Abstract
Design continues to operate through assumptions inherited from its industrial and epistemic origins, yet the contributions gathered here unsettle those defaults and propose alternative orientations for practice. They examine how design problems are framed, how publics are organised, and how designers themselves are produced under specific historical and political conditions. Spanning urban governance, feminist methodologies, grassroots archival infrastructures, digital representation, relational approaches to AI, and critiques of universalised design expertise, the papers illuminate how counter-practices cultivate alternative publics and expand the epistemic boundaries of design. Counter Design appears not as a unified method or approach but as a constellation of refusals and propositions that expands what design can notice, value, and nourish. Collectively, these works demonstrate how design can support multiple histories and futures by challenging dominant epistemologies and opening space for alternative ways of knowing, acting, and designing.
Keywords
pluriverse; anti-colonial design; feminism; socio-material worlds
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.104
Citation
Bakırlıoğlu, Y., García, C.G., and Morelli, N. (2026) Counter design: Changing perspectives in design action, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.104
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Counter design: Changing perspectives in design action
Design continues to operate through assumptions inherited from its industrial and epistemic origins, yet the contributions gathered here unsettle those defaults and propose alternative orientations for practice. They examine how design problems are framed, how publics are organised, and how designers themselves are produced under specific historical and political conditions. Spanning urban governance, feminist methodologies, grassroots archival infrastructures, digital representation, relational approaches to AI, and critiques of universalised design expertise, the papers illuminate how counter-practices cultivate alternative publics and expand the epistemic boundaries of design. Counter Design appears not as a unified method or approach but as a constellation of refusals and propositions that expands what design can notice, value, and nourish. Collectively, these works demonstrate how design can support multiple histories and futures by challenging dominant epistemologies and opening space for alternative ways of knowing, acting, and designing.