Based on CY school of design's vision, our research focuses on the analysis and design of sustainable transitions.
Discover the teamTransition Design Lab research relies both on design studies and design science. Focusing on transition paradigme, we recognize three major challenges for design practices:
Those challenges lead us to identify, in a multidisciplinary litterature review, five crucial dimensions to design for socio-environmental transitions.
This diagram presents the 5 dimensions of design of transitions.
Anthony Ferretti, Annie Gentès et Justine Peneau
How can we inform stakeholders about the current and evolving state of the systems in which they live, and on which they can rely (what is already in place, what works) or which they want to remedy (what needs to be changed)?
Design research focus
The research focuses as much on system representations as on design methodologies.
We analyze and design representations and visualizations of systems in their current state for heterogeneous audiences and a diversity of purposes: data visualization, information vizualizations, systemic design[1] and meta design[2][3][4][5].
References
[1]Blomkamp (2022), [2]Giaccardi & Fischer (2008), [3]Sevaldson (2013), [4]Allee (2008), [5]Haraldsson (2004)
How ecological and societal awareness can take hold and spread? Who are the « concerned »[1] ? How capturate and maintain their attention ? What supports sustainable behaviors ?
Design research focus
We need to dentify the new entrants, human and non-human[2][3][4], and their roles in decision-making [5][6]. We investigate the issues of opinion leadership and influence with a focus on actors as well as media[7][8][9][10][11].
We design and organize new formats of engagement and feedback: nudge[12][13], positive reinforcement and gamification theory, engagement management[14], etc.
References
[1]Peneau (2023) [2]Favret-Saada (1977), [3]Favret-Saada (2009), [4]Latour (2017), [5]Latour (2018), [6]Karana et al. (2020), [7]Rogers & Cartano (1962), [8]Roger (1983), [9]Flynn &Goldsmith (1996), [10]Valente & Pumpuang (2007), [11]Akrich et al. (2002), [12]Thaler & Sunstein (2009), [13]Ölander & Thøgersen (2014), [14]Andriof et al. (2017)
Elaborating on participatory design, how can we design for fruitful debates and decision making processes involving a heterogeneous range of "concerned" parties ? How do we design debate modalities[1][2]?
Design research focus
We need to understand and identify all forms of debating situations involving different « concerned » actors, in different places, at different time, by different modalities and with different media.
We analyse debating situations and design tools, intefaces and media to support the configuration of a fruitful debate : stakeholders mapping[3], contreversy mapping[4], representativeness and governance formats[5], to ensure the material and human conditions for a fair debate[6][7][8] and to support closure and the moving on to decisions : rethink negociation and voting methods (e.g. quadratic voting[9]).
References
[1]Gentes & Mollon (2015), [2]Bonaccorsi & julliard (2012), [3]Reed et al. (2009), [4]Venturini (2010), [5]Berthet & Hickey (2018), [6]Umney & Lloyd (2018), [7]Meadowcroft (2009), [8]Gentes & Perez (2022), [9]Lalley & Weyl (2018)
What are the tools and media that enable heterogeneous audiences to project themselves intimately and collectively into possible futures ?
Design research focus
The research focuses as much on the pragmatic caracteristics of projecting media and tools as on their ideological, teleological and dramaturgical effects on actors and collectives.
We identify the best practices[1] and the potential of each media and tool for reproductibility and scalability in different contexts, as much as alignement spaces that organize flows and this scaling[2][3] among a large range of practices: code scenarios[4], representation tools of imaginaries and projection to choose possible futures[5][6][7][8] such as frescoes, foresight narratives co-created with AI, simulation design tools from weak emerence to strong emergence[6], etc.
References
[1]Sio et al. (2015), [2]Tura et al. (2018), [3]Marcocchia (2019), [4]Bornes et al. (2022), [5]Young et al. (2001), [6]Gentes (2008), [7]Heinonen & Hiltunen (2012), [8]Gentes (2015), [9]Bedau & Humphrey (2008)
How to draw up an action plan with tools for evaluating the stages and the values and impacts created? What are the media, communication situations and actors likely to define and implement desirable futures?
Design research focus
The research focuses on the nature of KPIs and designs evaluation interfaces, accounting instruments, dashboards for activities.
We critically question, analyze and design evaluation methodologies: criteria, values[1][2]. We identify the actors and resources needed[3] to counter the obstacles to the desired future. We identify the stages of organizational transformation based on the dimensions of organization design[4].
References
[1]Sterman (2001), [2]Rodriguez et al. (2019), [3]Ostenwalder & Pigneur (2010), [4]Galbraith & Kates (2010)
This diagram represents the three spaces involved in design, the dynamics and operations of design among those three spaces : médiums space, actors space and culture space.
Anthony Ferretti, Annie Gentès et Justine Peneau
All our research is based on the AMC model (Actors/Mediums/Cultures). Based on media studies the AMC model allows us to analyse the material culture of design milieu from an anthropological standpoint. In particular, we focus on the informational literacies and communicational infrastructures that support the mediation between actors in transition. We also analyze how artefacts and actors “work together” to achieve innovative goals.
Thus, the Actors / Mediums / Cultures model studies design activities as both tangible and symbolic operations between actors, media and cultures. It highlights:
the fundamental role of the "mediums" of conception, debate and decision;
the specificities of the actors’ cultures (aesthetics, social and political values, and modes of legitimization).
Drawing on Dewey[1] and Schön[2], our model is media-centric, i.e. it starts from a definition of the media as material, medium and mediation. Mediums enable designers to distance themselves[3], to engage in a "conversation" with materials[4], to project imaginaries, to support embodied activity and to make sense of the history of their uses[5].
We see design mediums as formative matrices[6] that give rise to possibilities based on both material and symbolic properties, and the designers' gestures and imagination.
AMC design model is based on a theory of culture as a design environment, but also as a creative mediation between the inner self and the outside world.
Design practices are analyzed as operations that organize a playful interaction[8] between actors, malleable mediums[9][12] and cultures :
AMC Design model thus emphasizes the media literaties of actors in both production and reception.
Drawing on media studies and semiotics, we analyze the tools of expression, mediation, narratives and data visualization and culture, documentary formats and mediums of expression that enable actors to take a reflexive and creative step back collectively[5]. In addition, we implement an anthropological analysis of material cultures, design, consultation, and decision-making rituals, as reservoirs of inspiration for designers. Finally, we study the operations of extraction, discretization, composition and expansion that actors use to transform their environments in a sustainable way.
The AMC design model allows us to
References
[1]Dewey (1934), [2]Schön (1983), [3]Guillory (2010), [4]Schön (1992), [5]Gentes & Marcocchia (2023), [6]Gentes (2022), [7]Despret (2012), [8]Winnicott (1971), [9]Gentes (2024), [10]Hatchuel et al. (2003), [11]Gentes (2017), [12]Roussillon (2001)
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