The RSD Symposium is the Cumulus partner’s, Systemic Design Association’s, annual academic conference featuring speakers, workshops, and paper presentations.

Embracing new complexity, collaboration and contexts in systemic design

Complex systems do not lend themselves to simplification. Systemic designers have no choice but to embrace complexity, and in doing so, embrace opposing concepts and the resulting paradoxes. It is at the interplay of these ideas that they find the most fruitful regions of exploration.

The main conference theme explores design and systems thinking practices as mediators to deal fruitfully with tensions. Our human tendency is to relieve the tensions, and in design, to resolve the so-called “pain points.” But tensions reveal paradoxes, the sites of connection, breaks in scale, and the emergence of complexity. Can we embrace the tension, the paradoxes as valuable social feedback in our path to sustainable and just futures?

Come and play with tensions in systemic design at the forthcoming Relating Systems Thinking & Design (RSD10) symposium. This hybrid symposium will take place 2-6 November 2021 both online and at the Delft University of Technology.

For more information please visit the RSD10 website.

The Green Concept Award, to which Cumulus is an partner institution, is aimed at students, start-ups and established companies, honouring concepts of sustainable materials, products and services that are not yet on the market.

Submission deadline November 1, 2021.

Students and graduates receive special support. The young designers receive a toolkit for developing their concept into a sustainable product or service. Free workshops and Q&A sessions as well as interim feedback are further offers. Selected participants receive help with presentation & communication for later matchmaking. Exhibitions at (inter-)national fairs and design festivals – such as Dutch Design Week – are in preparation.

Since 2013, the Green Product Award distinguishes products and services, good in sustainability, innovation & design. It is aimed at products & services on the market from start-ups and established companies who wish to highlight their sustainable achievements.

For more information visit their website here.

“A Future Where Devices live in Harmony with Nature”

Applications to participate are open to everyone!

Application period ending on September 29, 2021.

Biodesign Challenge is organizing the Biodesign Sprint in collaboration with the Google Hardware Design Studio. This month-long innovation challenge asks for projects that explore better ways to reduce carbon, increase biodiversity, and bring positive change to both people and the environment. Applications to participate are open to everyone!

Key Dates:

September 1: Application Period Opens
September 29: Application Period Ends
October 7: Biodesign Sprint Kickoff
November 3: Biodesign Sprint Semifinals
November 4: Biodesign Sprint Finals (Broadcast Live)

Fore more information, please visit the website: Biodesign Sprint

Cumulus member, University of Art and Design in Linz (Austria) is one of the key organizers and Cumulus member, HSE Art and Design School (Russia) is taking part of the festival with their HSE Garden Pavilion.

We invite you to join!

In 2021 Ars Electronica will take place from September 8 to 12. The thematic starting point of this journey around the world this time is the demand for a “New Digital Deal”.

More information here.

See AIGA’s website for more information.

Last year the AIGA Design Educators Community organized the SHIFT Summer Summit to explore the ways educators were shifting within and amidst the chaos of 2020, pivoting and changing course even while the world was rapidly changing around us. The DEC wants to return to these themes exactly one year later to find out how we have SHIFT{ed}, if we are still SHIFT{ing}, and the ways we must continue to SHIFT. Now that we have all had the chance to gain some perspective, with new methods and tools in place to tackle our teaching, research, and community engagement, we can come together and learn from each other once more.

This week-long online event seeks to gather the design education community to take stock of where we are, what we have learned, and what we want to do next. The summit will focus on themes of Teaching, Research, and Community, and will feature multiple ways for participants to engage with each other and the content—including asynchronous panel presentations, synchronous virtual roundtables, online forums for discussion, and more. We will bring back all the things you loved about SHIFT, and plan to add some new and exciting activities and ways to engage as well. Come join us! Stay tuned for more details.

We are especially proud to announce the results of the competition due to the fact that many of the winners are students from Cumulus member institutions, i.e. the winning project by Joseph Cardenas and Sarah Craven from College for Creative Studies, Detroit.

Congratulations to all the winners also from Cumulus!

For more information on the competition please see here.

You can see the results of the challenge below:

OVERALL WINNER RE-FORM: REFORMATION OF THERMOFORMING MATERIALS

College for Creative Studies, Detroit: Joseph Cardenas, Sarah Craven

OUTSTANDING PRESENTATION DIRTY PLAYGROUND

Design Academy Eindhoven: Manuel Steitz, Coltrane Mcdowell, Serina Tarkhanian

OUTSTANDING FIELD RESEARCH LIXILAB

Universidad de los Andes: Valentina Pérez Escobar, María Alejandra Parra García, María Valentina Forero Sierra, Lina Natalia Sánchez Medina, Laura Camila Velasco Ortega, Daniela Julieth Barón Gutiérrez

COMMUNITY CHOICE SPOIL

The Design Village: Tanish Agrawal, Arshad Bajil Kuttasseri, Kunika Sharma, Natasha Singh

SCIENCE SANDBOX PRIZE FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT BIOTECH PALETERO CART

Nest Makerspace: Camilla Cabrera, Austin Henry, Roberto Mendoza, Alec Saldana-jauregui, Samuel Gil-silva

RUNNER UP SUB·VER·SIVE /SƏBˈVƏRSIV/ – BIOFASHION FOR BLACK LIVESS

Spelman College: Mika Campbell, Grace Burch. Abigail Gordon, Savannah Adams

OUTSTANDING SCIENCE DIPWRAP

Aalto University: Ena Naito, Louise Kallai, Emilia Ikävalko, Sari Kupiainen

OUTSTANDING SOCIAL CRITIQUE RIVER DEFENDERS

Ball State University: Dominic Zelli, Jonathan Alexander, Ashlyn Sterling, Erin Mawhorter

OUTSTANDING INSTRUCTOR ANUSHA DHAWAN AND SNEHA RAVISHANKAR

The Design Village

BARILLA PRIZE FOR REGENERATIVE LIVING ECOSYSTEMS PERMAPAK

School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Kelly Yue Xi, Sara Selmic

June 21-25, 2021 – 53 finalist teams from 20 countries will compete for the Glass Microbe at the online Biodesign Challenge Summit 2021. Teams have spent the academic year creating projects that bridge art, design, and biology to reimagine more equitable and sustainable futures. Their innovative ideas explore topics such as medicine, architecture, fashion, food, materials, bioethics, and more. There will also be an online student gallery exhibition on June 21.

Over 60 leading experts in academia, industry, and the arts will judge and award prizes. This year’s sponsored prizes include the Barilla Prize for Regenerative Living Ecosystems and the Science Sandbox Prize for Public Engagement.

Summit speakers include Janina Jeff, geneticist and host of the podcast In Those Genes; Kathy High, artist, curator, and scholar of bioart; and Lisa Margonelli, author and senior editor of Issues in Science and Technology. Speakers will give their talks on Friday, June 25th.

BDC aims to foster the first generation of biodesigners who use the life sciences as a tool to create and critique applications of biotechnology. The students come from across disciplines to explore the ethical implications of current and future biotech.

“To serve society as an entirety, science and technology need to be equally accessible to everyone at each stage of creation. I’m looking forward to this year’s Summit dialogues around what we want from our technologies,” says Daniel Grushkin, founder and Executive Director of Biodesign Challenge.

Over the last six years, BDC alumni have gone on to form sustainability-based startups (raising over $6M+ collectively), receive patents, and win notable awards including the H&M Global Change Award, National Geographic Chasing Genius Award, LVMH Innovation Award, Prix Ars Electronica, among others.

Alumni have traveled the world to engage the public at museums and festivals, including the V&A, London Design Biennale, Gregg Museum, World Economic Forum, the Tech Museum, Dutch Design Week, MIT, and the United Nations.

Sign up to attend the event here: https://biodesignchallenge.org/summit-2021

ABOUT BIODESIGN CHALLENGE
The Biodesign Challenge (BDC) is an international student competition and educational program that partners high school and university students with artists, designers, and scientists to imagine, create, and critique the future of biotechnology. During the academic year, students develop bold and feasible projects that use biotechnology to address pressing issues or to critique biotechnology’s impact on society.

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BDC is a partner of Cumulus.

Extended Programme: 25th June – 3rd July 2022
Main Conference: 27th June – 1st July 2022

We are living through extraordinary times where design in many forms is necessary to counter the enormous problems we face in the challenges of our coexistence.

How has the discipline of design research responded? Can design and design research bring the insights and methods needed for transformation and collaboration?
Join us at the Guggenheim in Bilbao for DRS2022, a hybrid conference with unique participation opportunities and a showcase for the best in design research. Whatever your orientation to design research we encourage you to participate, to show the true diversity and potential of our discipline.

DRS2022 is hosted by the city of Bilbao, in Northwest Spain, in association with the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco) and the wider ecosystem of local academic and design institutions. In 2014 Bilbao became a member of the UNESCO City of Design network. As such, it hosts a permanent Design and Creativity Council with a mission to promote design-oriented urban policies and to integrate goals related to the cultural and creative industries into local development plans. Bilbao recently joined the Global Destination Sustainability Index with a commitment to meet specific guidelines for the development of more sustainable conferences.
DRS2022 is also hosted online in a hybrid mode, with opportunities for new interactions between the place-based and online conferences. The extended conference format will give you the chance to experience the energy and creativity of Bilbao wherever you choose to participate from.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Participation for DRS2022 takes a number of different formats. Theme Tracks aim to capitalize on emerging and specialized research networks. Research Papers can be submitted to an open call or theme-track. Conversation Sessions provide an opportunity for structured discussion exploring emerging themes. Workshops provide practical experience of methods and research outcomes, and Labs offer an opportunity to conduct design research through engagement with local organisations. A PhD Researcher event will help develop the next generation of design researchers through building new capabilities and critical thinking.

RESEARCH PAPERS
DRS2022 invites new paper submissions in an open call or theme-track. We embrace research looking at and using design in the widest possible sense, with interdisciplinary work particularly encouraged. Further details about theme-tracks will be announced in due course.
Submission is for full papers only up to 5000 words, including abstracts and references, and should adhere to the conference paper submission guidelines, available in August on the conference website. All submissions must be in the English language.
Authors of accepted papers are required to register and present their work at the conference, either physically or virtually according to the hybrid nature of the event. All accepted papers will be published in the DRS Digital Library and available to view approximately one month before the beginning of the conference.
Paper submission system will be open from 1st September 2021 and full papers must be submitted by 15th November 2021.

Read the whole announcement.

TIMETABLE TO DRS2022
Deadline for theme-track session proposals: 26th July 2021
Deadline for full papers: 15th November 2021
Notification of accepted papers: February 2022
Deadline for Conversations, Workshops, Labs: February 2022
Conference Dates: 25th June – 3rd July 2022

CONTACT
Any queries about the conference should be directed to: admin@drs2022.org
Conference website: https://www.drs2022.org (not yet live!)
For regular updates follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/drs2022 (not yet live!)

The Design Research Society is a multi-disciplinary learned society for the design research community worldwide. You can visit the DRS website at: http://www.designresearchsociety.org

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DRS is an official partner of Cumulus.

Specially curated — and specially priced — Creative Week fun for students and educators

The One Club for Creativity‘s annual Creative Week is almost here, and although it’s best known as the culmination of our One Show and ADC Annual Awards seasons, it’s also a very important time for the next generation of creative talent in our community, as well as for those who educate and guide them. As many college and post-grad students are winding down their academic pursuits in favor of professional ones, we always carve out a section of the festivities especially for them.

That’s why the first three days of Creative Week feature an Education Stage, with activities and sessions geared specifically towards those preparing to jump — or help others jump — into the crazy worlds of advertising and design.

Click here for more information.

Service Design with the Planet in Mind is the feature theme of the upcoming issue of Touchpoint – The Journal of Service Design. We are looking to publish articles that explore question such as how are service designers embedding sustainability concerns into their decision-making? How are we supporting the so-called circular economy? And what can we learn from the natural sciences and from nature in order to improve our own activities?

Read more and submit your abstracts via the online form until 10 June 2021 (23:59 CET).

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SDN is a partner of Cumulus.