Abstract
The closure of the Portuguese design center in 2013, left Portugal with no instruments of mediation between the Portuguese design ecosystem and the socio-economic fabric. DesignOBS (Towards a design observatory in Portugal) - a research project aiming to identify, map and interpret the Portuguese design landscape (2019-22), aimed to tackle this issue via the development and application of a distributed and participatory observation approach, that integrated the knowledge of local nuclei, namely, design schools, about certain vectors of the national design ecosystem. The application of this approach to gather and discuss about the different vectors (design companies, education, research, users), and the use of information design as an approach to interpret and materialize data resulted in open datasets about design in Portugal, infographic, dynamic augmented reality visualizations with an info-object, national design meetings, and design exhibitions. Based on these results, this article reflects about the challenges and limitations of the project. Moreover, reflections about the continuation of this collective endeavor are being tackled, first, at the country level, to find potential mechanisms and organizational infrastructure that could lever continuous observation and representation of design in Portugal in the future; and second, at the European level, to reflect on alternative strategies and actors that can support these actions in countries with similar conditions as Portugal – that is, with no specific entities dedicated to systematic design observation/representation. We found the role of design schools can be pivotal for the formation of an alternative organizational structure for design observation.
Keywords
design observation, design research, design education, participatory approach
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.314
Citation
Costa, N., Branco, V., Costa, R., Borges, A.,and Ribeiro, M.(2023) Towards a Design Observatory in Portugal – results, reflections and future steps, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.314
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Towards a Design Observatory in Portugal – results, reflections and future steps
The closure of the Portuguese design center in 2013, left Portugal with no instruments of mediation between the Portuguese design ecosystem and the socio-economic fabric. DesignOBS (Towards a design observatory in Portugal) - a research project aiming to identify, map and interpret the Portuguese design landscape (2019-22), aimed to tackle this issue via the development and application of a distributed and participatory observation approach, that integrated the knowledge of local nuclei, namely, design schools, about certain vectors of the national design ecosystem. The application of this approach to gather and discuss about the different vectors (design companies, education, research, users), and the use of information design as an approach to interpret and materialize data resulted in open datasets about design in Portugal, infographic, dynamic augmented reality visualizations with an info-object, national design meetings, and design exhibitions. Based on these results, this article reflects about the challenges and limitations of the project. Moreover, reflections about the continuation of this collective endeavor are being tackled, first, at the country level, to find potential mechanisms and organizational infrastructure that could lever continuous observation and representation of design in Portugal in the future; and second, at the European level, to reflect on alternative strategies and actors that can support these actions in countries with similar conditions as Portugal – that is, with no specific entities dedicated to systematic design observation/representation. We found the role of design schools can be pivotal for the formation of an alternative organizational structure for design observation.