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Academic Journal
DSGN - DIM

“Diseño para la Transición: Entretejiendo saberes por medio de la conversación”

El Diseño para las Transiciones tiene el potencial teórico y práctico para transformar la disciplina del diseño hacia una nueva ética de práctica. Como marco emergente,reconoce que lo social, económico y ecológico están entrelazados y busca diseñar resultados contextuales, sistémicos, a largo plazo y plurales. Sin embargo, sin una pluralidaden las formas de difusión del conocimiento, más allá de la palabra escrita en inglés, losintentos de diseñar para transiciones hacia futuros más equitativos quedan atrapados dentro de una esfera epistemológica estrecha. Las autoras de este artículo ofrecen un caso deestudio de diseño para las transiciones a través del audio tapiz podcast bilingüe español/inglés Design in Transition/Diseño en Transición. Las y los diseñadores y aquellos quetrabajan en la transdisciplinariedad del diseño pueden aprender no solo del conocimientooral, bilingüe, entrelazado en cada episodio del podcast, sino también del arreglo organizativo emergente mediante el cual colabora el equipo de producción. Ofrecemos a las ylos lectores una descripción de las propiedades adaptativas y los componentes operativosdel podcast mientras describ
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2022 Cuaderno Sofia Bosch Gomez Marysol Ortega Pallanez Erica Dorn View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
DSGN - DIM

“Engaging with Theories of Change in Transition Design”

The transition design (TD) framework calls for integrating theories of change when designing for systems-level shifts. Meanwhile, a theory of change describes the relationship between actions taken and outcomes yielded in the process of initiating change. This paper recommends developing the capacity of transition designers to explicate the theories of change operating in our research and practice. To this end, the authors discern operational themes-situate, reframe, intervene-that can be found in TD work and offer prompts to help practitioners engage with the theories of change in their work.
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141-158 pages 2022 Cuaderno M Sides H Carey Erica Dorn N Theriault View on: Google Scholar

Conference
DSGN - DIM

“Expanding Design’s Role in the Governance Paradigms of Democracy”

Design is increasingly recognized as a key agent in government innovation in the United States. Designers, as problem framers and catalysts for change, play a crucial role in transforming the functionality and accessibility of government systems and processes. However, this role is often narrowly defined, typically focusing on the improvement of digital services, especially through User Experience/User Interface (UX/UI) approaches within digital government spaces.While these contributions are valuable, they represent only a fraction of the potential for design methodologies to foster more participatory, accessible, and effective governance structures. As design becomes more embedded as a strategy for innovation at the national, state, and local levels, the broader contributions of designers, beyond digital services, require deeper articulation and categorization. This paper explores how design is reshaping governance systems in the U.S. at local, state, and national levels, with a focus on non-digital applications that leverage design strategies and methods to address systemic challenges within government structures.
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The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Erica Dorn Sofia Bosch Gomez

Academic Journal
DSGN - DIM

“How Aurora, CO leverages the Suburban Design of Decentralization with Mobile Social Services”

Despite rising suburban poverty nationwide, social services have not caught up with the needs of residents in sprawling suburbs, and nonprofits there often must stretch their operations across larger service delivery areas with fewer resources than those in larger cities. To address these challenges, suburban civic and community organizations are increasingly adopting flexible structures to meet the needs of vulnerable residents.
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2022 Brookings Erica Dorn

Conference
DSGN - DIM

“Human-to-Human Interaction Design: Choreographing Relational Practices”

This paper explores Relational Design as a choreography of practices that cultivate the skills necessary to navigate differences and build community within design processes. It promotes a design practice that sees relationship-building as a core function of creating long-term stewardship in participatory worldmaking. The relational practices presented here emerge from outside traditional design disciplines, drawing primarily from community organizing, with an understanding that change occurs through networks of interdependent relationships. The paper outlines a trans-experiential set of practices that includes: honoring place as kin, revealing and redistributing power, cultivating a culture of accountability, facilitating dialogue, and hosting belonging and celebration. These practices strengthen multimodal design literacies that focus on care, repair, and regeneration. Ultimately, the paper positions Relational Design as a critical design practice for fostering pluralist, coalition-based approaches to systemic transformation.
Details

Nordes Erica Dorn Kera Nelson

Conference
DSGN - DIM

“Relational Design for Sustainability in US Suburbs”

United States suburbs are often stereotyped for their ecologically invasive and socially inequitable design due to many factors, including redlining, urban renewal, auto-oriented development, and exclusionary single-family zoning (Hayden, 2003; Jackson, 1985; Rothstein, 2017). Entire suburban neighborhoods and strip malls are built on greenfield sites that were once thriving indigenous ecosystems (Nassaur, 1997). Sprawling neighborhoods can be built and decline within a single generation. This pattern of disposable suburban design has proliferated the landscape where, today, the majority of people in the U.S. reside (U.S. Census, 2020). Policymakers and urban planners are advancing ‘new urbanist’ interventions to combat the impacts of sprawl (Duany et al., 2000). Suburbia is being retrofitted through densification efforts, multi-modal transit options, and mixed-use developments (Williamson & Dunham-Jones, 2009). But the speed of traditional sprawl is outpacing sustainability agendas, and the question of sustainability in suburbia lacks an acknowledgment of the many systemic inequities beyond the built environment that also impact suburbia's sustainability. At the same time, suburban population growth continues to significantly outpace urban growth in the U.S. Not only are suburbs where most U.S. residents live, but they are also increasingly the most socioeconomically, culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse places in the U.S. (Frey, 2018; Lacy, 2016). Suburbs are emerging as complex middle grounds and misunderstood places where the debate on sustainability may be won or lost (Bosch & Polzin, 2022; Lung-Amam, 2017). As people flock to suburban areas for more affordable housing options, designing sustainable suburbs becomes imperative. In this article we explore the national conversation around suburban sustainability concerns, illuminating specific local actions in U.S. suburbs that leverage their decentralized design and increase sustainability. We believe that designers from diverse areas of the field can play a significant role in stewarding sustainability agendas in suburbs. We offer ideas for how designers can better facilitate relational, community-led change, while bringing their essential skills to bear on these often forgotten and misunderstood places.
Details

700 pages 2022 Cumulus Erica Dorn Cailin De Zeeuw

Other
DSGN - DIM

“Relational Design for Transitions Within US Suburbs”

Suburbs in the United States are seedbeds for systemic change. But entrenched stigmas often obscure the rapid social and environmental changes within suburbs and their untapped potential to catalyze transitions toward more equitable and sustainable futures.
In the U.S.,more people live and work in suburbs than in urban and rural areas combined. Suburbs are also becoming some of the most demographically diverse places in the country, where most immigrants to the U.S. arrive and establish their lives. These in-between places grapple with numerous complex challenges related to uneven mobilities, including institutional racism, lack of affordable multi-family housing, inadequate public transportation, and insufficient civic infrastructure. If national and international agendas for systemic change seek to progress toward more just and sustainable futures, acknowledging U.S. suburbs as crucial sites for catalyzing transitions is imperative.
This dissertation, a culmination of 13 practice-oriented research projects, including the formation of a non-profit organization, Suburb Futures, operationalizes theories related to place, mobility, and relationality through the framework of Transition Design. The dissertation contends that designing for transitions requires transdisciplinary, community-led approaches that honor the primacy of motion and distributed and polycentric relationships to place. It concludes with a proposal for an “ecology of systems interventions” to design for transitions through relational practices that leverage the trajectory of the suburbanization of place toward more equitable and sustainable futures
Details

2024 Carnegie Mellon University Erica Dorn