July 29, 2021 11:17 AM

On July 29, 2021, Peter Scupelli gave an invited lecture at the Future Pioneer 未来塑造力·先锋行动 summer program organized by Tsinghua University and OCT Innovation & Research Institute. There are 164 Chinese students from 45 universities around the world who participated in the summer school. Ninety-nine students finished the second round and seventy students finished the final projects.

The lecture was titled “Teaching Designers to Explore Challenges with Causal Layered Analysis.” The lecture describes how design students understand and use CLA in design problems. This lecture is part of ongoing Dexign Futures research on developing new research methods for large societal challenges such as sustainable development, zero-carbon lifestyles to avert the climate change catastrophe, and so forth.

The premise is to expand the scope of traditional design methods such that one is able to design for a broader field where short-term design action is aligned with long-term vision goals. The new and expanded design methods are created by creatively combining Futures Thinking Methods with Design Thinking Methods. The new integrated design methods are called Dexign Futures. Dexign Futures is an experimental form of design methods. The term “Dexign” was invented by Arnold Wasserman. For more details on the history of the Dexign Futures project see the Dexign Futures Open-Source project website here.

Students from the following universities participated:

Renmin University of China
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sun Yat-sen University
Chongqing University
Guangdong University of Technology
Jiangnan University
Central Academy of Fine Arts
Nanjing Art Institute
Luxun Academy of Fine Arts
Central Academy of Fine Arts
China Academy of Art
East China Normal University
Central South University of Forestry Technology
South China University of Technology
Hubei University of Technology
Beijing Institute of Technology
Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Beijing University of Technology
Beijing University of Chemical Technology
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Beijing Forestry University
Changsha University of Technology
Shanghai University of Technology
Shanghai University
Wuhan University of Technology
New York University Shanghai
Western University of Liverpool
University of Nottingham Ningbo
Taiwan University of the Arts
Sungkyunkwan University
Keio University
Illinois Institute of Technology
University of Edinburgh
Royal College of Art
University of the Arts London
Politecnico di Milano
Goldsmiths College London、
University of Alberta
Monash University
Loughborough University
Northeast University
Kingston University
University of Southern California
University of New South Wales

Last updated: 8:25 pm

July 6, 2020 5:51 PM

Peter Scupelli is presenting a paper titled “Teaching to Find Design Opportunities for Behavior Change Through Causal Layered Analysis” for the Human-Computer Interaction International Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark July 16-24, 2020.

Abstract. Change is exponential. Products and services are developed faster, hold a shorter shelf-life disrupted by new offerings, and exist in the wider environment with global challenges emerging such as climate change and sustainability. Increasingly design challenges are shifting from simple products and services creation for companies and organizations to deliver to much larger scale problems beyond the control of a single organization. Two planetary level the challenges for year 2030 include reducing carbon emissions by at least 50% to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate (2018 IPCC 1.5C report) and meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, design for the 21st century requires different skills; design educators are challenged to teach new methods moving past the limitations of human-centered design thinking. The Design Thinking process as popularized by IDEO/Stanford d.school identifies human-centered design opportunities through five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The design thinking focus is human-centeredness and optimized to develop products and services. Unfortunately, in the Anthropocene era, the larger scale problems such as climate change and sustainable development require a broader focus that includes all life forms and not just the customer of a product or service. In this paper, I discuss how futures thinking methods from the the field of Futures Studies can augment design thinking methods to overcome some human-centeredness limitations. In particular, I describe how Causal Layered Analysis developed by Sohail Inayatullah can augment design challenge linked to rapid-decarbonization. I provide case studies from three design courses taught to both undergraduate and graduate design students.

July 5, 2020 5:40 PM

Peter Scupelli gave a Keynote Lecture at the “Designing the Futures: Methodology, Tools, and Practices” Digital Salon organized by Tsinghua University on July 5, 2020. The lecture was titled “Dexign Futures for Challenging Times.”

January 18, 2020 9:21 PM

Peter Scupelli is presenting a paper titled “The Faster Ones Don’t Always Win: Dexign Futures Thinking for Innovation in Urban Contexts” at the United Nations 10th World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

“We live in the Anthropocene Era. Change is exponential. Design and the impact of design is everywhere around us. Human beings are a force shaping the planet’s geology, ecosystems, and weather. Our times are often described as volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA).

Products and services are developed faster, hold a shorter shelf-life disrupted by new offerings, and exist in the wider environment with existential challenges such as climate change and sustainability. What specific value sets embedded within product and service innovation processes help or hinder the achievement of long term sustainable development goals?

Rapid change contrasted to relatively stable times, can be confusing and may catch many unprepared. Ways of designing that until recently worked, now are questioned. While speeding up the development cycle can solve short term problems, rapid prototyping alone does not guarantee alignment with long term goals. Thus, within dynamic and rapidly changing environments where long term goals matter, designers need new paths forward and perspectives to shape sustainable product and service innovations.

Design that considers the complexity of sustainable lifestyles differs from the development products and services that are indifferent to local contexts. For one, societal problems situated in context require multiple perspectives to inform processes. Yet commonly taught human-centered design processes can easily default to a narrow version of customer-centered design that ignores varied contexts and values. Under time pressure, designers’ focus can default to customer needs, ignoring the richer perspectives that explore what it means to be human and to lead a meaningful community life.

While it is helpful to consider customer needs and product opportunities, it can be problematic to stop there. The type of Human-Centered Design Thinking that worked in the past to understand customer needs for the design of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and services, needs to be adapted when used to accomplish sustainable development goals.

A service design framing allows designers to consider both customer needs and service provider needs. But sustainable lifestyles involve more stakeholders than customer and service provider. One must consider multiple levels of the Socio-Ecological context (e.g., individual, group, organizations, communities, public policy), and differing value sets (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Tools and methods that allow for different views and perspectives where innovation is grounded, afford designers finding new opportunities for economic development. In other words, new ways of looking at problems can provide solutions to previously ignored problems and new opportunities for development.”

Last updated: 5:44 pm

August 27, 2019 7:19 AM

The School of Design’s Peter Scupelli will be presenting a paper at the IASDR Conference in Manchester, UK on September 2nd. He will be presenting “Teaching Futures: Trade-offs Between Flipped Classroom and Design Studio Course Pedagogies,” written by Peter Scupelli, Stuart Candy and Judy Brooks.

From the abstract:

Change is exponential. Products and services are developed faster, hold a shorter shelf-life disrupted by new offerings, and exist in the wider environment with global challenges emerging such as climate change and sustainability. Thus, design for the 21st century requires different skills; design educators are challenged to adapt. In this paper, we compare two versions of a futures studies course developed for design students: one uses a flipped-classroom pedagogy (with interactive online pre-work and in-class workshop activities, meeting for two 80-minute sessions per week); and the other uses a hybrid studio approach (making more use of in-class lectures followed by hands on-studio activities, meeting for 170 minutes once per week) focused on experiential futures practices of tangible artifact and immersive scenario creation. We use four measures: learning activity inventory, course quality with faculty course evaluations, student experience with a post-course survey, and time and feedback on final projects. We discuss design trade-offs for learning: format of reflections is linked to transfer activities, time on learning activities shapes perceptions, less (interference) is more, more (scaffolding, feedback, links to practice, active learning) is better, and timing is everything.

Link: Event Link

IASDR 2019: Design Revolutions runs Monday, September 2, 2019 – 8:00am to Thursday, September 5, 2019 – 5:00pm

June 6, 2019 2:31 PM

Peter Scupelli is leading a team at the “Re-Designing Education to Shape a Better World” symposium in Florence, Italy on June 21-23, 2019.  During the 3-day symposium educators and designers are challenged to imagine, design and create concepts for future education systems to empower students and teachers to develop a positive new world vision. The primary goal of this symposium is to bring together thought leaders from around the world to develop innovative ideas that will prepare students and teachers to shape a world that fosters a greater good for all. The symposium is co-
sponsored by Kent State University and DESIGN­ED.

Last updated: 7:21 am

June 6, 2019 2:42 PM

Peter Scupelli is presenting a paper titled “Teaching to Dexign Futures in China: A Vision for a Blended Learning Pedagogy to be Deployed at Scale” at the International Conference The Future of Education held in Florence Italy on June 27-28, 2019. The paper was co-authored with Professor Fu Zhiyong from Tsinghua University, Professor Zheng Yangshuo from Wuhan University of Technology, and Judy Brooks from Carnegie Mellon University.

Abstract

The 21st century brings us a world that is changing at exponential rates with increased uncertainty. Products and services are designed and developed faster, and their shelf-life increasingly disrupted by new offerings. As design disciplines engage in larger, more complex societal problems, new methods and skills are necessary. How might new topics be quickly, effectively, and efficiently learned and taught? Design educators are challenged to learn and teach new skills within already full workloads, design courses, and curriculums. Many design educators are concerned with urgent problems such as sustainable development[1] and climate change[2]. Such planetary level problems impact people’s everyday existence within the biosphere, and require short-term design action alignment with long-term vision goals. However, many design educators teach to design for increasingly shorter time horizons within consumerist worldviews (e.g., rapid-prototyping, agile, human-centered design). In this paper, we describe a course that teaches design students how to align short-term design to long-term timescales. We leverage Future Studies researchers’ work on how to teach students greater agency within long-term timescale horizons[3]. We describe an effective and efficient blended learning design pedagogy (e.g., combining online and face-to-face learning activities)[4] to engage with new global challenges such as climate change and sustainability (e.g.,[5],[6],[7]). In this paper, we describe Dexign Futures, a required design studies course for all third year undergraduate students in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The term dexign, refers to an experimental form of design that combines design thinking[8] with futures thinking[9]. Due to time constraints of student schedule, the course was taught as a blended learning course with half the time and three times as many students as a traditional design studio course. The blended course format allowed us to push the lecture portion of the class onto an online platform where students watched videos, answered questions, and received immediate correctness feedback. During in-class sessions we discussed homework questions and did interactive hands-on design exercises. Prior research established the efficacy and areas for improvement of the Dexign Futures course as taught at Carnegie Mellon University to 40-50 students each year [5,6,7]. We are exploring how to share a blended learning course at scale. In China, the 2018 Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) report stated that 1951 universities provide 8208 undergraduate design programs and 2 million design students. In this paper, we discuss the opportunity, vision, and challenges to translate and deploy the Dexign Futures course at scale in China. University professors are challenged to learn new materials and develop new courses. We are developing a blended course course in Chinese that allows professors to learn with the students and use their expertise to guide students through applied in-class hands on exercises.

Keywords: Blended Learning, Open Learning Initiative, Design Futures, Dexign;

References:
[1] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/
[2] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
[3] Slaughter, R. Futures Education: Catalyst for Our Times, Journal of Futures Studies, February 12, 3, 2008, pp 15 – 30.
[4] Graham, C. R. (2006). Blended learning systems. The handbook of blended learning, 3-21.
[5] Scupelli, P., &  Brooks, J. (2018) What Features of a Flipped Course Improve Design Student Learning Experiences? Next wave: Design
Management Academic conference, August 1-2, Ravensbourne London, UK. presentation
[6] Scupelli, P. (2019) Teaching to Transition Design: A Case Study on Design Agility, Design Ethos, and Dexign Futures, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación ISSN: 1668-0227 volume 73 pp111-132.
[7] Scupelli, Candy, & Brooks (2019) Teaching to Future: Tradeoffs Between Flipped Classroom and Design Studio Course Pedagogies.
[8] Brown, T., & Kātz, B. (2009). Change by design: How design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. New York: Harper Business.
[9] Inayatullah, S. (2008). Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming. foresight, 10(1), 4-21.

Last updated: 7:21 am