Design as Common Good. Framing Design through Pluralism and Social Values

This volume contains the Conference Proceedings of the Swiss Design Network Online Symposium 2021 titled Design as Common Good. Framing Design through Pluralism and Social Values, organized by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, SUPSI, and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, HSLU.

The 2021 Swiss Design Network Conference was held under the constraints and challenges of a global human crisis. Today, design is an ability sought after in private business and industry, though increasingly in the public sector. In both sectors, design has the potential to contribute to the common good: by way of making services accessible, business models social and sustainable, by way of opening new paths for outcomes that benefit individual people, producers, the public, and the planet.
The conference attempted to answer some, but not limited to, of the following questions. How, in what way, and for what purpose design makes valuable contributions to policies, economies, and societies? How might design be part of a public strategy to mobilize power and knowledge for the common good?
What does it mean for design to act, intervene and engage with often highly fragmented and politicized communities– be that at a local, national, or global level? If we do think of design itself as a common good, is this a call for caring about design in different ways than we do currently?

Conference proceedings structure 71 papers within 3 main chapters organized in sub-sets of topics that offer: 1) Reflections on the Common Good; 2) how we get to the common good by design research and practice (Striving for the Common Good); 3) how to advance design education about and for the common good (Educating for the Common Good). The last chapter 4) Designing for the Common Good contains descriptions of 8 workshops that provided examples of design activities aiming to face the Common Good topic from different perspectives.