Series: Designing in Dark Times

How can social theory help us all design solutions to address the social, political, and ecological challenges that confront us, and build more sustainable communities? Design professions have typically been associated with intervention and action, while social science has long been associated with thought and reflection. Design and social thought are too frequently considered distinct in terms of how theories...

Making Trouble engages matter in ways that trespass the boundaries between the civic realm and the state-assigned laws. Even with primitive tools and skills, designing and making can break open and repurpose arrangements of power. The proof is that some crafts are so controversial—lock-picking, moonshining, shoplifting, smuggling, sabotage—that they need to be controlled or even outlawed. When designers and makers...

Philosophy through Design proposes a new approach to design practice grounded in a philosophical reflection in and on action, with alignments being drawn to the democratic pragmatism of John Dewey and Jane Addams as well as key contemporary philosophic perspectives. Throughout, Dixon stresses the need for designers to engage critically, ethically and reflectively as they seek to meet the complex...