🍿 Neither North nor South: limbo, design for transitions and popcorn (Copy)
I’ve just finished the first term of my MA in Sustainable Design, and over the last few months I’ve been exploring Transition Design: designing for transitions.
When we think of design, we often associate it with aesthetics, with objects, products or services. Something decorative. But in reality, everything we do and interact with has been designed by someone: the clothes we wear, the spaces we inhabit, how we shop and eat, even the way we relate to one another.
That is why design matters. Because it shapes not only objects, but also lifestyles, values and systems.
I have learnt that design has a long history of attempting to bring about systemic change. And that is where Transition Design comes in: an approach that connects design with transition studies to bring about social, technical and structural changes towards more sustainable futures, using everyday life as a starting point.
Rather than seeking quick fixes, Transition Design aims to think long-term, challenge the narratives of current models, and ask whether continuing to design within the dominant logic (growth as a solution, consumption patterns, ideologies) is truly consistent with the futures we need for social and environmental well-being.
Transition design is based on three dimensions:
the theory of social change
socio-technical transitions
the interactions of everyday life
It is not just about what we design, but from where and for what future…