Lab for Social Design
The Lab for Social Design performs design research and artistic development work in order to crate social and cultural change. Through democratic, experimental and material-oriented design processes we explore socially sustainable futures within social design, social innovation and welfare design in close collaboration with relevant actors.
Our starting point is complex social and societal challenges.
Our approach involves co-design, empathy and performativity.
Our goal is for all children and adults to be able to unfold their full potential during all phases of life - also when life is hard.
Themes
Citizenship and agency
We believe in and support democratic participation in everyday matters for everyone. It is important that all people can live sustainable lives with dignity and autonomy. Through co-design processes and design we can increase people’s capabilities to act on their aspirations.
Active citizenship can be supported in different ways, from policy making to how we as individuals embrace diversity. We engage in re-designing systems and services across sectors, care paths and decision-making in cancer treatment. We help changing roles and work cultures. Together, we design for social inclusion of marginalized groups such as people affected by disabilities, and challenged students in schools.
Togetherness
We believe in the value of embracing diversity. We design for social interaction, inclusion and wellbeing through and with different communities. With co-design processes, we explore challenges and frictions and we design with the aim to strengthen fruitful connections and interactions between people.
Togetherness centers on initiating and supporting community-building within different contexts. We design maker spaces and activity spaces in libraries and cultural houses.
We design toolkits to enable holistic treatment, improve well-being and to include the disabled. Togetherness includes design research on the dependencies between physical environments and of the social structures within them.
Ongoing-ness
We believe in the importance of being able to tackle the inevitable transitions of life. With the theme Ongoing-ness we focus on being able to cope with illness, the many transitions through childhood to adulthood, from job market to pension, as well as having to cope with disability or life-changing events such as the arrival of a newborn.
Many transitions require a reconfiguration of lifestyle pattern or entire being. Through codesign processes and design we generate knowledge about passages of life and assist others in their transitions. We codesign the good move from private home to nursing home, how relatives and volunteers can take on new, empathic roles together with care personnel.
Focus on practice
Design School Kolding rests on a three-pronged knowledge base: Research, artistic development and practice. The school works on the principle that "doing is thinking"; through specific collaborations and artistic development projects, the Laboratories generate knowledge and examples of how design contributes to the development and implementation of meaningful products, services and systems.
Universal Design at Design School Kolding
Universal Design means the design of products, environments, programs and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.
Design School Kolding and the Bevica Foundation work together to enhance the teaching of and research into Universal Design.
Lab for Social Design BLOG
Get your MA degree in Design for People
The Master’s Degree programme in Design at Design School Kolding supports and expands on the knowledge, competences and skills that you bring from your BA training and allows you to specialise in Design for Planet, Design for People or Design for Play.