Skip to content

design studies

  1. Reflective Practice in software development studios: findings from an ethnographic study

    Reflective Practice in software development studios: findings from an ethnographic study

    Dors, Tania M.; van Amstel, Frederick M.C.; Binder, Fabio; Reinehr, Sheila dos Santos; Malucelli, Andreia. (2020). Reflective Practice in Software Development Studio: findings from an ethnographic study. In: Proceeding of the 32nd Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T), Munich. 10.1109/CSEET49119.2020.9206217 - May 19, 2020
  2. Design and other types of thinking

    Design and other types of thinking

    Design and other types of thinking (2020) was a workshop offered in UTFPR teaching seminars. Design thinking is a contemporary approach to innovation, entrepreneurship, project development, and education that makes designers’ thinking accessible to professionals in other areas. While it has drawn attention to creative processes typical of design, this approach has overshadowed the thoughts […] - Apr 27, 2020
  3. What is a contradiction and why it is relevant to design research?

    What is a contradiction and why it is relevant to design research?

    Design research is increasingly concerned with being part of change processes in everyday life, in communities, in organizations, and in large-scale sociotechnical systems. Despite the growing interest, the field is not prepared to deal with this topic. The predominant theories in design research were crafted to understand individuals interacting with products, or groups of people […] - Apr 21, 2020
  4. Prospective Design graduate program

    Prospective Design graduate program

    Prospective Design is a new Master’s program of UTFPR, currently under evaluation by the national higher-education agency of Brazil. I helped to develop its curriculum and research structure. The program is focused on designing transition technologies for sociotechnical systems that urgently need to prioritize relational qualities, such as sustainability, resilience, equality, solidarity, or conviviality. Historically, […] - Apr 8, 2020
  5. Seeking freedom in design

    Seeking freedom in design

    Open Design was initially introduced as an analog to Open Source Software, a concept which explains why software source code should be part of an official product release. The analogy went by stating that electronic drawings and models be released together with physical products, in the hopes of enabling modifications or self-production through digital fabrication. […] - Apr 6, 2020
  6. Designing Metaobjects for Collaboration, Participation and Debate

    Designing Metaobjects for Collaboration, Participation and Debate

    This research theoretically develops and empirically tests the concept of metaobject in design projects with special needs for collaboration, participation, or debate. Metaobjects are objects that represent and support the design of new objects in metadesign processes, such as a sketch, a model, or a prototype. In design projects, metaobjects must represent multiple perspectives and […] - Mar 25, 2020
  7. Contradiction-driven design

    Contradiction-driven design

    I have developed for my Design Thinking course a comprehensive explanation on how design can be part of big transformations in society. Instead of making changes to society, as in the paradigm of “social impact”, I teach my students to discover transformations already in course, understand them, and support them. The concept of contradiction is key to my approach: a unite […] - Oct 28, 2016
  8. Expanding the design object

    Expanding the design object

    In the first lecture of my Design Thinking course, I gave a historical perspective on the evolution of the design object. According to my thesis work, the object of design expanded in the last century from complex entities to emergent performances, such as experiences, interactions and business. The characteristics of this object are: It includes the user behavior, as […] - Sep 16, 2016
  9. Digital Design Trends Laboratory

    Digital Design Trends Laboratory

    Regular course – 40hs – Digital Design Bachelor – Catholic University of Paraná This course helps students find a relevant topic for their final graduation work. They learn how to deal with trends and receive the task to identify today’s digital design trends. The trends identified are published in an online magazine. At the end […] - Aug 8, 2016
  10. Design Thinking

    Design Thinking

    45 hours – Graphic Design – PUCPR. This is an elective course offered to students from any of the bachelors of Catholic University of Paraná. The purpose was to provide them the opportunity to develop multidisciplinary projects based on the design thinking approach. Syllabus: Typology of design thinking, wicked problems, co-creation, grassroots design, participatory design, design […] - Aug 7, 2016
  11. The social production of design space

    The social production of design space

    Van Amstel, F.M.C; Hartmann, T; Voort, M. van der and Dewulf, G.P.M.R. The social production of design space, Design Studies, 46, 2016, p. 199–225. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2016.06.002 - May 2, 2016
  12. The Transformative Potential of Game Spatiality in Service Design

    The Transformative Potential of Game Spatiality in Service Design

    Van Amstel, Frederick M.C. and Garde, Julia. Games to explore the possibilities of space and the space of possibilities in service design. Simulation & Gaming, 47 (5), 2016, p. 628-650. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878116635921 - Mar 4, 2016
  13. PhD thesis - Expansive design: designing with contradictions

    PhD thesis – Expansive design: designing with contradictions

    Quick intro: What is expansive design? Quick graphics: Sketching an expansive design definitionQuick contextualization: What is a contradiction and why it is relevant to design research? Abstract: This thesis looks at the practice of design as it emerges in architectural design and service design. The lens adopted considers design both as an activity as well […] - Dec 14, 2015
  14. What is expansive design?

    What is expansive design?

    Expansive design is a concept initially defined by psychologist Yrjö Engeström which I developed further in my PhD thesis. It means expanding the design activity towards the use activity, or in other words, connecting them together. This connection is characterized by co-creation; instead of merely producing objects for users, designers co-create objects with the users. […] - Nov 20, 2015
  15. The alienation of design possibilities

    The alienation of design possibilities

    The progressive contraction of design representations is synchronized with the alienation of design possibilities. Alienation means that some of the design possibilities are taken out of the design space and, therefore, never considered. These possibilities are put aside for being unacceptable, unthinkable, or unknown. This can happen by many reasons. In the socialization of the […] - Mar 16, 2015
  16. The socialization of the design space

    The socialization of the design space

    The expansion of the design object from materials to experiences is synchronized with the socialization of the design space. The design space can be understood in three ways: Saying that, I believe there is a strong link between the physical, the social and the mental, one feeding the other. In that sense, the design space […] - Mar 16, 2015
  17. The contraction of design representations

    The contraction of design representations

    In the last post, I described the expansion of the design object in the last centuries. This process is followed by another historical change in the opposite direction. Instead of expanding together with the object, the design representations are becoming smaller and more precise. The representations are being contracted in the hopes of corralling the […] - Mar 12, 2015
  18. The expansion of the design object: from materials to experiences

    The expansion of the design object: from materials to experiences

    The object of design was once easy to grasp. If we look at the first Bauhaus curriculum, we see the prominent role the building materials played in the designer’s formation. The aspiring designer was supposed to master these materials and tranform them into aesthetical compositions. At this time, the materials were the design object: concrete, […] - Mar 9, 2015
  19. Reductionism and expansionism in design theory

    Reductionism and expansionism in design theory

    In the readings of my PhD I came across the term reductionism a lot. It is used to criticize or warn against the trap of analyzing social phenomena in a rather restricted way, with no clear definition of its own. After years of reading those uses, I got a tacit understanding of what can be […] - Feb 23, 2015
  20. Aesthetics in Design Thinking

    Aesthetics in Design Thinking

    Both Design Thinking business discourse and research relies heavily on the problem-solution dichotomy for explaining what design is. The emphasis is given to go beyond the common-sense notion of design as form shaping and open new spaces for design in science and business. The aesthetics of form shaping is not entirely rejected in this turn, but reduced to an aspect […] - May 13, 2011
  21. Designer’s role in a Free Design world

    Designer’s role in a Free Design world

    On the beginning of the year, I gave a talk with my friend Gonçalo Ferraz at a Design student conference about the future role of the professional designer. We envisioned a big leap in design practice, moving from designing products to designing process. Going further than Service Design and Co-design approaches, we expect that people […] - May 2, 2011