Tavares, Polyana Andrade, Gonzatto, Rodrigo Freese, Van Amstel, Frederick M. C. (forthcoming). Collective handiness in prospective design: a philosophical account of a serious play on articulation work. Proceedings of DRS 2026, Edinburgh. Design Research Society.
Abstract: Building on the German philosopher Heidegger, design philosophy has historically dealt with handiness (zuhandenheit/vorhandenheit) as an ontological relationship between an individual, a technology, and an artificial world. Such handiness conceptualization does not account for the social accumulation of work necessary to bring technology ready-to-specific-hands. Building on the work of Brazilian philosopher Vieira Pinto, this investigation foregrounds the collective aspect of handiness to account for the articulation work behind a new design philosophy program, prospective design. This program embraces philosophy through design; therefore, this investigation includes a description of a stakeholder mapping workshop in which serious play was used to develop the prospective design program’s collective handiness, both in theory and in practice. By mapping who is “at-hand” (and who is not) for this program’s ends, the collective body of researchers realized their fundamental relationship with their world.
