ABOUT US
The social design research group was established in 2015 at the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science / SDU
The social design research group was established in 2015 at the Department of Design, Media and Educational Science / SDU
The group has a keen interest in how people can be involved in participatory design processes leading to social value for the individual and society at large. By social value, we refer to changes at a human scale that is felt to be beneficial for marginalised or vulnerable societal groups and communities.
The group has a keen interest in how people can be involved in participatory design processes leading to social value for the individual and society at large. By social value, we refer to changes at a human scale that is felt to be beneficial for marginalised or vulnerable societal groups and communities.
Design research practice is essential for our work
We use design methods to make sense of wicked problems, as a way of engaging and co-designing with people and as a process of making artefacts or services enabling people to cope with difficult situations in life.
Through a number of research projects we have documented our ability to evaluate social design outcomes by bridging disciplines from the human and social sciences.
RESEARCH AREAS
In our social design unit we are concerned with the urgent societal need for rethinking core services of the Scandinavian and European welfare states. In particular, our research projects lies within the following four areas:
NEWS
Article presented at the Design Research Society Conference
What can design of social games tell us about troubled prisoner families? Together with our close research collaborators Valentijn Visch from T. U. Delft and Ed Tan from Copenhagen University we have looked into a number of interviews that we have made with prisoner fathers and their children in [...]
Merging speculative and participatory design
New publication in the Proceedings of the Design4Health Conference How can speculative design be used in participatory design research to lay bare barriers and conditions for future patient-centered care? We address this central question in the article "Probing the Future of Participatory Healthcare through Speculative Design", published in the [...]
Families playing board games in uncertain times
Interview in Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad Families in Denmark resort to playing board games in their self quarantine during the outbreak and spreading of the corona-virus. Sales of board games are increasing and one of the most popular games at the moment is - Pandemic. In an interview with [...]
New publication in Design Issues
Politics of participation in design research: learning from participatory art Volume 36, No. 1 of Design Issues has just come out, in which we have published a piece on the politics of participation in design research. Using theories from relational aesthetics, participatory art and social artwork we attempt to [...]
Thomas Markussen
thma@sdu.dk +45 93507196
Eva Knutz
evak@sdu.dk+45 93507135
University of Southern Denmark
Department of Design, Media and Educational Science
Universitetsparken 1
6000 Kolding, Denmark
