This research investigates the potential of digital platforms to broaden the scope of action and empower permaculture communities in their attempt to challenge the capitalist mode of production regarding topics such as food harvesting and consumption patterns. It draws on Manzini’s (2018) critique of neoliberalism and his discussion on designing for social innovation, which suggests focusing on and enhancing existing members' capabilities rather than their needs; fostering cross-collaboration within and among communities; and allowing these collaborations to mature over time. It combines design thinking and co-design to develop further a previously existing proof of concept of a mapping platform that connects permaculture initiatives in Brazil. When it was created in 2018, this platform was tested by potential users who underscored severe usability limitations, and as a result, it was never fully implemented. This thesis discusses such limitations and proposes an improved platform to empower those communities by fostering collaboration beyond individuals and local groups towards regional communities.

My degree work has been an exploration in what specific skills, knowledge and understan­dings that are needed in service design as a practice, in order to successfully engage in complex contexts with multiple stakeholders, different relations, structures and regulations. In this investigation, I have been especially interested in the role of physical forms in a process where social structures are discussed and reshaped. With the ambition to create a learning process within this area I have, in collaboration with Förnyelselabbet, been part of a study in Malmö that focus on children and youth with migra­tion experiences living in vulnerable housing situations. The study is done in collaboration with multiple actors such as City of Malmö, The Red Cross, Rädda Barnen, Unicef, Skåne Stadsmission, Sensus etc. These are actors that share the same goal to highlight needs and experiences amongst children and youths. In my work I have designed tools with the ambition to unfold and deepen the under­standing of situations, meetings and objects that could enable a feeling of safety, comfort and joy when living in a vulnerable housing situation. In this context, I have recognized the importance of exploring the role of meeting points. For this purpose, I have used three objects; the slide; the sofa and the set table. As a result of this degree project I created something I call a material probe, a object with the function to visualise needs and trigger responses. This material probe captures three fundamental needs; a slide – the possibility for play and activity, a sofa – the possibility for gaining the feeling of safety and belonging, a table – the possibility for sharing experiences and information. By visualising and materialising these needs, I hope to create a discussion that unfolds challenges and promotes the children’s perspective. My work to narrow down the needs is based on multiple interviews and stories from children, youths and parents. The main question is what happens to the continued development process when research findings, needs and experiences are visualised. The main goal of this degree project has been to articulate and reflect on how service designers can combine knowledge within process design, institutional design and design of physical form. How service design as a practice can develop and if including physical forms and visualisations at a higher level in our work can help the development process forward.

As the population of the world increases and cities grow in size, we are faced with remarkable societal problems regarding sustainable food security for the generations to come. In this paper, I present and discuss HAVE (Hydroponic Agricultural Vertical Environment), a research-through-design project that explores the design of an interactive open-source vertical kitchen garden. HAVE is designed as a shareable platform, that aims to lower the barriers of entry of getting started with home gardening, to provide an option for people to play an active role in working towards a more sustainable, resilient society. By simplifying the design of a computer-assisted garden, I present an engaging interactive system that is cheap and easy to build and maintain. With HAVE as a case study, this project also aims to expand upon how plant-based interfaces can be implemented in future design work, and builds upon the topics of calm technology and material computing. As such, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of designing plant-based interfaces, also in relation to how people care for and interact with plants. It is my hope, that HAVE may act as a conversation piece that addresses societal challenges regarding future agriculture practices, while contributing to the academic discussion and debate on the topics of plant-based interfaces, design for social innovation, and tangible computing, and the field of interaction design in general.

This is a documentation of a programmatic design approach, moving through different levels of an established practice of grassroots activism. The text frames an open-ended, exploratory methodology, as four stages of investigation, trying to find possible ways to shape and increase understanding of, and facilitate a process, of co-designing a practice. It presents the experience of looking for opportunities for counter-narration, as contribution to an activist cause, and questioning the role, purpose and approach of a designer in a grassroots activist environment.

Despite the increase of urban populations resulting in people living in close proximity to each other, society continues to operate with a focus on individual desire and hyper-consumption, at the expense of the earth’s ecologies and all that encompasses it. How can we begin to cultivate an alternative consumption model that not only focuses on the conservation of ecologies but also begins to break away from ways in which “habits, routines, social norms and cultural values lock us into unsustainable behaviours”? (Botsman, R., Rogers, R. 2010). Collaboration, through its many forms, be it ‘commons’ or modern-day ‘sharing economy’, continues to be a topic of discussion as a favourable solution to environmental, social and economic issues. This paper and design project explores the everyday practice of collaboration and its potential for activating a network in urban neighbourhoods, specifically in high-density housing. The project explores: how we can share, where we can share, and what we can share, using the sharing of household items as a seed for sustainable development. The resulting project presents methods and guidelines for cultivating collaboration in the form of a multipurpose toolkit. The toolkit “Collaboration is Cultivation” enables individuals to become activists and implement collaborative practices in their own neighbourhood. Through designerly research and a design project I shed light on the potential of the coming-together of neighbors through collaborative lifestyles that can incrementally transform neighborhoods into one’s that are socially and environmentally, sustainable, resilient and thriving.

The promise of smart cities to deliver new urban efficiencies and optimizations for sustainability is increasingly being questioned for its anthropocentric, universal, and top-down perspectives. Framingcities as computers has been critiqued for its limiting understanding of cities, as well as its lack of dealing with the complexities of real messy cities, with diverse knowledge and lived experiences. However, smart technologies have also been highlighted as having the potential to help us better understand more-than-human perspectives and to reconnect us to the world around us. Situated in thefield of design for social innovation, this thesis contributes to the emerging body of work that is exploring how digital urban environments can include local knowledge and more-than-human perspectives. In a co-design process with the urban agriculture community of Sjöbergen in the city of Gothenburg in Sweden, this thesis explores how local knowledge and values about- and in urban nature can help us think differently about the future of sustainable smart city concepts. With a design process guided by research through design and co-design, this thesis is imagining other smart city narratives that go away from the current top-down and universal perspectives and instead are inspired by values of Sjöbergen of reuse, maintenance, collectivity, and knowledge sharing. The design contribution of this work is a design proposal of a smart city service that reuses old smartphones of citizens into smart city technologies for individual and situated purposes. The design proposal aims to show an alternative view of smart cities grounded in local values and more-than-human perspectives.

[pt] O envelhecimento vem provocando mudanças significativas na vida das pessoas. De acordo com as Nações Unidas, o número de indivíduos com mais de 80 anos, no mundo, deve triplicar até 2050. Devem triplicar, também, os casos de demência. A longevidade é uma conquista, mas traz consigo o risco de que um maior número pessoas se mostrem incapazes de se cuidar sozinhas. No Brasil, a Constituição estabelece que o amparo ao idoso deve ser executado, preferencialmente, em seus lares. Todavia, cuidar de um idoso com limitações funcionais é complexo e as famílias nem sempre tem condições de fazê-lo. As Instituições de Longa Permanência para Idosos (ILPIs) podem oferecer o apoio que as famílias necessitam no cuidado de seus idosos. Contudo, enfrentam preconceito social e não estão consolidadas como um serviço capaz de ajudar a sociedade a lidar com os desafios do envelhecimento. Esta dissertação fundamenta-se na abordagem do design para a inovação social, de Ezio Manzini, segundo a qual designers devem criar as condições favoráveis para que pessoas sem conhecimento formal em design desenvolvam, de forma colaborativa, soluções adequadas às suas necessidades. A pesquisa teve como objetivo explorar o campo de possibilidades das ILPIs. Para tanto, ferramentas do design de serviços foram utilizadas para conhecer as ILPIs; identificar as principais demandas da família no cuidado do idoso e os principais desafios dos gestores de ILPIs na gestão do serviço. O estudo mostrou a pertinência e a urgência da contribuição do designer especializado no fortalecimento do serviço das ILPIs, via aplicação de métodos e ferramentas colaborativas junto aos diversos stakeholders deste serviço. / [en] Aging has been causing significant changes in people s lives. According to the United Nations, the number of individuals over 80 in the world is expected to triple by 2050. Dementia cases are also expected to triple. Longevity is an achievement, but it brings along a greater number of people in risk of becoming unable to take care of themselves. In Brazil, the Constitution establishes that support for the elderly must be carried out in their homes preferably. However, caring for an elderly person with functional limitations is complex and families are not always able to do so. Long-term care Institutions (LTCIs) can offer the support that families need to care for their elderly. However, they face social prejudice and are not consolidated as a service capable of helping society to deal with the challenges of aging. This dissertation is based on Ezio Manzini s approach to design for social innovation, according to which designers must create favorable conditions for people without formal design knowledge to develop, in a collaborative way, solutions appropriate to their needs. The research aimed to explore the field of possibilities of LTCIs. Therefore, tools of service design were used to get to know the LTCIs; to identify the main demands of the family in the care of the elderly and the main challenges of the LTCIs managers in service management. The study showed the relevance and the urgency of the contribution of the designer specialized in strengthening the service of ILPIs, through the application of collaborative methods and tools with the various stakeholders of this service.

The open debate launched through the ‘Design Research Agenda for Sustainability’ within the paradigmatic ‘Changing the Change’ conference held in Turin in 2008, defined design for sustainability as “Everything design can do to facilitate the social learning process towards a sustainable society. That is, to sustain promising social and technological innovations and to re-orient existing drivers of change towards sustainability” (Cipolla & Peruccio, 2008: 42).