Dexign Futures Research

As corporations, governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations face rapid change and uncertain times, they are looking for new ways of thinking and acting. For designers trained to shape futures defined by change and uncertainty, there are unprecedented opportunities. In the Dexign Futures course, students explore the forces that drive change in the future (i.e., social, economic, political, environmental, technological), and learn to align innovation strategically with the trajectories of those forces on long-term horizons. In this course, we focus on developing design agility with design methods for long-term horizons. Traditional design methods, such as Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking, do not prepare designers to think systematically about long-term horizons. The goal of this course is to teach designers to develop strategic design methods for long-term horizons. Design for long-term horizons is of particular interest for challenges like transition design towards sustainable futures or, more generally, to design in turbulent times characterized by rapid change.

Dexign Futures has been researched and taught as a course since 2012. Below are some research questions:

  • How might one learn to combine Futures Thinking methods with Design Thinking to invent new design methods to design our way to sustainable futures?
  • What are efficient and effective pedagogies for teaching new design methods?
  • How might futures thinking methods be taught to support knowledge transfer into design practice?
  • How might reflection be designed to deepen understanding of design research methods?

Dexign Futures courses.

  • Dexign Futures courses are offered at CMU Pittsburgh and CMU Qatar.
  • Workshops have been taught in Tsinghua University and Politecnico di Milano.
  • Visit the Dexign the Future and Intro to Dexign the Future course blogs to learn more about the design the futures courses.
  • For open source course materials for the Dexign Futures courses go to: https://dexignfutures.org/
  • The online version of Dexign Futures in Chinese is available at XuetangX here.

For more detail on the courses taught see here.

PUBLICATIONS

[19] Scupelli, P. & Carvalho, P. (in-press; 2025) Design Futures Pedagogy: Does the type of exercise, year of study, order, and number of exercises matter? DRS – Learn X Design intertwinia in Design Education Conference in Aveiro, Portugal, on September 22-24.

[18] Scupelli, P. (2024) Design Education Alternative Futures: Climate Disaster, Artificial Intelligence, and DEIBJ? at the 14th Future of Education International Conference in Florence, Italy, on June 19-21. [publication link]
[17] Scupelli, P. (2023) Teaching to transfer causal layered analysis from futures thinking to design thinking. IASDR 2023: Life Changing Design. October 9-14, 2023. Milan, Italy. [publication link]
[16] Bucchetti, V., Barbara, A., Allard, J., Scupelli, P., and Mikhail, R.A.(2023) Identities and [changing] identities: A crossroads of cultures, translation, and digital innovation, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.894
[15] Scupelli, P. (2022). Does When and How Design Students Learn Causal Layered Analysis Matter? Journal of Futures Studies. link
[14] Scupelli, P. (2021) Teaching Designers to Anticipate Future Challenges with Causal Layered Analysis. IASDR 2021: With Design: Reinventing Design Modes. December 5-9, 2021. Hong Kong, China. link
[13] Barbara, A., & Scupelli, P. (2021). Teaching to dexign futures in cities. TECHNE – Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, (2), 112-116. https://doi.org/10.13128/techne-10693 pdf download
[12] Scupelli, P. (2020) Teaching to Find Design Opportunities for Behavior Change Through Causal Layered Analysis. Proceedings of the 2020 Human-Computer Interaction International Conference. 2020 HCI International Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark.
[11] Scupelli, P. (2020) The Faster Ones Don’t Always Win: Dexign Futures Thinking for Innovation in Urban Context. 10th United Nations World Urban Forum. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. February 8-13, 2020.
[10] Scupelli, P., Candy, S., & Brooks, Judy (2019) Teaching Futures: Trade-offs Between Flipped Classroom and Design Studio Course Pedagogies. IASDR 2019: Design Revolutions. September 2-5, 2019. Manchester, UK.
[09] Scupelli, P., Fu, Z.,  Zheng, Y & Brooks, J  (2019) Teaching to Dexign Futures in China: A Vision for a Blended Learning Pedagogy to be Deployed at Scale. 9th International Conference the Future of Education. Florence, Italy.
[08] Scupelli, P., Wells-Papanek, D., Wasserman, A., & Brooks, J. (2018) The Futures of Design Pedagogy, Learning, and Education.  Academic Design Management Conference ADMC18, London, UK, (August 1-2, 2018)
[07] Scupelli, P., & Brooks, J.  (2018) What Features of a Flipped Course Improve Design Student Learning Experiences?, Academic Design Management Conference ADMC18, London, UK, (August 1-2, 2018) presentation
[06] Scupelli, P., Wells-Papanek, D., Brooks, J. & Wasserman, A. (2017) Opening a design education pipeline from University to K-12 and Back IASDR 2017, Cincinnati (October 31 – November 3, 2017) [60% acceptance rate (173 accepted, 287 submitted)] presentation
[05] Scupelli, P., Brooks, J. & Wasserman, A. (2016) Making Dexign Futures learning happen: A case study for a flipped, Open-Learning Initiative course. Design Educators IDSA International Conference 2016: Making Things Happen. August 17-20, Detroit, MI, USA.  [25% acceptance rate (10 accepted, 41 submitted)]
[04] Scupelli, P., Wasserman, A., Brooks, J. (2016). Dexign Futures: A Pedagogy for Long-Horizon Design Scenarios. Proceedings of DRS 2016, Design Research Society 50th Anniversary Conference. Brighton, UK, 27–30 June 2016. [11% accepted with revisions,(53 accepted with revisions, 478 submitted)]
[03] Wasserman, A., Scupelli, P., & Brooks, J. (2015) Learning to Dexign the Future. Design Educators Asia Conference 2015. December 1-2, Jockey Club Innovation Tower, Hong Kong, China. [30% acceptance rate,(31 accepted, 105 submitted)] presentation
[02] Wasserman, A., Scupelli, P., & Brooks, J. (2015) Learn!2050 and Design Futures: Lessons learned teaching design futures.  Design Educators IDSA International Conference 2015: Future of the Future. August 19-22, Seattle, WA. [50% acceptance rate,(21 accepted, 42 submitted)]
[01] Scupelli, P. & Wasserman, A. (2014). Dexign the future: lessons learned from teaching a design studio course on human-centered innovation for exponential times. Oxford Futures Forum, OFF2014, Saïd Business School, Oxford University, May 30-31, 2014.