Featured Design for Sustainable Social Innovation: Crafting New Forms of Co-creation View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
Dalia Sendra Rodriguez,  Ana Margarida Ferreira,  Carlos Duarte  

Living in a world where inequality and complex challenges affect people's quality of life (United Nations, 2023), we propose a participatory workshop inviting participants to explore challenges and speculate design-led social innovation opportunities in the crafts field. Given the relevant role designers may play in conducting co-creation and collaborative processes to find solutions (Muratowski et al., 2022; Margolin, 2014; Manzini, 2015; Savva et al., 2020), we propose the experience of acting as agents of change (Bernarda et al., 2016) by confronting specific situations and spotting potential skills, resources, tools, and actors that will help them to foster social good through design. The workshop explores a craftsdesign framework for co-creation (Sendra & Ferreira, 2023) based on literature review methods and multiple design-led social innovation case studies analysis. It aims to set up a design research method of co-creation in communities through systemic collaboration using design methods and considering our interconnected system, the growing inequality and the complexity of sustainable development in its social, economic, cultural and environmental dimensions. The workshop will be implemented using a toolkit and a canvas, and participants will be organised through groups. The objective is to raise awareness about the role of social innovation and craftsdesign-based entrepreneurial actions as vectors of positive impact and change (Sendra & Ferreira, 2021) and inspire participants to become activists for transformation and change (Fuad-Luke, 2009). The workshop proposed is in line with the work and practice developed by the Crafts Chair of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.