.

El diseño socialmente responsable es un diseño comprometido y el compromiso es político. Eso permite descartar muchas variaciones de diseños autoproclamados como “responsables”. Así, entenderemos en esta reflexión el diseño visual socialmente responsable en su variante denominada “activismo gráfico”. La idea de activismo nos remite a una práctica específica del diseño visual: un diseño que pretende transformar una situación social. Si esta es la finalidad del activismo gráfico es clave evaluar su efectividad sobre este aspecto. Esa efectividad, desde luego, es un tipo de efectividad política. Agruparemos el activismo gráfico en tres variantes, según los siguientes objetivos o propósitos de tal diseño: 1) Concientizar al público sobre una situación problemática, 2) Movilizar a la ciudadanía en torno a alguna causa y 3) Conmover al usuario para la recaudación de fondos. Ahora bien, como el activismo gráfico es abiertamente político en necesario evaluar su efectividad.

Une des promesses de la participation citoyenne est d’assurer à tous, de l’expert au citoyen ordinaire, voix au chapitre dans la définition des équipements, institutions et principes qui constituent notre monde commun. Depuis quelques années, cette ambition démocratique nourrit de plus en plus d’activités visant à mobiliser la participation citoyenne dans des ateliers de co-création. Ces activités, forums ouverts, living labs, science shops, etc., adoptent des structures méthodologiques souples et peu formalisées, empruntant à l’approche design, de manière à réduire les entraves qui interfèrent avec l’intégration des usagers finaux dans les dispositifs de consultation traditionnels. Or, un examen critique préalable des dynamiques et des résultats de tels ateliers tend à montrer que le lien entre la liberté de parole que favorise l’exercice créatif, et la réalisation des ambitions démocratiques est moins univoque que l’on pourrait le croire.



(...)

Cette communication tentera de mettre en lumière comment une absence de contraintes pose un risque pour la participation démocratique et comment, au contraire, la mise en place d’un certain type de cadrage des discussions peut être à même de limiter les charges qui pèsent sur la participation des citoyens ordinaires dans des activités de co-création.

Welchen Einfluss hat die Gestaltung des gegenständlichen Umfeldes auf zwischenmenschliche Beziehungen und wie werden diese gewollt oder ungewollt mit den Dingen mitgestaltet? Auf welche Weise werden durch Design und Architektur soziale Kompetenzen wie zwischenmenschliches Erkennen, Handeln und Erleben ermöglicht oder verunmöglicht?
Autor*innen verschiedener Disziplinen gehen diesen Fragen nach und eröffnen hierbei eine dingorientierte Perspektive auf das Themenfeld des Social Design, die sowohl geeignet ist, eine Brücke zwischen Theorie und Praxis zu bilden, als auch einschlägiges Studienmaterial für die sozialen Dimensionen der Gestaltung zu versammeln.

This paper outlines an emerging Transition Design approach for addressing " wicked " problems (such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, crime, poverty, pollution, etc.) and catalysing societal transitions toward more sustainable and desirable futures. Wicked problems are " systems problems " that exist within large, socio-technical systems and therefore require new problem-solving approaches. The Transition Design Framework brings together an evolving body of practices that can be used to: 1. visualize and " map " complex problems and their interconnections and interdependencies; 2. situate them within large, spatio-temporal contexts; 3. identify and bridge stakeholder conflicts and leverage alignments; 4. facilitate stakeholders in the co-creation of visions of desirable futures; 5. identify leverage points in the large problem system in which to situate design interventions. Rather than a fixed, templatised process, the Transition Design Framework provides a logic for bringing together an evolving set of practices relevant to designing for systems level change. This paper reports on how this approach is being tested on a community based project that was informed by classroom based coursework. A new, design-led approach is needed to address the complex, wicked problems confronting societies in the 21 st century (Hughes & Steffen, 2013; Jensen, 2017) and to seed and catalyse societal transitions toward more sustainable and desirable long-term futures (Porritt, 2013, pp 274-276).

Achille Mbembe posits the radical notion that, in the twenty-first century, Africa will constitute the planet’s main cultural and philosophical event, as the diaspora of the post-colony embraces its African voice and disassembles the dominant Western narratives that were imposed upon it. Creative thinkers and practitioners like Sunu Gonera, Okwui Enwezor, Oswald Macharia, Azu Nwagbogu and Wanuri Kahiu, among many others across the continent, are reimagining the traditional with future awareness and a sense of opportunity. Afrofuturism, in its contemporary incarnation, has become one important trajectory in this regard, that incorporates a range of elements that include culture, tradition, language, aspiration, fantasy and technology. This paper interrogates how the work of certain creative people in Africa are expressing this by developing innovative ways to help address aspects of the issues facing Africa. Further, it proposes that this transformative process exemplifies how the mechanisms of social design are employed as spaces of inclusivity that are not subject to the whims only of consumerism. The paper contextualises African creative thinking as made manifest in the work of a selection of African creatives, followed by presenting views of extant African creativity. The link to Afrofuturism, speculation and cultural significance is proffered, a model is developed and then deployed, and extended into the space of social design proposing how this inclusive design and engagement approach might redefine Africanity and cultural ownership.

Based on a critical analysis of the two notions of “crisis” and “compassion,” this article outlines and problematizes the increasing engagement of design practices with refugees and vulnerable communities on the move. By contextualizing different historical and contemporary humanitarian design examples in an analysis of current European border politics, the article questions the ways in which designing in the aftermath of the so-called “refugee crisis” has been mobilized without due consideration of what types of politics it produces and what types of politics it eventually ignores. It suggests that designers instead need to develop a more political understanding of the current border regime that produces and regulates refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants worldwide and to think of practices that support the struggles of racialized people on the move in transgressing and questioning the borders.

O chamado design sustentável retoma a discussão a respeito do papel social do design. Enquanto algumas propostas atuais tratam indiretamente dos impactos sociais nos processos de produção, uso e descarte de produtos, há outras que visam principalmente reduzir problemas sociais. Neste artigo, buscamos identificar os objetivos de projeto que poderiam ser mais relevantes no contexto da sustentabilidade social. Usamos, como fator delimitador, as questões abordadas pela Agenda 21. Como resultado, foram encontrados os seguintes temas: pobreza, saúde, habitação, educação, participação e padrões de consumo.

This dissertation examines examples of local authority-led, developer-led, arts-led and community artwashing in Britain's urban communities. It uses two London-centred case studies- Hannah Nicklin's artist residency on the Teviot council estate and the artist residencies facilitated by Poplar HARCA and Bow Arts at the architecturally world-renowned Balfron Tower- to expose the damaging effects of artwashing on both artists and the communities they were meant to serve. Research outlines the nature and causes of artwashing, including the impact of neoliberal policy on the funding of artists and the management of social housing. Neoliberal policy is attributed to the financial vulnerability of artists and the increased likelihood of their involvement with and manipulation by property developers. The implications of artist residencies are investigated, including their use in the production of a neo-bohemian aesthetic which is intentionally created to encourage gentrification. Neoliberalism in the form of the privatisation of social housing (when handed from local democratically-elected councils to private developers) is found to be primarily to blame for artwash-gentrification. Essential factors for reducing the likelihood of future artwashing in at risk communities are identified as being a reduction of the privatisation of social housing, increased control over the activities of private developers and further education of artists to allow them to better understand their potential to be manipulated by developers. The use of artists and empowering arts projects to support and enhance the liveability and stability of urban communities is strongly encouraged, as exemplified by Sheldon's typology of artistically-informed urban regeneration (2015). This typology highlights opportunities for meaningful collaboration between artists and urban communities, demonstrating the ability of empowering arts projects to encourage the place-guarding of at risk communities and to mitigate the likelihood of future artwashing.

In How to Thrive in the Next Economy, design writer John Thackara offers ten thematic recommendations for flourishing in the future. First, he pummels the reader with staggering statistics that assert the intensity and magnitude of the catastrophe we humans, and especially urban dwellers, have caused. Then he uses his first-hand observations of local practices carried out around the world, especially in the Global South, to identify sustainable practices for providing future generations with necessities such as land, water, food, mobility, and clothing.

Dyslexia has been a common reason of the insecurities children develop in their early school years, oftentimes remaining a problem way after a child has learned how to read and write. Depending on whether the problem is observed in Eastern or Western Europe, teachers and school staff can assume different stages of awareness about the condition and approach it differently. In all occasions however, the general public that is confronted with the condition faces a difficulty in empathizing with it because of the condition’s vague definition and symptoms that differ case by case. In numerous occasions, people act insensitively towards dyslexics, causing anxiety and stress. Psychological consequences can be permanent and influence an individual’s character throughout one’s entire life. In this paper, we analyse
the origin of the problem and develop insights that would help in generating effective
key messages for raising awareness about dyslexia and its symptoms, as well as convert them into a multi-channel campaign that would create a more understanding and tolerant environment for dyslexics to express themselves in, gaining empathy from our target.

[Written for the 2015 Transition Design Symposium at Carnegie Mellon School of Design]
Others have written eloquently and convincingly about why it's necessary for us to evolve the practice of design, and why the next chapter of design needs to involve a long and systemic view. Increasingly, designers are participating in efforts to generate resilient societal and environmental well-being. But many of these efforts involve taking the very same methods that we've been applying to business and technology questions — methods developed for the job of creating consumer products — and applying them to social challenges. Social challenges, however, are quite different than product challenges. How do we work when we are faced with the task of fostering healthy dynamics in a human community at any scale?

This paper summarizes the ways in which social situations present complexities that are beyond current design practice, describes the characteristics of the new approaches we need, suggests examples of approaches that have some of those characteristics, and offers a few summary conclusions.

La bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice est appelée à se transformer en un nouvel espace citoyen, technologique et ludique. Deux axes de développement complémentaires sont envisagés pour ce projet : une bibliothèque spécifiquement dédiée aux adolescents et un laboratoire d’innovation ouvert à tous.

Une approche de codesign a engagé différents publics dans l’élaboration d’hypothèses de concept et le développement de prototypes pour organiser et aménager l’espace Saint-Sulpice. Des adolescents, des usagers ou représentants d’usagers de la bibliothèque, des intervenants d’organismes communautaires et des experts en création, en création numérique ou en jeu ont contribué à imaginer la bibliothèque du futur. Cette démarche de
conception participative a pris la forme d’une résidence d’idéation d’une semaine avec 19 adolescents et de quatre ateliers de codesign auprès de 64 personnes au total.

Ce processus participatif a généré des idées riches et foisonnantes à propos de la vocation de l’incubateur Saint-Sulpice, de son offre d’activités et de services, de ses propriétés formelles, des équipements requis ou encore des ressources nécessaires. Elles sont traduites dans 4 maquettes présentant des scénarios élaborés par des ados et 17 concepts issus d’échanges et de compromis entre les participants aux ateliers de codesign.

Si ces 21 propositions de concept expriment des besoins et des aspirations de citoyens, d’usagers et d’experts, elles ne sont pas de simples listes de souhaits. Ces propositions incarnent des expériences souhaitées dont se dégagent différentes qualités : celles d’un lieu convivial, entremetteur, malléable, socialement structurant, spécialisé, spectaculaire
et tourné vers le projet. Ce sont ces critères de design qui peuvent guider la transformation de la bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice et mener le projet à une autre étape.

This booklet was published in 1990 to accompany an exhibition at the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. It explores the work of Dennis Livingston, a Baltimore-based information designer and social activist, who used graphics to explore social issues and convey data in an accessible way. Livingston died in 2011.

A [revised for a forthcoming translation into Chinese] sketch-outline of a paper attempting to build the case that, contra Ezio Manzini, Social Design should be considered to a practice that is distinct from conventional, commercial forms of designing. The paper offers a survey of 10 different kinds of Social Design. Originally drafted for the http://mappingsocialdesign.org/ research project.

Last century, a new design area bond with new aims and principles emerged, committed to answer more urgent and relevant needs of humanity.
Multiple terms come forward to identify it and because there isn't a unifying language among its practitioners, questions have been raised about whether they refer to a general area in design or to single design practices. This “social” vocabulary, caused so far enormous controversy and dispersion of this area in design that wants – and today it needs – to assert itself practically and theoretically.
In this paper, we propose to clarify some of these questions. By searching in written records we intend to analyse how “social” design practitioners identify and describe their work and approach, while aiming to better understand this area and discipline the existing multiplicity.
Moreover, the aim of this paper is to verify the possibility of encompassing all expressions – and practices, if demonstrated – into a single umbrella term that can include all the disparity between them and simultaneously reinforce their similarities. This will lead to a more concise and precise identification and recognition of this area and its practitioners, helping to build a stronger case for its assertion.