Abstract
Building on the German philosopher Heidegger, design philosophy has historically dealt with handiness (zuhandenheit/vorhandenheit) as an ontological relationship between an individual, a technology, and an artificial world. Such handiness conceptualization does not account for the social accumulation of work necessary to bring technology ready-to-specific-hands. Building on the work of Brazilian philosopher Vieira Pinto, this investigation foregrounds the collective aspect of handiness to account for the articulation work behind a new design philosophy program, prospective design. This program embraces philosophy through design; therefore, this investigation includes a description of a stakeholder mapping workshop in which serious play was used to develop the prospective design program's collective handiness, both in theory and in practice. By mapping who is “at-hand” (and who is not) for this program's ends, the collective body of researchers realized their fundamental relationship with their world.
Keywords
prospective design, design philosophy, articulation work, ontological design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2538
Citation
Andrade Tavares, P., Freese Gonzatto, R., and van Amstel, F.M. (2026) Collective handiness in prospective design: philosophical musings on a serious play workshop on articulation work, 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.2026.2538
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Collective handiness in prospective design: philosophical musings on a serious play workshop on articulation work
Building on the German philosopher Heidegger, design philosophy has historically dealt with handiness (zuhandenheit/vorhandenheit) as an ontological relationship between an individual, a technology, and an artificial world. Such handiness conceptualization does not account for the social accumulation of work necessary to bring technology ready-to-specific-hands. Building on the work of Brazilian philosopher Vieira Pinto, this investigation foregrounds the collective aspect of handiness to account for the articulation work behind a new design philosophy program, prospective design. This program embraces philosophy through design; therefore, this investigation includes a description of a stakeholder mapping workshop in which serious play was used to develop the prospective design program's collective handiness, both in theory and in practice. By mapping who is “at-hand” (and who is not) for this program's ends, the collective body of researchers realized their fundamental relationship with their world.