Episode 02: Thinking Beyond Human-Centered Design

In the face of an accelerating climate crisis and long standing social injustices, we have an opportunity to reimagine what design can do. In this episode, we discuss what constitutes good design and insights that we gained from our 14-day pop-up, in the hope that we can inspire each other and, together, create a better tomorrow.

Today, we are talking about tomorrow’s materials. On this episode, London-based material translator Seetal Solanki, Mexican designer Fernando Laposse, and Indian designer and visual artist Akanksha Deo Sharma, who works in-house at IKEA, join SPACE10’s Elsa Dagný Ásgeirsdótti to explore how different approaches to sustainable, circular, and regenerative design could redefine our relationships with materials, the land, and each other.

What new design methodologies are needed to address the complex challenges of our day and age? In part two of this conversation, design ethicist Nancy Douyon, Kara Pecknold of frog, researcher Mariam Bujalil, IKEA’s Nanette Weisdal, and Jorge Camacho of Diagonal Estudio come together to discuss the limits of our current design toolkit, and what mythologies and metrics might help us envision, prototype and build a better tomorrow.

Only two centuries have passed since the onset of the industrial revolution — and yet, already, we are living in a time of emergency. So how can we develop new design methodologies that address these complex challenges? In this two-part episode, design ethicist Nancy Douyon, Kara Pecknold of frog, researcher Mariam Bujalil, IKEA’s Nanette Weisdal, and Jorge Camacho of Diagonal Estudio contemplate what kind of design thinking is needed in this day and age.

There is no single ideal city and no one-size-fits-all approach to evolving cities in an equitable way. How can we design cities, neighbourhoods and streets that support a plurality of life? Joining us for this important conversation are curator and editor Mario Ballesteros, Sergio Beltrán-García of Forensic Architecture, Carolina Crespo Uribe and Victor M. Rico Espínolaof Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana and Guillaume Charny-Brunet of SPACE10.

Building on our project Everyday Experiments — an ongoing series of digital experiments in collaboration with IKEA — we speak with José Rodrigo de la O Campos of delaO design studio, Kara Pecknold of frog, Mar Namihira of FRAGMENTS_AND_FORMS and /*pac Interactive Studio, and SPACE10’s Georgina McDonald and Ryan Sherman to ask, how can technologies play a meaningful role in addressing the climate crisis?

Design media has always been influential in shaping our understanding of what constitutes good design. On this episode, SPACE10’s insights director Helen Job sits with Fernanda Sela of Elle and Elle Decor Mexico, Mónica Arellano of ArchDaily, Abigail Quesnel of coolhuntermx, and Louis Harnett O’Meara of Monocle to explore how design storytelling is evolving, and how we can better share narratives of sustainable, equitable design.

It’s clear we need to re-examine our global systems. So how can we rethink extractive approaches to life on Earth so that we value our natural ecosystems instead of dominating them? This panel brings together Franz Josef Allmayer of SEEDS, Nanette Weisdal of IKEA, and our own Binit Vasa to look at how design and technology can establish better and more regenerative relationships with nature.

How can designers come together to build the conditions for a more hopeful tomorrow? In our first panel from Mexico City, we speak with industrial designer Gabriel Calvillo, Jorge Camacho of Diagonal Estudio, researcher Edwina Portocarrero and Mariana Balderas of Isla Urbana on how designers can collectively shape a future where the needs of people and the planet are in balance.

Today, we set the scene for what’s ahead as we embark on our 14-day pop-up exploring the theme ‘Beyond Human-Centered Design’. SPACE10 Radio host, Leonora Milán, will speak to curator and editor Mario Ballesteros, co-founder and creative director of Niños Heroes Luis Urculo, and co-founder of SPACE10 Simon Caspersen, on the future of design, the curation of our program, and why Mexico.