24 February 2012

Crafting the Future

MAKING TOGETHER 
Open, Connected, Collaborative





10th International Conference of the European Academy of Design

17-19 April, 2013
Gothenburg, Sweden

The theme of the conference is designer’s practice knowledge. How can the specific knowledge of designers be brought forward, articulated, made visible and be understood and used in contexts like innovation, business developmente and social change?

The track will reflect on changes in creativity and production, traditionally seen as the province of professional design but now driving new ways to work, socialise, be creative and live across society. This is informing the emergence of novel design scenarios to create products and services (e.g. personal manufacturing, peer production, fablabs, crowd sourcing, collaborative business models) on many levels: people, companies, organisations, institutions, communities.

Design is challenged with new business models, long tail markets, new networked organisations, diffused distribution, non-technological innovation, that are underpinned by new ways to manufacture and design products and services. Creative practitioners are increasingly working both through direct creative input and through facilitating new processes. Design and creativity can in fact rethink and give meaning to tools and technologies that help people connect, understand, share and create. Design is also taking the position of facilitator and enabler where in the past it was a technological gatekeeper.

Although pervasive, this topic is still emerging and being explored, both from an academic perspective (underlining the theoretical bodies that can help such approach emerge), and from the perspective of practitioners (detailing the development of systemic and collaborative projects). Examples can be found in Service Design, Transformation Design, Open Design. Moreover these phenomena are underlining a revolution in work and human relationships, mirroring a move to more distributed, collaborative processes.

Can collaborative practices trigger new business models and new innovation in products and services? How can collaborative making enabled by social technologies be explored/practiced/developed from a design perspective? What are the implications/benefits/impact of collaborative making for design? How may the boundaries and role of design be re-defined? Can designers design collaborative networks?

For any further information please refer to the official website of the conference http://www.craftingthefuture.se

Important dates:
Submission of intention to submit: Until May 15, 2012
Submission of full paper: September 15, 2012
*Notification of acceptance or revision: November 1, 2012
Notification of acceptance: December 15, 2012
Conference date: April 17-19, 2013

We are coordinating a track within the above mentioned EAD conference and are inviting submissions on the topic:

1 comment:

  1. Craft Aotearoa, New Zealand, (http://craftaotearoa.blogspot.com) is very interested in the points raised in your blog in the terms of craft practice and the broader economy. Design thinking in post-earthquakes Christchurch (which has experienced five earthquakes and 11,000 aftershocks in just under two years)and collaborative approaches are required across a broad range of discplines to rebuild this city. There is a unique opportunity to build a city in the west from almost a blank canvass with 21st century design principles. New business models and ways of shaping and delivering ideas are fundamental to this process. As you say, design is a facilitator and enabler - and over 100,000 ideas were gathered from the public regarding the redesign of the city. Design has been a key driver of the community's recovery process.

    ReplyDelete