Abstract
The design of both physical and digital layers of the built environment is increasingly shaped by the pursuit of “smartness,” often privileging efficiency and control over the cultural, ecological, and ethical dimensions that sustain life in cities. Resisting this technocratic urbanism and reimagining infrastructuring through Australian Aboriginal principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) – including relationality, responsibility, and reciprocity – offers ethical and sustainable directions for design. This paper proposes relational infrastructuring as a situated design practice that enacts and sustains cultural and ecological relations rather than merely delivering technical functions. Drawing on design scholarship, Indigenous knowledges, and urban studies, we examine three key tensions: control versus kinship, optimisation versus obligation, and extractivism versus reciprocity. We show how Indigenous perspectives of Designing with Country, understood as a relational practice, can support designers in resisting dominant smart city paradigms and cultivating regenerative cities and more-than-human futures.
Keywords
smart cities; Traditional Ecological Knowledge; relational design; more-than-human futures
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1727
Citation
Harding, K., Seevinck, J., and Foth, M. (2026) Designing with Country: Relational infrastructuring beyond technocratic urbanism, 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.2026.1727
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Designing with Country: Relational infrastructuring beyond technocratic urbanism
The design of both physical and digital layers of the built environment is increasingly shaped by the pursuit of “smartness,” often privileging efficiency and control over the cultural, ecological, and ethical dimensions that sustain life in cities. Resisting this technocratic urbanism and reimagining infrastructuring through Australian Aboriginal principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) – including relationality, responsibility, and reciprocity – offers ethical and sustainable directions for design. This paper proposes relational infrastructuring as a situated design practice that enacts and sustains cultural and ecological relations rather than merely delivering technical functions. Drawing on design scholarship, Indigenous knowledges, and urban studies, we examine three key tensions: control versus kinship, optimisation versus obligation, and extractivism versus reciprocity. We show how Indigenous perspectives of Designing with Country, understood as a relational practice, can support designers in resisting dominant smart city paradigms and cultivating regenerative cities and more-than-human futures.