Design for strenghtening relations
Reconnecting people with people in their communities
These projects strengthen the people-to-people links in the same community. They are enabling solutions for potential I-You relations, i.e., they favour this kind of deep interpersonal relation to take place.
Proposed Projects
- Connectedness for enriching elderly care (TU/Eindhoven – DESIS Lab) (help enhance the social connection between care home residents and people from neighbourhood through a real-time view-sharing experience)
- Urban Refugees @ Genk (LUCA Desis Lab) (integrate newcomers and locals: refugees, students, civil servants and local associations and initiatives working with refugees co-design new initiatives to strengthen social cohesion in the city of Genk)
- Auguri (UFPR NDS Desis Lab) (Setup social networks between groups of friends and family to pick up flowers after a wedding party or event is over and distribute them to nursing homes to brighten the elders living environment)
- Everybody Matters (Denmark – Design School Kolding) DESIS Lab (solutions which could minimise mistakes in the handling of medicine in the sector of elderly, among other actions by supporting, in the staff members, co-working relations marked by intimacy, responsibility and respect)
Type of Projects
Projects that design for vulnerability. Design for (positive) vulnerability means to remove barriers between people by designing enablers or safe environments for interpersonal encounters. Being vulnerable in this case means to be exposed to the other. The concept of vulnerability is intrinsic to Buber’s philosophy of dialogue that seeks to elucidate a notion of the self who is not autonomous but who is dependent on others and responsive to the vulnerability of others (Cipolla, 2018).
Open Questions
- How can we design enablers for (positive) vulnerability?
- How can we design for intimacy, mutual responsibility, respect or reconciliation?
- How can we design safe environments that favour new or improbable interpersonal relations?