As of September 2022, I will start a PhD on the topic of designing for transition and transformation. This will be a continuation of my work done in my Masters. The aim will be to figure out what the value of design is within complex societal challenges. I am interested to learn why we are unable to effectively deal with these challenges and what is necessary to get out of the current stagnation. I believe design has a big role to play in this. By exploring what kind of different approaches there are and how they relate to complex societal challenges I hope to discover this added value of design. Taking this knowledge and trying it out in practice, will then hopefully allow me to distill some kind of transformative design logic that is needed to address complex societal challenges.
I hope to be able to do this with a variety of partners and institutions, nationally as well as internationally. By making new connections and working together we can figure out how to move forward together. Additionally, I believe theory has to be grounded in practice, which is why I want to explore it in practice and experiment within projects. I will always be a designer, meaning I want to make and create things to make complex topics and theory more tangible.
1. Discover the leading or most exciting design, transition and transformation frameworks
2. Exploring how these frameworks operate in practice
3. Using this knowledge to experiment with processes in my own projects
4. Integrating theory and practice towards a transformative design logic
- Discover and capture the landscape of approaches working on complex societal challenges
- Expand knowledge on what the different approaches have in common and what makes them different
- Experience the approaches in practice working on the topic of sustainability
- Open up the field of design to non-designers, giving them an insight in the plurality of approaches available and their key strengths
