Abstract
Smart technologies promise efficiency and sustainability, yet their intelligence remains narrow – confined to optimising isolated human needs rather than nurturing the wider ecologies in which lives unfold. This paper explores how design may shift from smart technologies to more careful configurations: systems that participate in human–material–environmental relations rather than merely processing data. Drawing on Barad’s framework of intra-action, we reimagine technological innovation as distributed and relational. Through a series of eco-social prototypes – from modular heating and communal hydration to wooden fridges and moss bathrooms – the paper demonstrates how care, reciprocity and participation may re-enter the logic of innovation. Instead of designing for scalability, we imagine a design for careful reconfigurations, rethinking the familiar innovation triad of feasibility, viability and desirability as relational capacities. The argument contributes to emerging discourses of more-than-human design and proposes a model of design innovation grounded in care and resourcefulness.
Keywords
intra-action, care, relational design, eco-social innovation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2279
Citation
Neubauer, R., and Fuchsberger, V. (2026) Careful Configurations: An Exploration of Smart Technologies in More-Than-Human Innovation, 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.2026.2279
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Careful Configurations: An Exploration of Smart Technologies in More-Than-Human Innovation
Smart technologies promise efficiency and sustainability, yet their intelligence remains narrow – confined to optimising isolated human needs rather than nurturing the wider ecologies in which lives unfold. This paper explores how design may shift from smart technologies to more careful configurations: systems that participate in human–material–environmental relations rather than merely processing data. Drawing on Barad’s framework of intra-action, we reimagine technological innovation as distributed and relational. Through a series of eco-social prototypes – from modular heating and communal hydration to wooden fridges and moss bathrooms – the paper demonstrates how care, reciprocity and participation may re-enter the logic of innovation. Instead of designing for scalability, we imagine a design for careful reconfigurations, rethinking the familiar innovation triad of feasibility, viability and desirability as relational capacities. The argument contributes to emerging discourses of more-than-human design and proposes a model of design innovation grounded in care and resourcefulness.