VOLUME 2 | Systemic Design Association
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| Systemic Design Association | Contexts Volume 2 | December 16, 2024 |
| Hello, Volume 2 |
| Just in time for holiday reading, Contexts presents six fresh perspectives on systemic design. As you reflect on your research and practice in 2025, find inspiration in a business case for sustainable parenting, cosmotechnics, embodied practices, urban living labs, incorporating emotions, and system healing-centered approaches. |
| EDITOR’S CORNER | PETER HAYWARD JONES |
| The SDA Publishing Team has grown over the last three years (since RSD11) and has capitalized well on the two web platforms, which we have separated to better manage the growth of publications. The RSD Symposium website, under editorial direction of Cheryl May, hosts and indexes over 1500 articles and multimedia materials from all the symposia. Following the decision to accept long-form articles in RSD10, the full conference proceedings are now an accessible, searchable, citable collection of leading studies and new ideas as they are presented in the annual symposia. Yet we are truly pleased to report the continuing progress of the innovative new journal, Contexts—The Systemic Design Journal. As we roll into 2025 with the final publication of Volume 2 articles (with the Editorial signifying its conclusion) Contexts has proven the original, hopeful concept of a low-volume, long-form scholarly journal with leading work from emerging scholars and senior thought leaders in systemic design and systems/design theory. I am also excited to announce that Contexts now has a strong foundation from which to grow, as we have invited a fourth associate editor (thank you, Ruth Schmidt) and have established a 10-member editorial board. Please search and visit this extraordinary treasure of intellectual inspiration, and consider a contribution to Contexts in the coming year.—Peter Hayward Jones, Editor in Chief |
| Volume 2 |
| Contexts of Design Research, Clarifying ComplexityGO TO VOLUME |
| In the editorial, Peter Jones describes the emerging voices, complex challenges, and inventive approaches to design science and interdisciplinary exploration evident in the second volume, which comprises six extraordinary articles representative of the authors’ larger, ongoing research directions. |
| An Intervention Framework for a Business Context: A systemic design case of sustainable parenthoodHow might a systemic design process feasibly enable commercial organisations to facilitate complex societal transitions? Through a case study with a leading consumer healthcare brand, Elisabeth Tschavgova, Elise Talgorn, Charlotte Kobus, Jo van Engelen, Conny Bakker, and Sonja van Dam investigate systemic design’s impact on the company’s capabilities to address complexity. They offer a dual narrative, detailing both the client project and the six research methods employed: boundary setting, causal loop diagramming, leverage analysis, storytelling, quantitative research, and the development of insight cards. The article also describes the resulting MINT framework (Mapping Interventions and Narratives for Transformation). READ & DOWNLOADActing on Emotions: Designing with the relational dramas in welfare systemsAudun Formo Hay, together with contributors from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and Kristiania University College—Jonathan Romm, Simen Formo Hay, Hobbe Mikae, Jenny Holm, Bjørgum, Lara van der Poel, Yijuan Wang, Anna Kristine Aarø Halvorsen, and Per Roppestad Christensen—draw on their collaborative exploration and learning. The research aimed to integrate experiential and systemic perspectives in service design to support actors in transforming complex welfare systems and include three pairs of propositions for incorporating emotions into systemic approaches to service design. READ & DOWNLOADLearnings from Black Liberation System Entanglements Part II: Our experience of system trapsIn this article, Part II, Victor Udoewa delves deeper into the harmful, context-specific system entanglements that justice workers encounter and encourages system healing-centered approaches. He identifies 15 entanglements, beginning with Neocolonialism and progressing through Institutionalizing Movements, Mythologising Mythology, Protest-Campaign-Movement Discontinuity, and an examination of justice approaches that can inadvertently entangle us in injustice. READ & DOWNLOADMethodological Pluralism in Practice: A systemic design approach for place-based sustainability transformationsHaley Fitzpatrick, Tobias Luthe, and and Birger Sevaldson explore methodological plurality and integrate quantitative scientific methods with participatory gigamapping and embodied practices. This longitudinal design inquiry engaged with communities undergoing sustainability transformations across three mountain regions: Ostana, Italy; Hemsedal, Norway; and Mammoth Lakes, California. The authors identify the need for contemplative and psychological practices in systemic design that focus on inner resilience. READ & DOWNLOADCitylab X: Towards a lens on the urban living lab as driver of systemic innovationAnja Overdiek’s exploration of the ISLE model as a lens for systemic innovation in urban living labs (ULLs) involves the study of a municipal ULL in the Netherlands (Citylab X). She observes that European municipalities increasingly use ULLs for complex situations, demanding a paradigm shift from service design to systemic innovation and a transition approach. The ISLE model is proposed as a process that might support co-creation, provide a heuristic process framework, and mobilise knowledge across ULLs and related networks. The findings include considerations for systemic design practice in ULLs. READ & DOWNLOADCosmotechnic Encounters: Designing with foodwaste, landscapes, and livelihoodsMarkus Wernli and Kam-Fai Chan consider circularity in organic waste, drawing on Daoist cosmotechnics, design research, anthropology, and diverse economies. They suggest cosmotechnic designing with the world, concluding that designing with shapelessness, integral to systemic design with situatedness and mutualistic care, “is essentially about symbiotic survivability or sympoiesis in cosmotechnics.” READ & DOWNLOAD |
| CALLS FOR PAPERS & CONTRIBUTIONS |
| Here are just a few opportunities to get you thinking about your 2025 publishing and presenting goals. Please send information you would like included in this newsletter to cheryl@systemic-design.org. |
 OPENThe following journals have adopted a continuous publishing model and accept submissions at any time.Enacting CyberneticsContexts—The Systemic Design JournalJournal of Futures Studies |
| DEC 31 DEADLINE Expression of Interest Speakers | Oceania Futures SymposiumAPR 3 & 4, 2025 BRISBANE AUSDesigned as a space for learning, collaboration, and action, the symposium brings together diverse perspectives and fosters dialogue on issues central to the Oceania’s future. More info |
| FEB 2, 2025 | TCESG25 Navigating Sustainability Transformations Towards Justice and Equity ConferenceJUNE 25–27 TCX-YORK UK | AUG 11–13 TCX-ONLINE | AUG 17 TC/ESG KRUGER NATIONAL PARK SA.Stay updated via the TC newsletter |
| Prepared by Cheryl May | cheryl@systemic-design.org | what’s on your list for 2025? |
Systems Community of Inquiry 