'Cost of Design 2019', Design History Society

Description

Chaired conference panel 'Design Challenges for Sustainability'

Panel speakers:

A Feminist Model of Industrial Design Practice
Dr Isabel Prochner, Syracuse University

From draining swamps to urban activisms: sustainability in the design of Finnish landscapes
Dr Eeva Berglund, Adjunct Professor, Department of Design, Aalto University, Finland

The role of design for craftsmanship in a growth-critical transformation
Dr Ulrike Haele, Assistant Professor, Institute of Design Research Vienna, Austria

Conference theme: Cost of Design 2019.

Conference Call:
"'The Cost of Design' explores the complexities of the historic and contemporary relationship between design and economy. Design is both influenced by, and can shape, economic systems. Both 'cost' and 'economy' are to be understood beyond their financial implications. 'Cost' is envisaged as the exchange of resources, meaning or value. The conference looks at how design sustains, accelerates or challenges dominant systems, and examines the resulting social, cultural, economic or environmental consequences that arise. It examines the roles of design in rapidly changing economies, examining the relationship between technological advances and the economy. 'The Cost of Design' also looks at design's relationship to the political economy and the global/regional/local exchanges occurring within. Design practices can react to, resist, challenge or seek to influence economies that are viewed to negatively impact in some way. The ways in which design has been used to affect positive change within economic systems will also be examined."


The conference welcomes historic, contemporary and interdisciplinary approaches to the topic, and invites contributions from design historians, scholars, and academics in related fields, as well as design practitioners and educators, museum professionals and students. Topics might include:

Technological and changing economies

Impact of automation
Digitisation of design culture
Hybridisation of physical and virtual spaces
Political economies and global/local exchange

Supply chains, manufacture and relocation vis-à-vis geopolitical and cultural borders
Challenges to/persistence of dichotomies of North/South; East/West; Centre/Periphery
Dynamics of transcultural (intra- or extra regional) design
The relationship between design and soft power
Appropriation and copyright
Resistance, sharing economies and design

Design for "post-growth" economies
Political design in a national/regional/local context
Artisanal/craft solutions
Indigenous autonomy
Designing for wellbeing, happiness and social values"

Source: <https://www.designhistorysociety.org/conferences/view/dhs-2019-the-cost-of-design>