phd research week 42

"The things we value are the things that don't come in a spreadsheet." (Professor Janet McDonnell) This week took place the first meeting of Central Saint Martins research group  Socially Responsive Design and Innovation, a group of 20 Central Saint Martins phd students, professors and associate lecturers, with different practices from innovation management, product design, communication design and the shared understanding of design's role in contemporary society.

"Socially responsive design has been defined as “Design which takes as its primary driver social issues, its main consideration social impact and its main objective social change” (Gamman & Thorpe, 2006, 2011).  Typically societal scenarios constitute complex and ‘wicked’ design challenges, characterised by competing and contradictory drivers and desirable outcomes, depending on context and stakeholder perspective. We argue that tackling such design challenges requires a socially responsive design approach, as it is not clear which ethical design drivers, or stakeholder agendas, the design(er) should/can be responsible to."

Further reading on Socially Responsive Design: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts