Abstract:

This workshop explores relationality in design education, particularly in the context of design practices that address social justice and climate change. It seeks to create a space for design educators to share and exchange practical approaches for integrating relational pedagogies frameworks into design education and embodying its principles in their teaching practices. Referring to theories on Relational Pedagogies, the workshop will address the dual meaning of “matter” – who and what matters in design education. Drawing from their own experiences and imaginations, participants will be involved in mapping the bodies, objects, spaces, materialities and other nonhuman bodies and things that should be considered in relational design pedagogies and how to do so. The outcome will be a compilation of mapped approaches and strategies for relational design pedagogies which design educators can use in their own teaching practices and institutions. Ultimately, the workshop seeks to empower and emancipate design educators in the face of current sociopolitical and ecological challenges, offering a space for mutual exchange and collective reflection on how relationality can be concretely integrated in design education.

Abstract:
Designing for democracy often emphasizes values while overlooking the role of relationships in
shaping civic life. This workshop explores how relationality – encompassing social ties, political
agency, and economic conditions – shapes grassroots democratic experiments and the
technologies they inspire. Grounded in principles of deep democracy and participatory
approaches, we use the Relational Sandbox to conduct smallscale experiments on how
democratic technologies can redistribute power and how locally rooted designs can resist
extractive technology development. Through the lens of relational civics, we co-imagine
strategies prioritizing meaningful, democratic technologies over capital-driven ones. The
workshop invites designers, activists, and researchers to co-develop strategies and design
guidelines that place relationships at the center of democratic practice

Abstract:
Over the last two decades, we have witnessed a relational turn in design research, embracing the entanglements of human and non-human elements in socio-material arrangements. Despite the foregrounding of relations in these entanglements, little attention has been given to what role spatiality and places may have in relational design. This workshop explores the entanglement of relational design, spatiality and places based on design cases from participants. Using a design charette methodology, participants will collaboratively (1) map how relational entanglements shape and are shaped by design research and practice; (2) identify and unpack disciplinary tensions and opportunities; and (3) cocreate a vision and action plan for bridging silos and fostering collaboration across disciplines. The aim is to build an interdisciplinary understanding of the intimate entanglement of human and nonhuman elements, spatiality and places in the complex social-material arrangements we engage with in relational design.

Abstract:

The pluriverse represents an entanglement of cosmologies shaped by coloniality and modernity (Mignolo, 2013). Service design’s historical roots trace back to exploitative systems, evident in both slavery’s triangular trade and domestic service hierarchies. Even the etymology—’service’ from servitus (slavery)—reflects a problematic legacy (Kim, 2018). These historical power dynamics persist in contemporary service design through gendered and racialized divisions, exploitative supply chains, and hierarchical service environments (Prendiville, 2024; Allen 2019; Inikori, 2002; Williams, 1994). Service design practices can either challenge or reinforce these dynamics, as demonstrated in Bitner’s servicescapes theory and Clatworthy or Vink’s analysis of design’s cultural and social impact. This positions designers as active agents who can perpetuate or transform existing power structures in service relationships.

Abstract:

As designers, we design from a human perspective—a position we cannot change but must critically reflect upon. This workshop addresses this fundamental challenge: the invisible «human norm» in design. While norm-critical approaches have explored norms, the most profound invisible norm is simply our existence as humans. This is particularly significant as we confront environmental crises demanding design beyond human needs. We integrate two complementary approaches: more-than-human design, which challenges the assumption that «humancenteredness» represents a neutral viewpoint, and norm-critical design, which makes invisible norms visible. Our 3-hour workshop engages participants in interactive activities analyzing human norms, shifting perspectives, creating norm-critical prototypes, and sharing reflections. We contribute to design research by offering a novel methodological framework combining these previously separate approaches and providing the crucial first step toward addressing needs beyond humans: making human norms in design visible and subject to critical examination.

NOTE: The facilitators will communicate more specific aspects of the workshop

Abstract:

This workshop explores the intersection of relational design, storytelling, and more-thanhuman perspectives to challenge anthropocentric assumptions and foster deeper ecological awareness. Through speculative and sensory-based design interventions, participants will engage with local edible wild plants, highlighting their agency and cultural significance. By addressing the phenomenon of «plant blindness» and incorporating multimodal storytelling, the session aims to reframe human-nature relationships, cultivating empathy and care for non-human entities. Participants will co-create speculative narratives, experiment with sensory engagement, and develop ethical frameworks for more regenerative design practices. The workshop encourages designers and researchers to rethink their roles, embracing interdependence, sustainability, and justice in design.

Abstract:

This workshop will engage participants in an exercise that conceives experimental design practices that involve communication with otherthan-human species. The process encourages a shift away from human-centred control, creating conditions that allow other species to manifest their own behaviours. This is important since the dominant global material culture of design does not acknowledge the presence and interaction of other species with things designed, erasing biodiversity as human habits repeat anthropocentric and destructive ecological patterns. Building on the work of J. J. Gibson’s concept of affordances, and other work that conform the emerging field that today is understood as posthumanism, the workshop will speculate upon possibilities of cohabitation with ‘umbrella’ or indicator species of different locations.

Abstract:

This workshop explores the interweaving of human and non-human relationalities through noticing strategies that decenter the anthropocentric perspective. As a starting point, we propose to examine our position of humans as interconnected and entangled with more-than-humans, problematising how this perspective could reshape human-centred methods and practices. We intend to elaborate on how our being in the world –coshaped by non-human entities– can be experienced through embodying other (human or non-human) perspectives. We thereby explore noticing as a method and start tackling the following questions: How do designers relate in the design process to other humans and non-humans? How does decentring the human perspective lead to noticing emerging relations? What is a designer’s responsibility when designing with/through/for relations?

Abstract:

Design briefs can be expressions of needs articulated not only by educators but also by external actors and society more broadly. Briefs are where societal needs, expectations, wishes and desires meet the internal, local and situated logic of design and design education. In this workshop, we aim to make an inventory of past and current design briefs and start to reimagine them by moving beyond the taken-forgranted starting point of continued growth. We are led by the overarching question: what could a design brief become when it is actively intended to shift away from notions of design as formulated in traditions of continuous financial growth and problem-solving connected to extractivism and lost life opportunities?

Abstract:

This workshop aims to bring together members from the NORDES community interested in work relating to environmental urgency, regenerative practices and the affective dimensions of design. Participants will collectively reflect on the affective dimensions of their design practice when engaging with ecological/sustainability transitions and explore the values in which they root their designerly practice. Through engaging with the relationality between the breadth of angles from which participants might understand the troubling experiences they encounter in this context, this workshop aims to bring participants to draw from their experiences and the epistemologies they work with to craft a manifesto regarding the affective dimensions of design practice in the context of the ecological transition.

Abstract:

How is positionality brought into participatory practices? How are moments for self-reflection created in participatory design? How do design researchers challenge colonial perspectives in design? The workshop aims to create a space for a collective reflection on the need to undo the narratives of modernity and the cult of futurity that brings to the ubiquitous discourse on innovation as the only possible path for a better future. The workshop experiments with materiality as a channel to collectively explore how designing – as a transformative action embracing relationality – could adopt a pluriversal mindset. It furthers the discussion on relationality, elucidating elements that help nourish a caring and decolonial standpoint. Through the lenses of interdependency and pluriversal temporalities, it conveys a conversation on rearticulating relationality and pluriversality in co-design that should ultimately end in collective action and mutual commitment.

Abstract:

The damaged and fragmented world is calling for care, hope, and imaginative ways of nurturing dialogues. We need alternative pathways, reflexivity and collective engagements to meet this need. Designers and other creative practitioners are increasingly applying experimental, relational, experiential and participatory approaches to facilitate collaboration, social change and imaginative world-making. Such approaches build on understandings that go beyond rational thinking and involve emotional and personal aspects. To advance these practices with arguments for their relevance, and to develop collective reflexivity, we need ways to talk of and evaluate the relationalities we seek to enact. In this workshop, we engage with this challenging practice by introducing evaluation dimensions, and by inviting participants to share and reflect on how they address relationality in design research projects and design practices. The workshop activities draw from research findings of the EU-funded CreaTures project that explored how creative practices can stimulate action towards socially and ecologically sustainable futures.