Workshop setting
The workshop will run on December 10, 2024, in hybrid settings meaning that students may participate onsite or remotely. It is possible to participate only in the morning session or the full day (see the Program for more information).
A video conferencing platform will be used for the hybrid sessions. Physical rooms for group work will also be available at the university locations. Detailed information about the workshop, link to the video conference space etc., will be sent to all registered participants one week before the workshop.
Registering students for the workshop
The workshop can be scheduled as part of a course, or be offered to students as an elective activity. See Registration for more information on how to register for the workshop.
Registration deadline: November 26 extended to December 1
Notification date: November 29 December 2
Goals of the workshop
To explore how we can support students in becoming responsible* designers and developers of sustainable futures by learning how to address and implement more-than-human perspectives in their work (see e.g., Borthwick et al., 2022; Coskun et al., 2022; Giccardi et al., 2024; Eriksson et al., 2024; Oktay et al., 2024).
The workshop aims to challenge the human-centred paradigm of many disciplines, including design and development education (Friedman & Hendry, 2019; Nørgård et al., 2022) and sustainability. As we have grown to understand our entanglement with complex social-ecological-technological systems, we are becoming increasingly aware of the shortcomings of human-centrism prevalent in current research and practice. Thus, we need to shift towards embracing more-than-human beings, entities, materials, and technologies as actors or companions with which we are intimately entangled and share the world.
– How can we educate the designers of tomorrow?
– What has to be “unlearned” to change our perspectives and attitudes?
– What concepts, methods, and practices can/should be taught?
Intended learning outcomes (ILO’s)
After completing the workshop activities students should be able to:
ILO 1: Recognise and describe why more-than-human perspectives are important to address in design and development processes,
ILO 2: Apply a more-than-human-centered design method in a specific context, and synthesize and report the outcome,
ILO 3: Plan a design or development process including more-than-human perspectives,
ILO 4: Discuss and reflect upon the complexities of addressing more-than-human perspectives.
ILO’s 1 and 2 will be addressed in the morning session, and ILO’s 3 and 4 in the afternoon session. It’s optional to attend the afternoon session.
* Responsible is here referred to in terms of making conscious choices and informed decisions, and being aware of the complexities in the trade-offs between human and more-than-human values, needs and perspectives in design and development.