Abstract
In contemporary design practice, care risks becoming an imperative that obscures asymmetric power relations. This paper interrogates the relationship between design and care, asking: how can design shift from producing solutions to cultivating relations of care without reproducing paternalistic logics? Through a comparative analysis of case studies through the lenses of knowing, making, and defining with care, we treat caring about, caring for, and caring with as simultaneous and co-present dimensions to examine how care operates within design processes. The analysis identifies a structural pattern: while caring about and caring for are compatible with existing design logics, caring with encounters systematic resistance. It is not sufficient to design for care; we argue for designing with and through care as a relational practice capable of repair, listening, and regeneration. The contribution outlines a critical-analytical framework as a vocabulary for interrogating when care becomes transformative and when it reproduces the asymmetries it claims to address.
Keywords
design with care; design through care; design ethics; care relations.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2386
Citation
Jayed, I., and Sorvillo, V. (2026) Designing with and through care: from empathy to relational accountability, 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.2026.2386
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Designing with and through care: from empathy to relational accountability
In contemporary design practice, care risks becoming an imperative that obscures asymmetric power relations. This paper interrogates the relationship between design and care, asking: how can design shift from producing solutions to cultivating relations of care without reproducing paternalistic logics? Through a comparative analysis of case studies through the lenses of knowing, making, and defining with care, we treat caring about, caring for, and caring with as simultaneous and co-present dimensions to examine how care operates within design processes. The analysis identifies a structural pattern: while caring about and caring for are compatible with existing design logics, caring with encounters systematic resistance. It is not sufficient to design for care; we argue for designing with and through care as a relational practice capable of repair, listening, and regeneration. The contribution outlines a critical-analytical framework as a vocabulary for interrogating when care becomes transformative and when it reproduces the asymmetries it claims to address.