Transition Design in Practice
- ECTS-point
- 4
- Registration deadline
- 10 August 2025. Please send an email containing your name, home institution, and the title of your PhD project to Christina Stind Rosendahl at csr@dskd.dk
- Price
- The course is free. Please be prepared to cover your own meal costs.
- Education
- PhD
- Education project type
- Course
- Course responsible
- Morten Krogh Petersen
- Location
- In-person. Kolding School of Design, Ågade 10, 6000 Kolding, room 2.54
- Spots available
- 8
- Date and time
- 17, 18 og 19 September 2025
- Instruction language
- English
Transition Design in Practice
Among these methodologies, 'Transition Design' stands out as one of the most prominent and promising. However, a common criticism of these emerging design methodologies, including 'Transition Design,' is that they can be challenging to instantiate into actual design practice.
This PhD course confronts the challenge of 'designing transitions' by delving into the theoretical and analytical foundations of 'Transition Design.' Instead of treating them as overarching explanatory frameworks, we work with these foundations as practical and tangible tools for reshaping specific modes of thinking and designing.
Preparation
Write a 5 page empirical description of a central issue in your project.
Programme
Day 1
Theoretical foundations of ‘Transition Design’
Day 2
Analytical experiments with theories as tools for thinking and designing
Day 3
Implications for your practices of researching and designing
Selected readings
Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press.
Irwin, T. (2015). Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research. Design and Culture, 7(2), 229-246. DOI: 10.1080/17547075.2015.1051829.
Kossoff, G., Tonkinwise, C., & Irwin, T. (2015). Transition Design: The importance of everyday life and lifestyles as a leverage point for sustainability transitions. In 6th International Sustainability Transitions Conference.
Latour, B. (2000). When things strike back: a possible contribution of ‘science studies’ to the social sciences. The British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 107-123.
Mol, A. (2021). Eating in Theory. Duke University Press.
Nold, C. (2018). Practice-based ontological design for multiplying realities. Strategic Design Research Journal.
Shove, E. (2010). Beyond the ABC: climate change policy and theories of social change. Environment and planning A, 42(6), 1273-1285.
Tonkinwise, C. (2023). Some Theories of Change behind and within transition designing. In Strategic Thinking, Design and the Theory of Change: A Framework for Designing Impactful and Transformational Social Interventions, 270.
Willis, A. M. (2006). Ontological designing. Design Philosophy Papers, 4(2), 69-92.
