DE7047 - Design for Critical Transitions Studio

You will learn through your teamwork on real-life systems projects within a collaborative studio in partnership with external collaborators. You will take the idea of a critical transition and using it in a performative way in a place-based setting, facilitating a social and transformative learning process, using design to create transition spaces and experiments.



You will help collaborators to envision a desirable future state and use different back-casting approaches to identify the necessary steps and policies to connect that future to the present. You will build on your experience in previous studios to take a leading role facilitating others participating in design workshops. You will receive feedback as part of your studio practice to help you improve and reflect.



Alongside studio practice with partners, you will learn through discourse in interactive seminars with academics on topics such as ‘the role of design in between creation and transition’, ‘imagining new systems for global challenges’, ‘bringing people together for systemic change and softening resistance against change’, ‘incentivizing transformative change for future generations’ and ‘the Designers’ role when not in charge of what’s being designed’.

To inspire and inform your design for critical transitions understanding and practice you will be supported to access and introduced to ground-breaking new research and researchers engaged in these areas. This includes the latest developments in areas of expertise at Northumbria University like: computerised society and digital citizens; energy and material systems; biofutures; global development futures; urban futures; extreme environments; gendered violence and abuse. Your module tutors will help you frame knowledge from these research areas productively within your project space and collaborations with external project partners.



The module’s tutors and its supporting documentation will support you throughout the module so that you understand what to expect, how classes and project-based activities relate to your assignments, and so you can receive feedback within supervised studio sessions. These details will be explained in a module briefing where you will have the opportunity to ask questions. You will see your tutors throughout each week of the module where there will be opportunities to ask questions and gain support. Digital platforms allow you to engage in discussions and share relevant resources with the studio members (your peers, tutors and collaborators). These platforms also provide the means to contact your tutors directly.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

Detail the nature and components of a dilemma in a transition context.

Examine existing responsible innovation frameworks.



Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

Utilise design approaches to operate across generational time horizons to support transitions.



Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

Situate your own values, skill and abilities and their value within a transition context.

Formative assessment will be provided through weekly contact with peers and tutors, and through in-depth project review and debriefing sessions.



Summative assessment will review an exhibition of your studio work and your reflection on the audiences’ reaction to the exhibition. The exhibition will present your synthesis of the context, the approach and methods you used, key moments and insights you developed and the outputs of your design for critical transitions project(s). The exhibition will be for a public audience using elements of project process and outcomes accompanied by approximately 2000 words of explanation.



Written summative feedback will be provided to highlight the strengths of your assignment submission and its areas of improvement. This feedback will make clear how you performed against the assessment criteria. All MLOs will be assessed through your exhibition.

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Contribute to the global discussion about what it means to live well and what must be designed to create conditions that allow that to happen. Become an agent of transformation, orchestrating interactions that foster resilience and adaptability. Design not just for today, but for the cascading effects on tomorrow’s world.



You will learn about and use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to consider the critical transitions that need to be designed and achieved for societies to survive and thrive. You will discover and apply the practices of Systemic Design, Transition Design, and Design for Policy to address real-world challenges posed by external collaborators, to deliver local impact with global relevance.



This studio is designed to enable students to act as co-researchers contributing new knowledge and understanding about design for critical transitions. Your project-based work will be developed as a public exhibition of practice developments and outcomes and this exhibition will be the assessable assignment for this studio.