She Ji-The Journal of Design Economics and Innovation最新文献

The Future of Design Education working group on Community Engagement describes the active involvement of students and faculty with community groups as important co-design and participatory research opportunities that shift the designer’s role from expert to facilitator. The working group offers overarching principles for designer behavior when working in communities and recommendations for the management of community-based student projects. The goal of engagement is to share knowledge and power, building toward autonomous decision-making about the community’s future. A matrix "A Spectrum of Community Engagement in Design Education" illustrates a continuum of participation to explain the types of work in which students, faculty, and researchers might engage. A discussion of assessment both acknowledges challenges that are different from the typical individual studio projects and offers insights from other service sectors for a broader review of engagement program success. Short descriptions of cases illustrate key concepts.

This article conceptualizes the relation between design, economics, and innovation. Rather than connecting design to economics through the notion of value, it explores how economics construes negative side-effects of market activities. Aligning itself with recent She Ji contributions that tie design to the economic sociology of Michel Callon, this article argues that markets assume a constant process of managing such side-effects. The invention of car safety and the development of safety design features in 1950s Sweden illustrate this. Automotive design through safety innovations can be seen as a design process that transcended the clear separation between business and politics assumed by neoclassical economics. This article argues that this phenomenon is a concern for design scholars as well as social scientists. I assert that it is important to explore this line of inquiry by investigating design processes in different economic settings.

Gjoko Muratovski and Ezio Manzini discuss and reflect on the impact of the idea of design for social innovation towards sustainability. In this wide-reaching conversation they cover topics that range from defining the field, to the challenges of working in this area, reflections on successful and less successful examples of social innovation, the history of the DESIS Network and its legacy, and advice to emerging designers interested in working in this field.

This article contrasts two radically different approaches to valuation—neoliberal and pragmatic—using each frame to consider value in design. Neoliberalism is outcomes-focused, maximizing value through different but commensurable forms, which are aggregated and ranked using a common denominator for the purposes of competition. Pragmatism is process-focused, with a variety of values negotiated and configured through valuation inquiries in context-specific ways. This article argues that, in line with pragmatism and in contrast to neoliberalism, design practice is based on diverse value orientations through a material and temporal process shaped in accordance with different purposes. The argument suggests that the way valuation is performed in design is an alternative to the reductive but dominant neoliberal approach. This prompts consideration of the “performative agency” concept—that design practice can transform how valuation is carried out, presenting and sustaining an alternative model.

Insufficient public space in high-density communities is an urgent issue as China’s rapid urbanization continues. With the concept of micro urban renewal as a background, this paper explores the method of using easily deployable architecture that creates small-scale, mass-produced, and customized public spaces in Community Life Circle (CLC) development projects. Using Shanghai’s Community Meta-Box scheme as a case study, the paper analyzes and proves the concept and method—technologically and socially. From a technological perspective, we investigate architectural customization, the use of integrated design-fabrication platforms, and architectural robotics technologies. An integrated design-manufacture-assembly process presents a novel approach to constructing customized micro public spaces, catering to diverse site conditions and the varied needs of residents. Open customization and material recycling technology will offer a fresh perspective on community co-construction and low-carbon development as the world responds to sustainability challenges. From a social angle, we reveal how micro public spaces invigorate communities. Diversity and mobility can stimulate social interactions through the mechanism of theatricality. These new time-space architectural design dimensions present a new opportunity to improve Community Life Circle projects. In summary, this paper shows it is possible to revolutionize the design and construction of public spaces.

When acting in complex sociocultural contexts, designers often encounter other people engaged in differing practices. Non-design practices and design practices co-evolve in reciprocity. However, this study suggests that in design culture designers are too often encouraged to be uncritically reliant on performing established design activities as a crucial means of demonstrating their professionalism. Designers may encounter difficulties in concretely perceiving and describing how their everyday practices are entangled with people and things – a detached position which can prompt design professionals’ self-doubt about whether they contribute positively to others’ lives. This article explores how to aid designers in building attentiveness to the situated nature of their design practice. Drawing on recent practice theory, the possibility entails attending to the relational practices of others that occur in the proximity of an acting designer. Design and other practices become relational since these practices mutually constitute each other’s conditions of existence, maintenance, and transformation. Using autoethnography and analysis, the article reveals the positive potentials of four ways of attending to relational practices: tracking, recounting, repositioning, and responding. While non-exhaustive, these four categories can enable designers to develop a more nuanced understanding of their working context and appropriate localized strategies for design action.

Many pressing challenges affecting the health of the public are characterized by a misfit between algorithmic and behavioral systems. Algorithmic systems are highly predictable as they rely on current information and deep knowledge. Behavioral systems are highly unpredictable as they are influenced by emotion, culture, and context. Overcoming complex public health challenges demands integrating knowledge from disciplines that evolved to work within and across these systems. We begin this article by elaborating on the characteristics of each one of these systems. We present curated excerpts from a conversation between Ashish Jha and Patrick Whitney, exploring how public health and design could complement each other in situations where algorithmic and behavioral challenges interact and influence one another. We discuss pathways to advance contributions at the intersection of both fields and conclude with an example of how we are pushing this agenda forward.