Research and Resources
The Agile Body – The Occupational Context of Neoliberalist Design (hosted by John Knight)
This session took place on April 23, 2021.
Design Education + Economics (Hosted by Elise Hodson)
This session looks at the potential for economics to be incorporated in design education.
Beyond Tinkering – the Future of Social Innovation (hosted by Tommy Hutchinson)
With experience from working in over 40 countries, Tommy Hutchinson, founder of i-genius sets out a Manifesto on how social innovation needs to change if it is to remain relevant in a changing world.
The failure of trust in designing our systems (hosted by Julia Petretta)
Trust is a staple when it comes to value exchange. Whether conscious or not, it is trust in a system that allows us to participate.
Counter-Framing the New Economy (hosted by Sharon Prendeville and Pandora Syperek)
This talk will interrogate the socio-material “taken-for-grantedness” of the framing of the New Economy, focusing on the dualistic embededdness of the ‘constitutional trio’ of sustainability: economics, society, ecology, and their variations.
The Hermetic Bank Card (hosted by James Richards)
What would it be like if the rituals and practices of our everyday bank card transactions, were more significant? What if we could design for understanding, and have interactions that lead to a deeper understanding of our places in personal, national and global economies?
Spatial reasoning and economic space (hosted by Stuart Curran)
Design can be a way to reason with space by making abstract thought visible.
Ainu Design: Past and Present (hosted by Maki Sekine, Xanat Vargas Meza and partially in Japanese)
The Ainu are one of the indigenous groups that live in Japan. This session will present a brief summary of Ainu Design (particularly textile design), current applications and the links of indigenous design with society and the environment in the Japanese context.
Design, housing transitions and the Social and Solidarity Economy (hosted by Adrià Garcia i Mateu)
Beyond design interventions, we’re seeing how a nuanced understanding of the political economy of the contexts we intervene is key for an impactful practice.
Questioning just and equitable resource access in circular economies (hosted by Isaac Ortega Alvarado)
The circular economy (CE) is a buzzword, presented as a set of approaches to minimize the negative impacts of resource exploitation —in extraction and waste. However, little is said about the distribution and access of resources in a CE, or better said economical aspect of it.
How designers get to become economic agents and can bring that agency into community and change (hosted by Gill Wildman)
This is a discussion about how we as designers might think about about capturing the value of what we create as designers, and what our participants create with us.
Pluriversal Design: Perspectives from Ainu Mosir (hosted by Xanat Vargas Meza)
Ainu Mosir is the world of the Ainu people, recognized as indigenous by the Japanese government. By the means of cultural revitalization through legislation and social movements, Ainu creatives have slowly but steadily flourished in recent years.
Designing for Liberation in Solidarity Economy Circuits (hosted by Frederick van Amstel)
Solidarity economy is an approach for developing fair community exchanges and human development within capitalist societies, working as a semi-detached alternative economic circuit based on the principles of self-management.
Making debt pay in public sector service design (hosted by Dan Howarth, Vicky Teinaki)
If you work on digital services, you probably know the term ‘technical debt’. But what about design, research, product, data and service debt – are they all things too?
Resources and Externalities in digital design (hosted by Gauthier Roussilhe)
This discussion intends to explore how digital design practices embody specific economic ideas, possibly inadequate for ecological transition policies.
Mapping the Territory: The visual fields of Economics and Design (hosted by John V Willshire)
From representations to simulations, assumptions to ideologies, modelling to wondering, it’s a session that promises no answers and lots of questions about the questions.
#commonize: Using commonized design to create a post-capitalist economy (hosted by Justin Sacks)
To commonize is to place a resource under the governance of a community of people, versus privatize or nationalize.
Circling the Diamond – imagining sustainable design thinking (hosted by Alastair Somerville)
How can we imagine sustainable models of Design Thinking that are not trapped by consumerism? Let’s spend time talking about circling the double diamond.
Existing and Emerging Political Economies of Design (hosted by Dr. Joanna Boehnert)
The political economy governs design economies and ultimately determines whether the design industry can (or cannot) rise to global challenges such as climate change.
Design. A Business Case – Thinking, Leading and Managing by Design (hosted by Sally Brazier, Brigitte Borja de Mozota, Steinar Valade-Amland
Design. A Business Case – Thinking, Leading and Managing by Design (by Brigitte Borja de Mozota & Steinar Valade-Amland) argues the business case for design excellence in organization—whether your mission is to develop new products, services, or procedures or to change existing ones into something better.
Economies of Design
Author: Guy Julier How are the rise of design and neoliberalism connected? How does design change...
How I built a toaster – from scratch
Author: Thomas Thwaites It takes an entire civilisation to build a toaster. Designer Thomas...
Porter’s Five Forces
Author: MindTools Porter’s Five Forces is a simple but powerful tool for understanding the...
Performative Dynamics in Designerly Economics
Author: Kakee Scott Working as designers and design researchers, we participate in circumstances...
The Origin of Wealth
Author: Eric D. Beinhocker In The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker argues that modern science...
The recovery needs to be a full-scale economic renewal
Authors: Cliff Taylor and Mariana Mazzucato The Irish Times presents a series of articles on...
Universal Basic Everything
Author: Tessy Britton Creating essential infrastructure for post Covid-19 neighbourhoods....
This is a global catastrophe that has come from within
Author: Jonathan Watts In the early days of the lock-down, philosopher Bruno Latour wrote an essay...
Why it’s time to vandalize the economic textbooks
Author: Kate Raworth at university twenty years ago, the concept of The Circular Flow of Money and...
Defund (and redesign) everything
Author: Jordan Hall It is not stretching the truth to say that effectively all of our social...
You cant pay cash here
Author: Sirin Kale As a result of the pandemic, retailers and banks have been pushing us to use...
The Good Ancestor
Author: Roman Krznaric We live in the age of the tyranny of the now, driven by 24/7 news,...
Introducing the Amsterdam City Doughnut
Author: Kate Raworth The Doughnut was first published in 2012, proposing a social foundation and...
The Virtual Economy
Between December 2017 and January 2018, 34,356 parcels of land were sold in a single real estate...
8 Principles for Managing A Commmons
Author: Elinor Ostrom Elinor Ostrom shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for her lifetime...
Capital in the Twenty First Century
Author: Thomas Picketty What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution...
Reading Marx
Author: David Harvey David Harvey is a Marxist thinker about political economy and has been...
Anthropocene Economics and Design
Author: Joanna Boehnert Economics is a field under fierce contestation. In response to the...
Ecocene Design Economies
Author: Joanna Boehnert Despite accumulative social and technological innovation, the ...
Design, Ecology, Politics Towards the Ecocene
Author: Joanna Boehnert Design, Ecology, Politics links social and ecological theory to...
Who Gets What And Why
Author: Alvin E. Roth A Nobel laureate reveals the often surprising rules that govern a vast array...
A Simpler Way
Authors: Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers Margaret Wheatley & Myron Kellner-Rogers...
Thinking In Systems
Author: Donella Meadows Meadows’ Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering...
A Pattern Language
Authors: Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein, and Sara Ishikawa In The Timeless Way of...
Sacred Economics
Author: Charles Einsenstein Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift...
How To Thrive In The Next Economy
Author: John Thackara. John Thackara has spent a lifetime roving the globe in search of...
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
Author: Kate Raworth Th Economy is a system, and just like any other, it was designed – in ways...
The World We Made
Author: Jonathon Porritt The World We Made describes a planet that is green, fair, connected,...
Urban economics in the time of Covid-19: What happens when the thing that makes cities great also makes them dangerous?
Author: UCL University Many of the world’s most iconic cities are in lock-down. Bustling...
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed
Author: James Scott This important book dispenses with ideological posturing and tries to explain...
Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change
Author: Papaneck, V. Design for the Real World has been translated into over twenty languages...
Proposals for the Feminine Economy — Sister
Author: Jennifer Armbrust A holistic vision for a new economic paradigm, founded on feminine...
China abandons GDP target for first time in decades amid ‘great uncertainty’ of virus
Author: Helen Davidson and Lily Kuo Premier Le Keqiang tell annual congress that...
This economist has a plan to fix capitalism. It’s time we all listened
Author: Matt Holyoak The idea that made Mariana Mazzucato one of the most influential...
Why New Economics Needs a New Invisible Hand
Author: David S. Wilson In short, the middle path between laissez-faire and centralized...
How to Predict the Future: Confessions of a Modern Cassandra
Author: Ugo Bardi Collapses happen. It is one of the rules of the universe. But collapses are...
A festival on economy, without the economists
Author: Corine van Emmerik What the experts have warned for in the seventies has by now...
Urban commons re-emerge in Le Grand Jeu
Author: Mar Escarrabill At Waag, they believe our futures are already here. We are living in...
Urban economics in the time of Covid-19: What happens when the thing that makes cities great also makes them dangerous?
Author: UCL Post COVID-19 Urban Futures series. What happens to cities when it is...
Has the time finally come for universal basic income?
Author: Rutger Bregman In the past few weeks, calls for a universal basic income have been louder...
Wellbeing Economics for the COVID-19 recovery. Ten principles to build back better.
Author: Wellbeing Economic Alliance The COVID-19 pandemic is having devastating effects on...
In the bubble: designing in a complex world
Author: John Thackara We’re filling up the world with technology and devices, but we’ve lost...
Design When Everybody Designs
Author: Ezio Manzini Design, When Everybody Designs by Ezio Manzini is a timely,...
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
Author: Mariana Mazzucato Modern economies reward activities that extract value rather than...
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered
Author: Ernst Friedrich Schumacher How does our economic system impact the way we...