Rethinking Design From Other Lenses: Peer-To-Peer Open Design

Abstract

For some years now I have been reflecting on design processes, especially in project contexts that seek to provoke social innovations. Researching and getting to know several initiatives, both governmental and private, and from civil society, coming from several countries, I became aware that the design processes frequently used bring intrinsic limitations. These are related to certain principles imbued in practice and to ontological understandings widely spread in the field of design, which often contribute to the creation of projects that are not in the best interest of the communities for which they are intended.Understanding the necessity to explore this field, we started in 2013 netweaving to experiment alternative forms of collective creation in communities, consciously using some principles, perspectives and intentionalities referred to in this text as lenses. This approach was called Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Open Design and comprises several network-based initiatives that are distributed, open, with horizontal co-creations, made and incorporated by common people (formal designers or not).Peer-to-Peer Open Design initiatives do not have features often present in a design project, such as stages, managers, specialized team, schedules. Due to the absence of these characteristics, we differentiate "project" from "netweav-