1. Design for social innovation
From critique to prototyping an emerging practice
Aditya Pawar!
PhD student, Umea Institute of Design
A brief presentation to fellow design doctoral students on the big debates in social design. June 2014

2. Critique: Purgatory of (social) design
Philips Chulha Stove Life- Straw One laptop per child
There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a few of them.
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- Victor Papanek, Design for the real world

3. Transformative + Design
Transformative design is meant to express a way of living well, while at the same time
consuming fewer resources and generating new patterns of social cohabitation
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- Burns, Cottam, Vanstone and Winhall, RED Report

4. Why this is an ‘emerging’ practice
1 The loss of personal creative authorship
2 Shaping behaviour rather than form
3 Transformation design is never done
4 Creativity happens in run-time, not just in design-time
5 Diversity over quality
6 Design becomes a pro+amateur community
Challenges to designers/ researchers

5. Research goal: Prototyping Practices
…..we aim to 'prototype' not objects or services but practices
in order to experiment and explore the implications of social,
cultural and technological changes and challenges to
design…..
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6. Research questions
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a. Redefining the designer’s role and capabilities in transformative design? !
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b. How can design manifest itself embedded in the context of concern? !
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c. What are the new aesthetics of formless design?!
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7. Knowledge through reflection in action
Participatory action research…
with communities of practice…
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8. Related work by others

9. Design Pilots (ongoing)
• Sliperiet: Social collaborative open organisation
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• Umea Pantry: Niching sustainable food strategies in Umea
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• Services that Google cannot provide: Community co-creation at
Umea Public Library
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• Urban sanitation: product service system for urban slums in Dhaka
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10. Positive deviations: Eco-local food production around Umea
• Ecological vegetable farming
• Ecological sheep farming
• Permaculture farming
• Farming for self-sufficiency
• Urban farming
1. Umea Pantry: Niching sustainable food strategies in Umea

11. FarmersUrban/ guerrilla
farmers
Citizens RetailersRestaurants
Farm Fork

12. The brief = Matters of concern.
• POTENTIAL FARMS: Park land that is not used for urban
farming but has the potential to be used.
• EXISTING URBAN FARMS: Existing urban farms in
Alidhem, Carlshem, Ersboda and Broparken.
• NEIGHBOURHOOD INVOLVEMENT: The neighbourhood
involvement depends on the activities organised around
farming and the inhabitants themselves
• Alidhem
• Ersboda
• Study-circle HQ
• Carlshem!
!
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• Broparken
NEGOTIATING RESOURCES!
LAND: Legally procured land
or Illegally procured land
MANURE: Manure placed by
the municipality
WATER: Permission taken to
access underground
municipal pipelines
TOOLS: Tools are pitched in
voluntarily by members
SEEDS/SAPLINGS: Seeds
and saplings volunteered by
members
… negotiating boundaries

13. 2. Sliperiet: Social collaborative open organisation
STRUCTURING OPEN-NESS
Workshop Proposal for Sliperiet
Proposal by
Marlene Johansson
Aditya Pawar
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Makerzone
M
eeting
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14. Workshop: Co-imagining the value of sliperiet
Sliperiet Users
Internal Environment External Environment
Motivation/ mission/ values
Organisational culture
Core processes & rituals
Physical-technological
infrastructure
StudentsInternal actors
Researchers
Creative -
cultural
companies
Entrepreneurs/
Start-ups

15. Serious play

16. Discussion

17. Analysis SynthesisParticipatory input Participatory output
Breaking up into
socio-material raw materials
Re-assembling
into new socio-material
assemblies
- Boundary spanning
- Infrastructuring/
Scaffolding
- Prototyping /futuring
- reconfigurations
- Making things visible
- Tracing & probing
- Critical design
- Foresight/ projecting
- Narratives
- Trust & confidence
building
Designing publics
Transformative
design
Design-time Post-Pre-
What can a social design process look like when the design is
never done?

18. How can we make transparent the black-box of big
society?

19. What are the limits of social design?
Fuzzy front end Later end
Latent Design &
discovery
Mobilisation Main streaming Embedding
• Period of under
performance or
gradual improvement
before innovation
occurs
• Strategy and
process for
innovation are
developed
• Piloting innovative
ideas, developing
new structures and
terms
• Innovation becomes
routine as ideas and
working practice are
main streamed in
one place, service or
sector
• Value of innovation
grows. Systemic
innovation may
occur, where the
locality has the
potential to innovate
in other sector
Source: Young
foundation (2007)
90% Design engagements

20. How can we scale up human centred
design? to take on complexities of designing
for communities and networks