Design has an important role in shaping the modes of production, consumption and disposal. Decisions made early in the product, service and system development influence the majority of the environmental impact and social consequences. With sustainability emerging as the major challenge of our times, the creation of novel methodologies, economic models and innovative materials is critical. In this paper, we put forward a new methodology that aims to bridge the ecomodernist business-focused circular economy models with the expressive material driven design (MDD) approach. The ‘design out waste methodology’ (DOWM) bridges existing concepts, methods and practices, creating an innovative design and production process that redefines waste and sets it up as a subject of creative study. The purpose of this process is to help designers understand the importance of evaluating the entire life cycle of a product; it also enables local ‘degrowth’ by shifting our modes of production towards a human scale with local makers exchanging knowledge and expressing themselves through upcycled materials, while simultaneously eradicating the very concept of waste. The methodology has been developed in an iterative research-through-design process that combines experiential and tacit knowledge from local case studies with desk research of emerging case studies in MDD.

This paper presents a literature review of the field of social innovation and more specifically, using collaborative services to provide meaningful interventions for people in precarious living conditions. The way that we live in the city is shaped by the political and ideological assumptions. People who find themselves without a roof are those who tend to be more open to alternative ways of living. The unique cocreative perspective of social innovation provides a framework that can enable the re-engagement of people living in the periphery and their inclusion in every step of the decision-making process. At the same time the co-creation of new ways to live together can act as a catalyst for a more widespread societal change. Increased participation has the capacity to lead to a new kind of social policy, a more inclusive, bottom up democratic policy. In addition, the housing context offers a path towards a more resilient and sustainable transition towards societal interpersonal and environmental sustainability.

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to describe a co-design methodology aiming to incorporate, synthesise and co-create different kinds of knowledge in the design process. Artifacts are creations of body/mind/thing assemblages (Latour, 2007); their physical structure prescribes technical functions existing within a context of human action (Kroes, 2012). The material, the social and the practical exist within a threefold design semiosis (Zingale & Domingues, 2015). The artifact, a "semiotic organism", acts as the transmitter of values and as a catalyst in shaping cultural systems. The mediation of each of the facets of the artifact produces different types of knowledge, namely tacit, empirical and scientific knowledge while shaping and being shaped through said mediation. Modernity brought about the rise of scientific operationalism and the adoption of scientific knowledge as the sole bearer of truth. Recent reactions to this modernist doctrine have included in the design semiosis other structures of knowledge sprawling around tacit, embodied, experiential and empirical. The aim of the proposed methodology is to bring the structures associated with tacit knowledge to the forefront and holistically synthesize the three different types of knowledge towards a new, more robust artifact that is the means, not the end, of co-creation of meaning through this threefold design semiosis. In order to achieve this, we expand on the idea of layers of abstraction of information appropriated towards knowledge. By understanding the processes of deduction, induction and abduction, we can co-create shared meaning between all the stakeholders of the design project. These three different ways of knowing, in combination with the designer's intentionality, work together to bring something into appearance, engaging in a process of "poeisis" (Heidegger, 1977).

The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss a proposed framework that enables and encourages a robust communication context for the design process. Sustainability can be seen as a wicked problem, therefore creating, maintaining and managing a consensus during the design process is a necessary requirement. Consequently dialogue is central to this. Dialogue, when successful, triggers the co-evolution of these high level meanings towards a shared consensus, a given for a successful co-design process. The framework proposes the use of four different layers of abstraction of information in order to facilitate the creation of shared meaning through dialogue. The four levels selected for this model are: the meaning level, the semantic level, the syntactic level and the artifact level. Communication modalities and the types of concepts are different at each level. Given that "the whole is larger than the sum of its parts", deconstruction into layers of abstraction can lead to the fragmentation of information and the loss of its richness. In order to avoid loss of meaning, or grounding, the mechanisms of reframing and emergence have been adopted when switching layers. The necessity for this framework stems from the wide range of emerging approaches to design and their myriad connections to the notion of sustainability. The proposed framework fosters the creation of a platform that allows exchange, evolution and synthesis. That enables designers to access a wider range of understandings and design in a more holistic way utilizing the different possibilities present and widening their solution spaces.