Events
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MATERIALDESIGN Design Research Symposium, 18. July 2025. see more
MATERIALDESIGN Design Research Symposium (18. July 2025)
Materialdesign expands and challenges the disciplinary boundaries and the understanding of design. Designing with materials is inherently a practice of researching, experimentation and crossing traditional disciplinary borders. The dialogue with materials encourages the exploration of novel forms, techniques, and fosters innovative outcomes – in this way, materialdesign drives the evolution of new paradigms and approaches in design practice and research.
The Symposium explores the evolving roles of materials design of generating knowledge through practice. By bringing together international researchers working in this scope, we aim to provide a holistic overview of this evolving field, to discuss the future roles of materialdesign in the design study.
Register here https://pretix.eu/IMD/Symposium/
Schedule
9:00 Doors Open
9:15 Arrival Bus Shuttle from Offenbach
9:30 – 9:45 Greeting Speech (Prof. Dr. Brigitte Franzen, President HfG Offenbach)
9:45 – 10:00 Greeting Speech ( Prof. Dr. Marlus Holzbach, Prof. Dr. Tom Bieling)
10:00 – 11:00 Keynote (Prof. Dr. Valentina Rognoli)
11:00 -11:30 coffee break and workshop tour
11:30 – 13:00 MATERIALDESIGN – Boundaries
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break
14:00 – 15:30 MATERIALDESIGN – Capabilities
15:30 – 17:00 MATERIALDESIGN Perspectives
From 17:00 Shuttle Departure to
Rundgang at HfG Offenbach
Designing Materials for Transition: A Multispecies and Regenerative Future Through Materials
Keynote by Prof. Dr. Valentina Rognoli – Politecnico di Milano
As the climate crisis intensifies and the Anthropocene paradigm becomes increasingly inadequate, the role of materials in shaping future design scenarios is becoming increasingly important. This speech introduces the Materials Design for Transition framework, which is being developed as a research and pedagogical tool to guide material innovation towards multispecies care, ecological restoration and regenerative futures. Based on a multidisciplinary and practice-based approach, the framework considers materials to be active agents embedded in social, ecological and technological systems, rather than merely inert substances to be selected. Through selected case studies from the Materials Design for Transition research group, we demonstrate how the DIY Materials approach, involving material tinkering and biotinkering, can catalyse transformative processes, from the development of circular materials using renewable resources or waste to the design of biofabricated systems designed for coexistence. This speech calls for a collective reorientation of material practices in design, bringing together designers, scientists, educators and local communities in a shared pursuit to reimagine design for thriving futures.
Sessions
MATERIALDESIGN – Boundaries
Materialdesign is an emerging and expanding field that challenges and resets disciplinary boundaries by connecting diverse scientific and artistic fields. In this session, Johanna
Hehemeyer-Cürten, Carolin Pertsch, and Emma Sicher will discuss new connections, possibilities, and the evolving roles of Materialdesigners within these cross-disciplinary practices.
Emma Sicher
›Fermenting materialities: designing with microbes, plants, and culturaltechniques‹
Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten
›Revaluating Pine Bark‹
Carolin Pertsch
›Material design in the field of tension between design and science‹
MATERIALDESIGN – Capabilities
Material is designable and therefore, it can be changed, extended, and informed. In this panel, Malu Lücking, Steffen Reiter, and Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete will present diverse approaches to designing materials and designing with materials through their own capabilities.
Malu Lücking
›Designing in Relation to the Sea: Material Approaches from and with Marine Environments‹
Steffen Reiter
›Shaping Material Behavior: Parametric Approaches to programmable Hybrid Material Systems‹
Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete
›Craft knowledge fostering materials design for transition‹
MATERIALDESIGN – Perspectives
Thinking about materials can also become thinking with or through materials. By discussing ways of
learning, speculating, and researching through Materialdesign, Ziyu Zhou, Meri Zirkelbach, and Valentin Brück will reflect on Materialdesign as a holistic field
Dr. Ziyu Zhou
›Learning through Materials‹
Meri Zirkelbach
›Materialspekulation – Zusammenspiel von Materialtradition und materialorientierter Gestaltung‹
Valentin Brück
›Non-anthropocentric materialities‹
About
The Institute for Materialdesign and Advanced Material Studies IMD at the university of art and design in Offenbach works in the experimental and interdisciplinary intersection of design and materialization. The focus of the work is the role of the material in the design process. Material-appropriate design becomes „design with designed materials“.
The teaching area of Design Theory explores the epistemic dimensions of design research along its theoretical and practical interfaces.
Organizers
Prof. Dr. Markus Holzbach
Prof. Dr. Tom Bieling
Dr. Ziyu Zhou
Valentin Brück
Symposium Location
IMD Institute for Materialdesign and Advanced Material Studies
Palleskestraße 32
65929 Frankfurt am Main
Rundgang opening location (afterwards)
HfG Offenbach
Universtity of Art and Design HfG Offenbach
Schloßstraße 31
63065 Offenbach am Main
After the symposium, we’ll head to our campus in Offenbach (roughly 1 hour from Frankfurt) for the opening of our annual Rundgang exhibition, while students present their projects from the past two semesters in the following two days.
Transport
We’ve arranged shuttle buses between both venues on the day, one in the Morning, departing at 8:00 from the campus in offenbach, and one back to offenbach at 17:00.
Public connections include S1 and S2 train and regional trains to „Frankfurt Höchst“ station,
Tram line 11 to „Zuckschwerdtstraße“ in Frankfurt Höchst, and the Bus Stop „Auerstraße“.
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CfP She Ji SI: Design and AI: Learning, Adapting, Collaborating. see more
Submission deadline: 15 September 2025
We are calling for empirical studies applying quantitative or qualitative methods to examine learning to design with AI in organisations.
Special issue information:
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools require designers to acquire new skills and knowledge, and the field has recognised new demands through a strong conceptual understanding of the role of AI in design. However, the relative lack of empirical studies has led to more myth and uncertainty than to clear guidelines around how to best work with AI in design. The aim of this special issue, Design and AI: Learning, Adapting, Collaborating, is to empirically advance our understanding on how designers are able to successfully leverage AI as a tool, and perhaps as a partner. Empirical contributions to the issue may include high-quality studies investigating design topics at individual, collective, or organizational levels, and using quantitative or qualitative data and methods. Submissions are expected to address basic research beyond specific commercial applications, in categories of (1) Learning to collaborate in AI-Human teams, (2) Adapting to AI-Design Methods, (3) Acquiring AI-Design Skills and (4) AI-Design Training & Education.
Guest Editors
- Prof. Clark, American University, Kogod School of Business, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
- Prof. de Bont, National University of Singapore, College of Design and Engineering, Singapore
- D.Sc. Graff, Tongji University, College of Design & Innovation, Shanghai, China
Consulting Editor
- Prof. Fan, Tongji University, College of Design & Innovation, Shanghai, China
Background
AI refers to systems that display intelligent behaviour by analysing their environment and taking actions with some degree of autonomy to achieve specific goals. (European Commission, 2018)
The rapid recent advancements of AI, including natural and large language models (LLM) and related tools, enable designers to involve AI throughout the design process, as well as the potential impact on design process and outcomes. Many AI tools have been customized in the form of software applications that address specific tasks within the design field, potentially altering the way designers work. Design work therefore becomes a product of human and non-human efforts, at some level of collaboration. This perspective is recognised by adapting Jones (1970) definition of design as the activities of a human or machine in creating or contributing to the creation of physical or conceptual things. This characterisation builds on the idea that designers (i.e., who do the design work) can be machines or other forms of intelligence, in addition to the humans who traditional have done this work. It focuses also on the design outcome: physical or conceptual things rather than on the process (i.e., creative problem-solving).
Design is a broad field with many sub-branches. To provide some focus for this special issue, we identified four main areas of research interest on Design and AI: Learning, Adapting, Collaborating: (1) Learning to collaborate in AI-Human teams, (2) Adapting to AI-Design Methods, (3) Acquiring AI-Design Skills and (4) AI-Design Training & Education.
(1) Learning to collaborate in AI-Human Teams is concerned with AI as a team member rather than just a tool for designing. While academics theorise that combining respective strengths in AI-Human Collaboration is likely to be more impactful than solely human or machine work (Song et al., 2020), research to date has shown mixed results (e.g. Wilson & Daugherty, 2018, Zhang et al., 2021). Papers for this special issue could further advance our understanding by, for example, investigating if traditional team models, such as transactive memory system, or shared mental models, or adaptation (Rico, Gibson, Sanchez-Manzanares, & Clark, 2020) remain relevant within AI-Human Collaboration.
(2) Adapting to AI-Design Method is concerned with tools use during the design process. Many AI applications, such as ChatGPT4 or others can be used by the designers during designing (i.e. research, ideation, prototyping, or implementation). Designers have little guidance on how to use AI with existing design tools (cf. Clark & Graff, 2025). In some respects, we are in a similar situation as designers in the 1970s when there was little to no guidance for product designers (Jones, 1970). Papers concerned with AI-Design methods could, for example, introduce new design methods or identify current AI-design methods used and their impact on the design outcome. Papers describing and illustrating the effectiveness of a specific AI tool are excluded from this special issue.
(3) Acquiring AI-Design Skills recognises that the skill set of a designer must potentially adapt for AI & design. Whereas some skills might be less relevant in the future, new skills are required to be able to use AI (e.g., writing prompts). Papers of this type, for example, could explore and examine the skills that may lead to a better understanding and use of AI. What are the important skills and how do designers acquire those skills? What effect has the use of AI (e.g., sketching AI) on traditional design skills and what are the potential consequences?
(4) AI-Design Training & Education focuses on AI-design skills and capacity building. In contrast to which new design skills are required, this area is concerned with how designers can acquire these new AI-design skills. This focus may include professional designers in organisational settings as well as design students in academic context. Papers concerned with teaching AI-design skills in academic context could, for example, focus on how AI can support teachers (e.g., Meron & Tekmen Araci, 2023), or specific course content (e.g., Huang, Wensveen, & Funk, 2023). Submissions with a focus on AI-design skills training might look at how organisations can up- and re-skill their design workforce.
Aim and Scope
We are calling for empirical studies applying quantitative or qualitative methods to examine learning to design with AI in organisations. Studies that are exclusively theoretical/conceptual or opinion statements are outside the scope of this special issue. A study must align with at least one of the four core themes identified above.
Proposed Timeline (Tentative Deadlines)
May 10, 2025: open call
May 20, 2025: submission portal opened
September 15, 2025: deadline for submission
January 15, 2026: author notification
March 31, 2026: deadline for revised submission
April 20, 2026: final decision notification
June 30, 2026: publication date *
* The final publication date is tentatively set but may be extended to September 30, 2026, based on the actual production timelines.
Additional Information and Queries
Mark Clark, mark.clark@american.edu
Cees de Bont, debont@nus.edu.sg
Daniel Graff, danielgraff@tongji.edu.cn
Manuscript submission information:
Short Special Issue Name
SI: Design and AI: Learning, Adapting, Collaborating
Editorial Manager URL
https://www.editorialmanager.com/sheji/default.aspxReferences
Clark, M. A. & Graff, D. (forthcoming 2025). AI & Design Collaboration: Not a Full Member (Yet). In S. Paletz & S. S. Dubrow, Research on Managing Groups and Teams: AI in Teams. Emerald Publishing.
Dorst, Kees; Dijkhuis, Judith (1995). Comparing paradigms for describing design activity. Design Studies. 16 (2): 261–274. doi:10.1016/0142-694X(94)00012-3.
European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. (2018). Communication from the commission to the EUROPEAN parliament, the EUROPEAN council, the council, the European economic and social committee and the committee of the regions artificial intelligence for Europe.
Gmeiner, F. Yang, H., Yao, L., Holstein, K., & Martelaro, N. (2023). Exploring Challenges and Opportunities to Support Designers in Learning to Co-create with AI-based Manufacturing Design Tools. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23–28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580999
Hernández-Ramírez, Rodrigo, and João Batalheiro Ferreira. 2024. ‘The Future End of Design Work: A Critical Overview of Managerialism, Generative AI, and the Nature of Knowledge Work, and Why Craft Remains Relevant’. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation 10(4): 414–40. doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2024.11.002.
Huang, Y.-C. J., Wensveen, S., & Funk, M. (2023). Experiential speculation in vision-based AI design education: Designing conventional and progressive AI futures. International Journal of Design, 17(2), 1-17. doi.org/10.57698/v17i2.01
Jones, John Chris. 1970. Design Methods: Seeds of Human Futures. Wiley-Interscience.
Meron Y., & Tekmen Araci, Y. (2023). Artificial intelligence in design education: evaluating ChatGPT as a virtual colleague for post-graduate course development. Design Science, 9, e30. doi:10.1017/dsj.2023.28
Rico, R., Gibson, C., Sanchez-Manzanares, M., & Clark, M. A. (2020). Team adaptation and the changing nature of work: Lessons from practice, evidence from research, and challenges for the road ahead. Australian Journal of Management, 45(3), 507-526. doi.org/10.1177/0312896220918908
Song, B., Zurita, N. S., Zhang, G., Stump, G., Balon, C., Miller, S., et al. (2020). Toward hybrid teams: A platform to understand human-computer collaboration during the design of complex engineered systems. In Proceedings of the design society: DESIGN conference, Vol. 1, pp. 1551-1560. Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, H. J., & Daugherty, P. R. (2018). Collaborative intelligence: Humans and AI are joining forces. Harvard Business Review, 96, 114-123.
Zhang, G., Raina, A., Cagan, J., & McComb, C. (2021). A cautionary tale about the impact of AI on human design teams. Design Studies, 72, doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2021.100990.
Why publish in this Special Issue?
- Special Issue articles are published together on ScienceDirect, making it incredibly easy for other researchers to discover your work.
- Special content articles are downloaded on ScienceDirect twice as often within the first 24 months than articles published in regular issues.
- Special content articles attract 20% more citations in the first 24 months than articles published in regular issues.
- All articles in this special issue will be reviewed by no fewer than two independent experts to ensure the quality, originality and novelty of the work published.
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Exhibition — OA2025 Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines see more
OPEN CALL
Call for Contributions is now open.
EXHIBITION
(INTERNATIONAL, JURIED WITH AWARDS, OPEN CALL)3–17 December 2025
Gallery of Science and Technology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
Djure Jakšića 2, 11000 Belgrade, SerbiaSUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION
Send 70–100 words text description with title, authors names and two illustrations
⟶ via Exhibition Form or email info@strand.rs by 10 July 2025Established in 2016, the MicroMacro awards are dedicated to the recognition of design solutions in innovative ways that successfully implement new standards in architecture and urban design and planning and encourage environmental sustainability.
Who can enter?
The competition is open to individuals and organizations in the fields of architecture, urban planning, design, history, technology, art, photography, new media art and to all geographical locations.Who can submit a nomination?
If you are an organization, an association, a not-for-profit or an individual you can nominate. You can self-nominate or nominate another organization.Themes?
International exhibition follows the Conference thematic blocks: Phenomenology of Architecture, Science & Technology and Architecture, Architecture and New Media approach, Showcase Presentations – new idea or project realization in Architecture, Urban Design or Art.,Vision of the City/Architecture –from capturing moments of city life towards utopias in a form of artistic drawing, design, photography, design product…We kindly invite the perspective architects, town planners and artist to submit their projects, drawings, and photographs that respond to the scope of the above listed topics.
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Conference — OA2025 Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines see more
OPEN CALL
Call for Contributions is now open.
CONFERENCE
(INTERNATIONAL, PEER-REVIEWED, OPEN CALL)4–5 December 2025
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
Knez Mihailova 35, 11000 Belgrade, SerbiaSUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION
Send 250–300 words abstract with title, authors names and up to 6 keywords
⟶ via Conference Form or email info@strand.rs by 10 July 2025CONCEPT
On Architecture — Crosscutting and Fusion of Disciplines is based on the concept of an interdisciplinary, international, multi-location conference, with two exhibitions and a panel.
OA2025 would bring together partner institutions, representatives from both academia and industry, from different parts of the world, working together on organization and realization of the event. The motivation of holding a multiplaces conference, in several places at the same time, is the knowledge exchange, dissemination of research results and possible interaction and implementation aimed at stakeholders and sponsors. This is why the principle of networking is key.
Another principle of interdisciplinarity underlines the complexity and multiplicity of architecture, as well as the new challenges facing architects, urban designers, and artists. An interdisciplinary approach is the basis for defining thematic blocks/topics which include the essential approaches to the subject of architecture, innovative projects that impose new approaches and challenges, such as innovations in building materials, design and technology, which contribute to new aesthetics and a different understanding of functionalism, as well as architecture whose backbone is always creativity and art.
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The Scottish Design Workshop will take place on 29th August 2025 at the University of Strathclyde. see more
The Scottish Design Workshop will take place on Friday 29th August 2025 at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Building upon the success of the Clive L. Dym Mudd Design Workshop, and the Canadian Design Workshop. Our aim is to grow an interconnected network across the globe.
The Scottish Design Workshop will bring together academics, practitioners, and others to discuss design and engineering issues. This one-day event with focus on the development of joint research proposals to tackle the most urgent and systemic challenges of today.
This workshop will support academics at all levels of their career to:
- Build their local, national and international network
- Learn from more experienced peers in preparing for and managing research projects
- Develop a professional profile through leadership and mentorship opportunities, and
- Collaborate beyond established networks to tackle wicked problems.
The workshop will focus on three challenge topics being: Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability and Healthcare within the engineering design context. Each topic workshop will last one hour thirty with varied formats encouraging the discussion of joint research ideas.
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NORDES 2025 marks the 11th bi-annual conference in this series. see more
NORDES 2025 - RELATIONAL DESIGN
The 11th Nordic Design Research Society (NORDES) Conference
Wednesday 6 August – Saturday 9 August 2025
Located at OsloMet University, Oslo, Norway
ORIENTATION
NORDES 2025 marks the 11th bi-annual conference in this series. Launched in 2005, the Nordic Design Research Conferences have been shaped and sustained through commitment and participation from a range of Nordic design research institutions, together with regional and international participants.
NORDES 2025 symbolises a collective arrival for this community at the completion of the first quarter of the 21st century. The event offers a range of shared spaces and formats for reconsidering what we intended and may have achieved so far in design inquiry.
However, at this juncture, this occasion also invites us to reconsider designing and related practices, pedagogies and research as we look towards the mid-21st century. We do so in the contexts of pervasive, difficult and emergent challenges, compound crises, and deepening complexities and uncertainties about how to achieve and secure substantive and durative transformation in a world undergoing rapid ecological and systemic demands and changes.
THEME
NORDES 2025 takes up the open theme Relational Design to offer perspectives and means through which we may together investigate and discuss complex dilemmas and current responses, along with design’s futures and futures designing.
Relational Design gives attention to ontological multiplicity in evolving processes of becoming and emergence. It accentuates working with possibilities, tensions, paradoxes and contraditictions in re-framing and shaping resonances, alliances, linkages and networks of making and researching.
Working within and across difference, Relational Design instantiates interrelations, intersections and distinctions. It facilitates non-normative, situated knowledge experimentation and its generative practices. Relational designing treasures linked, participative and dynamic agency to bring forward pragmatically viable, equitable and bearable transformative potentials and their resonant effects.
Designing and researching relationally asks us to consider the shaping of re-directive design as well as analytical and methodological frames and practices linked with values, ethics, concepts and methods centred on repair, regeneration and reinvigoration.
This includes how agency be realised when embedded within alliances, networks and webs of relationships to cultivate incipient ventures and bolder analyses in articulating relational design activities and pluralist design research formations.
Overall, rethinking and re-making design relationally invites engagement in working with entanglements - of places, zones,values, processes and participation - that are enmeshed in living and regenerative situations, environments, systems and situated acts of worldmaking.
Conference fee & registration
Fees includes the opening event, daily refreshments, lunches and the conference dinner.
Registration opens: 10 April 2025
Early Bird:
Students, including PhD students, with valid student ID (before 22 May 2025): 250 €
Regular participants: (before 22 May 2025): 450 €
Standard:
Student (closes 12 June 2025): 300 €
Regular (closes 12 June 2025): 500 €
Late & onsite registration (one fee for full or partial attendance):
Student (with valid student ID): 400 €
Regular: 600 €
PROGRAMME & PUBLICATION
Programme
Final programme published: 20 June 2025
Programme outline:
Wednesday 6 August 2025: Welcome, Keynote, Refreshments and Snacks
Thursday 7 & Friday 8 August 2025: Keynotes, Conference presentations and events
Saturday 9 August 2025: Doctoral Consortium
Publication
All accepted submissions will be available as open access publications during and after the conference via the NORDES Digital Archive. Subsequently, publications will be accessible via the online DRS Digital Library and in the format of an integrated Conference Proceedings.
ABOUT NORDES 2025
Location
In 2025 NORDES returns to Oslo. The conference is located at the OsloMet city centre campus. On this occasion, we have three closely connected conference chairs from three leading design research institutions and a lively local organising committee and a team of Nordic organisers and regional and international reviewers.
Conference co-chairs
University of Oslo (Prof Alma Leora Culén), OsloMet (Prof Laurence Habib) and AHO (Prof Andrew Morrison)
Organisers, reviewers, theme and session chairs, assistants, communication design and sponsors will be posted online at a later date.
Previous conferences
Papers from and material about earlier NORDES conferences can be found at www.nordes.org
and also archived in the DRS digital library https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/nordes/
Featured Events
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