Abstract
The Bodies in Design track deals with the ways design engages with the human body with an emphasis on critical and creative investigations into the role of the body in contemporary design. While the body remains implicitly central to design thinking, it can be rendered invisible by a focus on the rational user or the cognitively motivated actor, and unreflexively normalized through forms of conservative and market-driven design agendas. Advancements in wearables and soft systems however, are reshaping design as a practice that engages the body in more considered and complex ways. We therefore sought contributions across material domains that treated the body not as a fixed or normative reference point but as a dynamic, diverse, and politicized site of experience, and encouraged reflections on design as a form of bodily and embodied expertise particularly attentive to form, experience, identity, care, and interdependence. In this editorial we reflect on the submissions received, those accepted, and the ways they have addressed these key themes. We finish with thoughts on mapping this design research agenda, and the further potential for the transdisciplinary field of Body Studies to inform design.
Keywords
embodied design; bodily diversity; wearables; e-textiles; material-body interaction
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.288
Citation
Göncü-Berk, G., Kettley, S., Ozden-Yenigun, E., and Hughes-Riley, T. (2026) Bodies in Design: Rethinking Norms, Materials, Technologies, and Methods, 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.2026.288
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Bodies in Design: Rethinking Norms, Materials, Technologies, and Methods
The Bodies in Design track deals with the ways design engages with the human body with an emphasis on critical and creative investigations into the role of the body in contemporary design. While the body remains implicitly central to design thinking, it can be rendered invisible by a focus on the rational user or the cognitively motivated actor, and unreflexively normalized through forms of conservative and market-driven design agendas. Advancements in wearables and soft systems however, are reshaping design as a practice that engages the body in more considered and complex ways. We therefore sought contributions across material domains that treated the body not as a fixed or normative reference point but as a dynamic, diverse, and politicized site of experience, and encouraged reflections on design as a form of bodily and embodied expertise particularly attentive to form, experience, identity, care, and interdependence. In this editorial we reflect on the submissions received, those accepted, and the ways they have addressed these key themes. We finish with thoughts on mapping this design research agenda, and the further potential for the transdisciplinary field of Body Studies to inform design.