design futures

Learn X Design 2025 conference paper September 22-24, 2025.

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Peter Scupelli & Paulo Carvalho will present their co-authored paper titled “Design Futures Pedagogy: Does the type of exercise, year of study, order, and number of exercises matter?” at the DRS special interest group conference Learn X Design 2025 at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, on September 22-24.

Abstract

Teaching design for long-term, societal-level sustainability requires design students to learn new design methods that combine Futures Thinking with Design Thinking. This paper explores three questions: (a) how to teach Futures Thinking methods; (b) when to incorporate Futures Thinking into the undergraduate curriculum; and (c) how many exercises to assign to teach a futures method. In this paper, we focus on the Futures Thinking method called Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). Previous research has shown that a “Studio Project CLA” exercise is three times more effective than a “Personal Futures CLA” in helping students apply CLA to their design work. In this paper, undergraduate students in their first and third years did both exercises. We report on three studies. In Study 1, we replicated prior research using a larger dataset. Our results confirm that when performing a single exercise, the “Studio Project CLA” exercise is significantly more effective than the “Personal Futures CLA” exercise. In Study 2, we compared the performance of first-year and third-year design students on both exercises. We found that first-year students had more design insights on how they might apply CLA to design processes. In study 3, regarding the order and quantity of exercises, contrary to the maxim “more practice is better,” we found that “what one practices matters.” In other words, for first-year students, a single “Studio Project CLA” exercise provides more benefit than an additional “Personal Futures CLA” exercise. We posit that the observed transfer from “Futures Thinking” to “Design Thinking” may be explained by three theories from Learning Science literature: (a) concreteness and abstraction of the CLA exercises, (b) the layered aspects of CLA helped to emphasize structural similarities across contexts, (c) concreteness fading in the Design Studio exercise. This study examined the number of design insights; our future work will explore the types and quality of design insights.

Reference

Scupelli, P. & Carvalho, P. (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, 2025.

Guest lecture “AI & SUSTAINABILITY: some dexign thinking for alternative futures”

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March 8, 2024 11:03 PM

Peter Scupelli gave an invited lecture at the Politecnico di Milano, titled “AI & SUSTAINABILITY: some dexign thinking for alternative futures,” for the Service Design and Innovation – Smart Service course taught by Prof. Marzia Mortati in the Master’s Program in Product-Service Systems Design, at the Politecnico di Milano, on March, 8, 2024.

Global Design Futures Network Symposium and Workshops in Bali, Indonesia

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November 10, 2023 10:29 AM

The 2023 Global Design Futures Network Symposium and Workshops are being held at the Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center in Bali, Indonesia November 16-19, 2023.

Global Design Futures Network (GDFN) was established through a memorandum of understanding signed in May 2023 by the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University, the Department of Design at Politecnico di Milano, and the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The aim is to establish a global design futures learning platform and community, attracting global government, universities, institutions, scholars, and students to jointly promote the emergent practices mixing design and futures studies, and provide frontier methods and tools to address global challenges.

GDFN will gather academic resources and practical design futures cases from a global network and sustainably promote collaborative learning, teaching, and research. In addition, by organizing the establishment of academic exchange platforms and corporate cooperation platforms, we co-design future visions for global issues such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the challenges of the Anthropocene, climate adaptability, a community with a shared future for humankind, and future well-being.

There are five workshops:

  • Artificial Intelligence and Future Fashion facilitated by: Clarice Garcia，RMIT University Australia; WEI Qinwen, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology; SONG Yi, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology; Hosted by Ting Chawchen, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.
  • Artificial Intelligence and Future Cultural Tourism facilitated by: GAO Xiang, VOYA LINK ; Host: HE Siqian, University of Science and Technology Beijing; MA Yuemei, Politecnico di Milano, GDFN International Coordinator.
  • Futures Thinking and Consensus Community facilitated by Cheryl Chung, Kantar Public, Head of Singapore; Host: WANG Yun, Beihang University.
  • Strategic Foresight and Digital Futures facilitated by Jörn Buhring, Abu Dhabi University, Host: ZHU Lin, Tsinghua University, GDFN International Coordinator.
  • Artificial Intelligence Content Generation (AICG) and Future Metaverses facilitated by 分享嘉, 宾林宾华, 刘文俊 Host: ZHANG Mengting, Macau University of Science and Technology

GDFN co-founders Prof. Peter Scupelli, Prof. Anna Barbara, and Prof. Zhiyong FU will facilitate a community symposium to discuss the GDFN’s emergent mission, vision, and roadmap for the next three years.

Organizers: Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University
Design Department, Politecnico di Milano 
School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University
HOST: Department of Information Art & Design, Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University
CO-HOST: Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center

IASDR 2023

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September 1, 2023 1:42 PM

Peter Scupelli will present a paper titled “Teaching to transfer Causal Layered Analysis from Futures Thinking to Design Thinking” at the 2023 IASDR conference held in Milan, Italy October 9-14 at The Politecnico di Milano.

Abstract
We live in exponentially changing worlds. Design educators are challenged to teach new design methods to productively engage with ongoing societal problems with planetary implications such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the unfolding climate disaster, zero-carbon lifestyles, circular economies, nuclear disarmament, etc. Such societal-level problems require both short-term design action and strategic long-term vision goal alignments. How might design educators teach new design methods effectively and efficiently within already packed design education curriculums? In this paper, I describe a required design futures course that teaches an experimental form of design, called Dexign Futures, it merges design thinking with futures thinking. One often unstated goal of teaching new design methods is to enable students to transfer such knowledge to other design courses, and, ultimately, to their professional practice. The futures thinking method, Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is the focus of this paper. Prior research on Dexign Futures, made clear that with a “Personal Futures CLA” assignment, only 19.8% of design students could articulate how the Futures Thinking method CLA related to future design methods and practice. In this paper, I describe a new way to teach CLA called “Studio Project CLA”; it more than tripled the number of undergraduate design students (62%) who described applications of CLA to their design practice. I posit that transfer of knowledge mechanisms likely explain observed performance gains. I hypothesize key insights relevant for design educators to create design exercises for undergraduate design students that likely facilitate knowledge transfer from futures thinking methods into design practice.

IASDR 2021

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October 15, 2021 7:50 PM

Peter Scupelli will present a paper titled “Teaching Designers to Anticipate Future Challenges with Causal Layered Analysis” at the 2021 IASDR conference held in Hong Kong December 5-9 at TThe Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Abstract
Low-probability disasters like global pandemics, nuclear war, earthquakes, solar flares and so forth require anticipatory imagination and strategic preparations. The COVID-19 global pandemic amply illustrated how being unprepared results in tragic outcomes for human lives, families, organizations, and economies. Preparing for different kinds of possible futures requires new thinking, imagining, and acting. Globally, design educators are challenged to prepare the next generation of designers for a rapidly changing world. How might designers learn to meaningfully engage with the challenges of our time (e.g., climate emergency, sustainable development) and emerging opportunities (e.g., AI, fourth industrial revolution, and so forth)? In this paper, I describe two futures thinking methods taught in a design centred futures course taught in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). First, an Alternative Futures exercise with a 2×2 matrix that yields four possible futures. Second, students explored one possible future in-depth with Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). The design futures course was taught with the flipped-classroom active learning pedagogy through five activities: online learning, mini-lecture, demonstration, small group in-class workshop activities, and weekly reflection/discussion. I report on text analysis of student weekly reflections parsed with five codes related to CLA (i.e., personal insights, thinking structures, design insights, CLA details, other). Step-by-step scaffolding and multiple integrated learning activities helped students to engage with futures studies methods. CLA provided students with new thinking structures for sensemaking, new insights into futures thinking,  and design methods and process insights on how to design for future challenges.

Last updated: 4:21 pm

Georgia Tech Invited Lecture

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March 11, 2019 3:22 PM

Peter Scupelli gave a talk titled “Teaching to Future – Tradeoffs Between Flipped Classroom and Design Course Pedagogies.” at the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing.

In the 21st century, change is exponential. Products and services are designed and developed faster, and their shelf-life disrupted by a constant flow of new offerings. Thus, design for the 21st century requires different skills and design educators are challenged to teach new skills within an already packed curriculum. How might design educators revolutionize teaching and learning to rise to 21st-century challenges? In this talk, I’ll compare two versions of a futures studies course developed for design students. Specifically, I’ll describe tradeoffs between course design decisions for flipped pedagogy and design studio pedagogy measured with faculty course evaluations as outcomes, and speculate on how reflective practices were associated with described transfer activities. I will also describe changes made to the courses and provide key insights on applying flipped pedagogy to design courses.

event link

Last updated: 2:33 pm

Design Educators Workshop: Applying the Flipped Classroom Pedagogy to Design Courses

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October 21, 2018 12:37 PM

Peter Scupelli taught a workshop for 40 university design educators at Tsinghua University October 21, 2018 as part of the Design 3.0 International Forum held in Beijing, China. The workshop focused on how design educators might use the flipped classroom pedagogy to teach design courses. Dr Scupelli used the Dexign Futures course as a case study. Dexign Futures is a required course he developed for third year undergraduate design students at the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dexign Futures Case Study

How might design educators address new challenges in design education? Currently, design educators are caught between challenges: first, teaching well-established design traditions based on craft and making; and second, training students to situate their artifact making within transitional times in a volatile and exponentially changing world. The tension design educators navigate involves teaching the core of a discipline in relation to an expanding periphery where multiple disciplines interact. The epistemic challenge is how to initiate students into the field’s crystallized knowledge at the same time as fluid, emergent knowledge. Some design educators may yearn for simpler times focusing on mastery of the deep disciplinary cores. Others may discount their own core disciplinary teaching in favor of exploration of the rapidly shifting disciplinary peripheries to meet new challenges and opportunities. We acknowledge both perspectives and further posit that students need exposure to both the core and periphery of design. This introduces an interesting learning challenge: an implicit contradiction for students of design where the core/making tends to reinforce short-term horizon thinking; and the disciplinary periphery requires long-term horizon visioning. We try to address this challenge by aligning short-term design opportunities with sustainable development plans for long-term horizons. We merge design thinking and futures thinking to create “deXign” thinking. A flipped classroom pedagogy integrates design studio with an online component. The course described is called Dexign Futures. Dexign Futures is a required design studies class for all third-year undergraduate students in the products, communications, and environments tracks in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Because traditional design pedagogy poorly equips designers to integrate current human-centered design methods with long-range strategic thinking, a challenge we explore through the class is how to teach designing for the long-term horizon. The term deXign indicates an experimental type of design that integrates Futures Thinking with Design Thinking.

For more information on the Dexign Futures class go to: https://dexignfutures.com/

Last updated: 3:46 pm

Design 3.0 Forum in Beijing, China.

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October 10, 2018 2:36 PM

Peter Scupelli is presenting a talk at the Design 3.0 Forum in Beijing China on October 19. The forum is organized by Tsinghua University and KAIST University. Design 3.0 Forum aims to raise and discuss the challenging issues in design research, education and practice in this newly emerging paradigm we now face with new forms of end-user products such as intelligent products and services, DIY/fabrication tools, and IoTs. These new forms of products and services change the ways people interact with them and shape their everyday lives.  We would like to re-think about our traditional user-centered and human-centered approaches and what are new agenda to be raised and considered for future designers and design researchers to be prepared for. This is what Design 3.0 Forum is targeting for, and we hope that this can be the start of continued conversations around these issues even after this forum.

http://www.design3-0.com/en/

Last updated: 3:28 pm

China National Arts Fund Initiation and forum: Training innovative art and tech talents for the 2022 Winter Olympics Games.

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June 1, 2018 5:54 PM

Peter Scupelli delivered a keynote speech titled “Olympic projects as desirable futures” at the “China National Arts Fund Initiation and forum: Training innovative art and tech talents for the 2022 Winter Olympics Games” on June 9 at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University.

http://www.ieeac2015.org.cn/p/17/20180614/171813553838279.html

Last updated: 2:36 pm