Flourish by Design brings together a range of established and emerging voices in design research for a collection that provides original provocations on topics of global significance. It is an insightful guide to original theory and practice concerning how we can design for a better tomorrow.
Featuring contributors from a diverse array of backgrounds and professions, this edited book explores the difference that design and design research can make for people, organisations, and the planet to prosper now and in the future. It offers a range of ideas and techniques through practical examples and ongoing projects showing how applied design research can respond to global challenges. Covering topics as diverse as artificial intelligence, bio-inspired materials, more-than-human design, sustainability, and urban acupuncture, it shares interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary design research not just to demonstrate what could be plausible in the near future but also to explain why it might be preferable. By sharing these despatches, this collection represents the very best of what design research can do, explaining how and why.
This book is intended for a wide audience of professionals, scholars, and students in design, architecture, and public policy, as well as anyone who has an interest in how we design the world and, in turn, it designs us.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license
Introduction: flourish by design: agendas and practices for positive change
Nick Dunn, Leon Cruickshank, and Gemma Coupe
Part 1
Flourishing together
1. Flourishing together
Christopher Frayling
2. Flourishing, design, and the brain
John R. Ehrenfeld
3. Designing more-than-human urban places
Nick Dunn
4. Why a design attitude matters in a world in flux
Mariana Amatullo
5. Flourish(ing) by design?
Paul Rodgers
6. Memes —designed to flourish or doomed to divide?
Naomi Jacobs
7. Can cesigners and AI flourish together?
Boyeun Lee
8. Challenging capitalism through design for commonism
Rosendy Galabo
9. How cross-relational design research can foster pandemic recovery
Elisavet Christou
10. Flourishing in joyful discovery: scaffolding new thinking
Lee Brewster
11. Build together a flourishing world: let’s give a shit and plant seeds
Ingrid van der Wacht
Part 2
Flourishing organisations
12. Flourishing organisations
Bruce Brown
13. What organisations will flourish in the future and why we need a new design culture that is fit for the 22nd century?
Andrea Siodmok
14. Flourishing for all: the imperative for design research to go beyond academia
Leon Cruickshank
15. The shadow side: why embracing death and decay is essential to flourishing
Laura Santamaria
16. Making design research work by flourishing through disappearance
Joseph Lindley
17. Working at the junction: reconciling numbers and vulnerabilities
Marzia Mortati
18. Public value by design: toward a flourishing design culture in public services
Louise Mullagh and Jez Bebbington
19. What schools do we need?
Ana Rute Costa
20. Evolutionary change of organisations and its flourishment over the design paradigms
Kun-Pyo Lee
21. It is time for radical co-design
David Perez
22. Design after things
Chris Speed
Part 3
Flourishing in the World
23. Flourishing in the world
Deyan Sudjic
24. Making a difference by design
Sevra Davis
25. Transdisciplinary design: next-generation bio-inspired building materials
Jenny Sabin
26. Can design heal a city?
Ravi Naidoo
27. The idea of ‘agency’ in design today
Camilla Buchanan
28. The Anthropocene warrants a new standard time
Rupert Griffiths
29. Just toys? From material sustainability to co-design and degrowth
Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs
30. Legacy and sustainability in design research: a global dialogue
Emmanuel Tsekleves
31. Falling UP and caring for better
Louise Valentine
32 Sustainability: designing for a technological utopia or dystopia?
Micheal Stead
Afterword: to flourish or not to flourish by design
Rachel Cooper
Biography
Nick Dunn is Professor of Urban Design and Executive Director of Imagination, the design and architecture research lab at Lancaster University, UK. He is the founding Director of the Dark Design Lab, exploring the impacts of nocturnal activity on humans and non-humans. Nick has worked with the Alliance for Healthy Cites, Design Council European Commission, International Dark-Sky Association, and World Health Organization. He has authored numerous books, curated exhibitions, and given talks at public festivals and conferences around the world.
Leon Cruickshank is Professor of Design and Creative Exchange and a founding member of Imagination at Lancaster University. His research focuses on the development of open and co-design processes in the private, public, and voluntary sectors. Past projects include leading the £13.2 million Beyond Imagination project funded by Research England and Lancaster University and the £1.2 million AHRC Leapfrog project. He is currently working on giving communities a stronger voice in an equitable move to sustainability.
Gemma Coupe is the Beyond Imagination Impact Manager at Lancaster University, UK, a bold and engaging project exploring how design research can contribute to a healthier, more prosperous, and sustainable world. Gemma has worked as the Design Manager on multiple design research projects. She develops strategic partnerships, projects, and events that demonstrate the value and impact of design-led research. Previously, Gemma was a founding member of Creative Lancashire, providing an innovative response to economic and social issues affecting creative businesses.
