Abstract
This paper explores shape-changing materials as agents of material diplomacy within More-than-Human Design. Drawing from Latour’s Parliament of Things, posthumanism, and new materialism, it investigates how responsive materials mediate ecological and interspecies relations. Through a multiple-case study approach, ten design projects are analyzed using a five-dimensional framework—environmental attunement, ecological flourishing, expressive vitality, co-existence and augmentation, and relational mediation. The analysis explores how these materials can perform communicative and political roles, positioning design as a diplomatic practice that negotiates shared concerns among species, technologies, and environments. It attempts to question extractivist models, support ecological repair, and cultivate forms of interspecies attentiveness. The paper contributes to debates on More-than-Human Design by proposing micro-parliaments of care—small-scale socio-material infrastructures that translate environmental processes into collective awareness and action. It proposes materials as participants in planetary politics and indicates a pathway for design to move beyond representation toward the collective governance of life.
Keywords
shape-changing materials, multispecies understanding, human-nonhuman network, interspecies collaboration
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2654
Citation
Sui, Y., Bianco, B., and Ferrara, M. (2026) Designing with Shape-Changing Materials as Co-Agents of Interspecies Encounters, 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.2026.2654
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Designing with Shape-Changing Materials as Co-Agents of Interspecies Encounters
This paper explores shape-changing materials as agents of material diplomacy within More-than-Human Design. Drawing from Latour’s Parliament of Things, posthumanism, and new materialism, it investigates how responsive materials mediate ecological and interspecies relations. Through a multiple-case study approach, ten design projects are analyzed using a five-dimensional framework—environmental attunement, ecological flourishing, expressive vitality, co-existence and augmentation, and relational mediation. The analysis explores how these materials can perform communicative and political roles, positioning design as a diplomatic practice that negotiates shared concerns among species, technologies, and environments. It attempts to question extractivist models, support ecological repair, and cultivate forms of interspecies attentiveness. The paper contributes to debates on More-than-Human Design by proposing micro-parliaments of care—small-scale socio-material infrastructures that translate environmental processes into collective awareness and action. It proposes materials as participants in planetary politics and indicates a pathway for design to move beyond representation toward the collective governance of life.