Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Designing for transitions involves envisioning more sustainable futures towards which designed interventions create ontological shifts towards new ways of being. This paper presents a reading of ontological design in the context of Transition Design, and emphasises key dimensions of practice to consider when imagining futures to inform transition – (im)materiality, directionality, intentionality, temporality, contextuality, pluriversality and relationality. Positioning transition-oriented futuring as a critical futures practice highlights its goals of deconstructing defutural ontologies and reconstructing them in ways that bring forth more sustainable forms of living. Ontological design presents an underlooked, but highly relevant conceptualisation of design to inform transition – revealing design’s profound role in world-shaping and future-making. By engaging with its concepts in transition-oriented futuring, this paper seeks to put ontological design further into conversation within the growing field of design futures, which has overlooked the possible contributions of design theory in how we approach futuring. Recognising the structured nature of unsustainability, ontological design highlights Transition Design as the redirection of our current systems and practices towards configurations that better enable the imagining and materialising of alternative futures.

Keywords

transition design ontological design defuturing critical futures design futures

Introduction: Designing Transitions to New Futures

As futures-oriented practices, Transition Design, and broader space of Design for Sustainable Futures (DfST), has drawn upon various futures studies concepts and approaches. ‘Transition-oriented futuring’ engages in futures and foresight practices to enhance the imagining and communicating of possibilities, informing design efforts towards sustainable futures (Angheloiu et al. 2017; Gaziulusoy and Ryan 2017; Goss et al. 2024; Srivastava and Culén 2018; Yu 2024). Situated amidst the intertwining of design and futures, it engages with a collective of hybrid ‘design futures’ practices to aid in speculating upon more desirable worlds. Candy and Potter (2019) consider design futures from two perspectives – how design could learn from and employ futures knowledge and practices, and vice versa, how futures could learn from and employ designerly knowledge and practices. This paper focuses on the latter – exploring ontological design (Willis 2006), an underlooked philosophy of design, and its implications for transition-oriented futuring. Seven principles are distilled from an understanding of designing for transitions as a practice of ontological redirection (Fry 2009). These principles emphasise key considerations for transition-oriented futuring, emphasising design’s role in world-shaping and future-making (Yelavich and Adams 2014). In doing so, this paper raises the opportunity for futures studies to further learn from design theory.

The predominant integration of design into futures has been the employing of designerly skills in reframing, form-giving, communicating and participatory engagement. Whilst this has been of great practical value, futures studies has overlooked design in terms of its possible theoretical contributions. At the same time, Transition Design’s futuring approach has remained loosely defined (Yu 2024). This paper seeks to offer 3 contributions to the intersection of ontological design, Transition Design and futures (Saha and Nusem 2024) – to (1) further explain ontological design in efforts to make it’s ideas more accessible, and through this, (2) highlight key considerations for transition-oriented futuring as a redirective practice, as well as (3) drawing the attention of futures studies to aspects of future-making through design.

As a point of clarification, this paper is draws primarily on Transition Design as formulated by Irwin et al. (2020). This is situated within the broader discourse of DfST (Boehnert et al. 2018; Coops et al. 2024; Gaziulusoy and Öztekin 2019), and presents a specific approach which promotes the envisioning of desirable visions to motivate and oriented transition initiatives. Whilst other DfST approaches employ futuring in various ways to inform transition, Transition Design foregrounds visioning as a foundational component. The development of Transition Design has also been informed by ontological design, and as such, it offers the most fitting starting point through which to further articulate transition-oriented futuring as a project of ontological redirection. Through a reading of ontological design, and its related concepts of defuturing and redirection, this paper seeks to further clarify futuring practices in Transition Design.

Ontological design characterises design as a practice of shaping the world around us, and highlights the dynamic in which we are designed back by the worlds we envision and make. Design in this sense, opens up and brings forth the futures we go on to inhabit, whilst also constraining the kinds of futures we conceive of. This condition of being ‘designed by design’ is an important, yet under-recognised cause of continued unsustainability. Ignorance of this dynamic has resulted in the reproduction of unsustainable ways of thinking, living and being – a condition described as ‘defuturing’ (Fry, 2009, 2020). By calling attention to this, ontological design emphasises that transition-oriented futuring must imagine futures of new worldly configurations which can continue to sustain life.

The Ontological Nature of Futuring and Designing

Ontological design presents an underlooked, but highly relevant understanding of design for transition. It poses a reconceptualisation that engages with the ways in which design shapes and structures our ways of living and being, and brings forth futures we go on to inhabit -- in which we are continuously shaped by that which has been designed. Ontology refers to qualities of existance in the world – what something is, and how it comes to be. Thinking of design through this lens, asks what is designing, what does it do, and how do designed things come to be? Ontological design’s central claims are that (1) design is fundamental to being human, (2) design goes on designing, and (3) that these qualities have gone largely unrecognised, resulting in our current conditions of unsustainability (Willis 2006). Design is characterised as a practice central to the human condition. It is as designing agents, that we understand how we exist and interact with the world around us. This goes beyond the limited characterisation of design as a profession or industry, and calls for a need recognise and engage with design as a profound human practice that shapes our worlds, futures and possibilities for continued existence. Design is recognised as a fundamental ability to first imagine, and then materialise the worldly conditions we live in, and share with other human and non-human beings and things. As such, futuring is inseparable from design, and as Tonkinwise (2015b) argues “Designing that does not already Future…is inadequate designing”.

Ontological design further highlights that what is designed, goes on to design, and designs us back. This is design’s world-shaping and future-making nature. What is brought into being through design becomes part of our future world and new present(s). Designed things; objects, tools, services, platforms and environments etc., bring about and shape particular ways of being, knowing, and doing. As beings within the world, we are simultaneously designed back by what we have created. As we go on to inhabit the future worlds we bring into being through design, we are then designed back. Fry (2012) highlights this dynamic as the “indivisible relation between the formation of the world of human fabrication and the making of mankind itself”. This concept presents a way to understand how design shapes and structures our very ways of being in the world – ways which are currently critically unsustainable and require transitions from.

An understanding of how design ontologically opens up, or closes down possible futures, is fundamental to understanding how we can better imagine and design for transition. Ignorance to the condition of being designed by design underpins our continuation of unsustainability. Recognising this, Transition Design promotes the imagining and materialising of new worldly conditions, which design us back in ways that support and reinforce sustainable ways of living. This involves a concern not only with the immediate impacts of how people engage with designed things, but also for second-order impacts for how design can open up sustainable conditions in the future, revealing and making way for possibilities for new ways of living (Fry 2021). Design in this sense, makes the futures we go on to inhabit, and at the same time, constrains the kinds of futures we imagine and design for in the present.

Transition Design as Redirection

A lack of understanding design's ontological nature is emphasised by the constraining and closing of sustainable possibilities for the future -- characterisied as ‘defuturing’ (Fry 2020)¹. Defuturing crititques design as a practice which has established and structured unsustainability as a default condition of modern living. Defuturing is the nature of the unsustainable – it acts to take away futures, as opposed to opening up conditions of continued being. It brings the end of our species (and other beings) nearer – futures without futures. The opposite – the sustainable, or sustain-able, as Fry differentiates, is futural – ‘futures with futures’. As such transitions towards more sustain-able futures must orient towards creating futural conditions in order to sustain life and ongoing possibilities.

Fry’s notion of sustain-ability (hyphenated) differs from mainstream conceptualisations of sustainability. Sustain-ability involves an ongoing process of engagement, continuously learning, working and improving to maintain the condition of being futural. This aligns with Transition Design’s iterative vision-led approach, in which we are constantly in transition, imagining and designing towards responsive and ever-changing ideals of more sustain futures. Sustain-ability does not denote an endpoint, or a definable fixed situation as conventional definitions tend to imply. The dominant rhetoric and politics of ‘becoming sustainable’ or ‘reaching sustainability goals’ are often associated with the unquestioned prioritisation of economic growth, anthropocentricity and inequity, and is argued as paradoxical to achieving sustain-ability.

Defuturing thus reveals the extent to which the modern world has been designed into unsustainability, through an ignorance to the complexity of ongoing consequences as a result of our transformative actions. As Fry emphasises, “we act to defuture because we do not understand how the values, knowledge, world and things we create go on designing after we have designed and made them” (2020, 10). To become more sustain-able, we must learn to recognise defuturing, through ontological design, and work towards an “ability to create a world of things and processes with the ability to sustain” (Fry 2020, 8). This involves a confrontation with the accumulated systems and structures of designed unsustainability. To better envision sustain-able futures, there is a need to critically identify and understand what is causing unsustainability -- what is to be transitioned away from, and which futures to transition towards. Transition-oriented futuring must recognise and engage with design’s agency in shaping the worlds we live in. An understanding of how design defutures, through ontological design, is foundational to understanding how we can reorient towards futural conditions for life.

From ontological design’s account of defuturing, we can see how design is perpetuating unsustainable conditions of being, acting, seeing, thinking, knowing and ultimately, how we imagine and design towards futures. This raises the imperative for redirection (Fry 2007, 2009) – the designed displacement of things that defuture with things that are sustain-able. Critical of dominant systems, structures and practices of defuturing, Transition Design through the lens of ontological design is a re-thinking and re-making of how we exist, at the scale countering the Anthropocene. Notably, redirection does not call for a disruptive revolution, but an incremental project of “identifying what needs to be redirected, commencing redirective activity and working to establish the rise and dominance of agents of futuring” (Fry 2009, 47). Redirection is a transition -- a process of re-imagining and re-designing almost every aspect of how we live, which includes how we imagine futures and design towards them.

The immense complexity and difficulty of redirection comes in part from design’s ironic ontological condition – that it “is everywhere seen and yet everywhere remains invisible” (Dilnot 1998). Our propensity to overlook the broader and longer-term socio-material costs and consequences of designing, along with the increasing complexity of the modern world, foregrounds both the difficulty in addressing defuturing and the necessity of new ways of understanding and engaging in design. More conceptual and practical tools to more easily understand ontological design are needed to support this. Few have been established, and even fewer published (Clune 2017; Escobar 2018; Mellick Lopes 2017, personal communication; Schultz and Barnett 2015). Furthermore, despite the significance of ontological design’s ideas for understanding designed unsustainability, it remains a marginal concept in academia, let alone in wider practice. This can largely be attributed to its conceptual difficulty, and the limited ways in which it has been presented – almost entirely through academic formats which remain largely inaccessible. However as Hartnett Hartnett (2021) notes, there is a growing interest in the concept. The principles presented in this paper emerge from a reading of ontological design, outlining implications for transition-oriented futuring. Whilst recognising Transition Design has been founded in part upon an engagement with the concept², this paper seeks to further clarify and explicate its ideas, highlighting important considerations for transition-oriented futuring to be practiced with greater attunement to design’s world-shaping and future-making nature.

Transition Design emerged from a critique of design’s role in ongoing ecological and social crises, emphasising the need for design to shift its orientation as a practice. It presents a design-led approach for initiating and supporting systems change towards more sustainable and just futures. Guided by visions of desirable futures, theories of change, adopting different postures and mindsets, Transition Design seeks to reconceptualise new ways of envisioning and designing (Irwin 2015, 2018; Irwin and Kossoff 2024). Its transdisciplinary orientation encourages engagment with a variety of different approaches, amongst them futures studies, in which some concepts and practices have already been adopted (Cowart and Maione 2022; Lockton and Candy 2018; Rohrbach and Steenson 2018; Scupelli 2019; Yu 2024). In positioning ontological design within the Transition Design paradigm, key aspects of transition-oriented futuring practices are highlighted.

Transition Design is driven by co-created images of more desirable alternative futures in which we live more sustainably. Visions for transition act as a ‘magnet’ and ‘compass’ to motivate and orient transition projects that work towards more desirable outcomes imagined in the long-term future. Backcasting from these preferred visions, transition initiatives are positioned along a transition pathway to work towards more desirable futures. Whilst Transition Design is primarily driven by this normative approach of visioning and backcasting, its approach can be strengthened by engaging a wider range of futuring activities (Yu 2024)³.

Ontological design calls for a critical need to see the kinds of world(s) transition designers are designing within, and kinds of futures they are designing towards. It provides a lens through which Transition Design can understand the world as a result of design, and kinds of unsustainable futures which have been designed towards. It offers a theory of change for design as an underlying driver of unsustainability, and a reconceptualisation of design practice oriented towards sustainable transitions (Sides et al. 2022). In presenting the following principles of ontological design, this paper aims to draw attention to key considerations to better inform the envisioning of futures for transition.

Furthermore, Transition Design also entails shifts in mindsets and posture – reshaping values, worldviews that encourage new ways of thinking, seeing and being in the world. Equipped with a critical recognition of ongoing defuturing, and the immense scale and profound structural levels of change required for redirection, those working towards transition must be fiercely committed in the face of its enormous complexity and difficulty. Redirection is a political act which shapes every aspect of being. Approaching transition with openness to new ways of thinking and being, critical reflexivity, and willingness to collaborate towards new possibilities, invites diverse understandings of how things could be otherwise. Recognising design as defutural emphasises the radical dispositional transformations required for designers to drive transition towards more sustainable futures. As Tonkinwise (2015a, 88) calls for, to have “a more forceful sense of what kind of society it is contributing to building”.

Transition-Oriented Futuring as Critical Futures

Transition-oriented futuring is an inherently critical practice, as it seeks to reveal and challenge underlying systems and structures that perpetuate unsustainability (Goode and Godhe 2017; Inayatullah 1990; Ramos 2003; Slaughter 1999; Yu 2024). Ontological design offers insights to the deconstruction and reconstruction of futures through its framing of how unsustainability has been underpinned by design. Through this lens, transition-oriented futuring must not only be critically aware of how our futures are being shaped by dominant systems, ideologies and narratives (Milojević and Inayatullah 2015), but also that our conceptions of those futures are equally mediated by such. Our imagination of, and preferences for, the future are not only emergent from ourselves as individuals, but mediated by the world around us. Critical futures, informed by ontological design then serves to probe beneath the surface of reality (Slaughter 1989), to understand the ways in which our present conditions have been designed, and designs us back. In recognising this, we can start to consider alternative conditions of being and thinking towards more sustain-able futures. Transition-oriented futuring, attuned to the nature of ontological designing thus involves a re-imagining of “entire new configurations that challenge our notions of conventionality” (Inayatullah 1990). What we have taken as granted in modern life must be re-thought and re-imagined through a “confrontation with the dominance of the synthetic envionments into which we have come ‘naturalized’” (Fry 2020, 9).

Key Principles for Transition-Oriented Futuring

To support the ongoing conceptualisation of transition-oriented futuring, a series of key principles are presented below. These aim to clarify key considerations in ontological design, and their implications. In outlining these principles, this paper seeks to further elucidate transition-oriented futuring (and subsequent designing) as a redirective practice, and bring design theory into further conversation with futures studies. The principles are not an attempt to contribute entirely new concepts to these spaces, but rather, in proposing them together as a set of heuristics, this paper aims to emphasise crucial aspects redirective practice.

(Im)materiality

(Im)materiality calls attention to the ways in which design creates the tangible and intangible socio-material conditions of our worlds, and which mediate our existence within them. Design brings into the world particular things – such as images, objects, interactions, platforms, services, policies and environments, which enable, support and reinforce particular ways of seeing, thinking, valuing and acting. Ontological design highlights the materiality required even for things we conventionally deem immaterial or invisible. Aspects of design such as interactions, services and systems exist inseparably from a materialised environment, for example as Willis (2006, 72) describes -- administrative systems and related “IT infrastructures, forms, filing cabinets, work stations, work heirarchies, flows of paperwork and electronic information”. The nature of design to shape behaviour not a new revelation for designers, but what is overlooked is the profound dynamic of design’s second-order influence – the ways in which design acts back on us to shape how we live and design in the world. The extent of design’s making of our worlds foregrounds the enormous and challenging task of redirection ahead, as Mellick Lopes (2017, 179) writes, “we know little about increasingly complex composites of organic and synthetic material, including their origins and ecological and social costs”. The complexity of the (im)material conditions of defuturing have become so embedded in our worlds over time, that uncovering, let alone unravelling, the conditions which shape the futures we imagine becomes extremely difficult.

In recognising the (im)material evolution of wicked problems, Transition Design involves an examination of ways socio-technical systems have ‘locked in’ particular practices, norms and environments that reproduce the status quo. Unpacking the ways in which material and immaterial things have shaped our worlds towards particular futures, allows us to better understand the cumulative consequences of ontological designing. Applying this to transition-oriented futuring, ontological design advocates that we not only imagine how people may live differently in the future, but extend this to imagining the (im)material systems and structures around them which enable and reinforce these new ways of living, as well as seeing these new configurations as valuable and worthy of being pursued. This points to the need for worldbuilding practices (von Stackelberg and McDowell, 2015; Zaidi, 2019) that consider the ways in which people are designed back by design. Whilst a multi-level perspective (Geels 2011) helps to understand how networks of material and immaterial factors create entrenched systems at a macro level, Transition Design acknowledges that further connection needs to be made with the more granular perspective within systems (Irwin et al. 2020). An ontological design lens complements practice theory in exploring futures of everyday life (Garduño García and Gaziulusoy 2021; Shove et al. 2012). Recognising (im)materiality provides a perspective through which to explore how designed things contribute to entrenched unsustainability in both higher order systems and more grounded levels.

The (im)material world-shaping of design raises the need to be reflexive of how designed things shape our conceptions of future possibilities. Our ideas of the future – what is possible, what isn’t, and what could be, are influenced and constrained by our current (im)material conditions of being. Discussing scenario practices as a mode of ontological agency, Vervoort et al. (2015) similarly highlight that our imagination in the making of new worlds always draws from elements of existing worlds. Recognising the socio-technical mediation of our conceptions of the future (Edwards 2008; Oomen et al. 2022), it is important then, to engage with how (im)material forces shape our current imagination, or else be at risk of reproducing defuturing things when imagining futures for transition. This complements critical futures approaches that interrogate systems of thought, values, ideologies and narratives, by recognising that these immaterial notions do not exist without material counterparts.

Directionality

Directionality addresses how design not only shapes particular ways of being in the present, but also sets forth trajectories towards particular futures to come as design goes on designing. The (im)material systems and structures of the world direct us towards the configurations of the futures we go on to inhabit. Design steers us towards particular futures, and away from others. Importantly, this is not to say the future is predetermined, but that designed things create an ontological path dependency. Defuturing occurs as designed things structure and reinforce unsustainability, directing futures towards an end point of life. Transition as such counters defuturing by designing for new directions.

Whilst design directs towards particular futures, imbued with particular intentions by the designer(s), it also goes on to design, beyond initial intentions and control of the designer, within an (im)material ecology of other designed things. This shifts an understanding of design as creation of a finalised outcome, towards a recognition that designing doesn’t end. Instead, what “design brings into being remains in process within a particular kind of ecology of things, organic or inorganic” (Fry 2009).

Transition Design emphasises that whilst ways of living may be locked into particular regimes, ongoing interactions between socio-technical forces mean we are always in transition. The directional dimension of ontological design highlights the need for greater attention to anticipate possible trajectories of designed things. As defuturing highlights, design must recognise that the future is “not a vast void, but a time and place constituted by directional forces of design, set in train in the past and the present, and which flow into the future” (Fry 2020, xxix). Clune (2017) utilises timelines to demonstrate directional accumulation of a designed present through history. Projecting from there to explore how and what design may go on to design, what futures it directs towards, is a mode of futuring associated with predictive and exploratory approaches (Börjeson et al. 2006).

Furthermore, acknowledging that futures can never be anticipated with certainty, what this highlights for Transition Design is a responsibility to respond to unfolding consequences and impacts of design over time, whilst simultaneously oriented towards proposed visions. This invokes the imperative to engage, to the best of our ability, the directional consequences of designing in relation to desired futures. This highlights the normative task of determining which futures to direct towards, which futures to direct away from, and to continuously evaluate this in relation to unfolding futures. Directionality foregrounds the need to cultivate spaces for the moral deliberation of which futures are desirable and why, as well as taking responsibility for future directions and possible consequences (Goss et al. 2024; van der Duin 2019).

Intentionality

Intentionality highlights design as the purposeful directing of world(s), but also a recognition of the limited extent of this capability, and the designed mediation of our actions. A commonly used framing of design is the ‘changing of present situations into preferred ones’ (Simon 1988) which highlights intentional agency in imagining and materialising the worlds and futures we would prefer. This foregrounds the responsibility we have towards the directionality of designed futures. Ontological design highlights that designing is integral to every intentional act we take, which Willis (2006) tempers with a recognition that also “we are all designed”. Ontological design reminds us that whilst we have the capability to bring particular designs into the world, we have limited control and knowledge over how it will eventuate. As design goes onto design, futures are ultimately unpredictable as our designs go on to interact within complex socio-material ecologies – unintended and unexpected consequences are bound to occur. As such, Transition Design emphasises visioning not as the creation of blueprints, but as an iterative process of steering towards more sustain-able futures.

Design designs, through the (im)material things which induct us into certain ways of being, including how we conceive of and design towards new futures. Tonkinwise (2018) emphasises that what is considered a preferrable future is contextually prefigured by design. As such, transition-oriented futuring must involve an exploration of conditions through which a new future prefigures new preferences - a second-order type of futuring (Fry, 2021). We must also recognise that intentions and preferences are not necessarily shared. This again raises the responsibility and necessity for a more rigorous exploration of the futures imagined and designed towards. In particular this highlights the deliberation upon which futures are preferable to whom, and under what conditions, but more importantly, which futures ought to be preferred. As Fesmire (2003) points out, the fact that something is desired only raises the question of its desirability. In determining desirable visions for transition, we must not only ask, which futures are desired, but which futures should be desired for transition – questioning beliefs, values and intentions towards proposed preferred futures. Whilst participatory approaches offer practices to manage and deliberate upon varying and conflicting perspectives amongst stakeholders (Gaziulusoy and Ryan 2017; Irwin 2018; Simonsen and Robertson 2013), it is more challenging to engage with the deeper moral questions of which futures ought to be desired over others and the ontologies which shape those deliberations (Goss et al., 2024)⁴. The value of participatory practices in futuring and design is to recognise difference and give voice to alternative perspectives and possibilities. Engaging with difference helps us to notice and reveal ways in which our own ontologies are overlooked. Recognising that our designing is always situated within a designed world, our intentions are shaped by that which has been designed before us. As such, the moral deliberation of what ought to be desired must involve a reflexive interrogation of what is shaping our current desires, and how so. Transition, as a series of ontological shifts (Tonkinwise, 2019), implies that our preferences, values, needs and wants will change, and the particular context in which we determine desirability must be recognised over time.

Temporality

Temporality highlights the agency of design in shaping world(s) through time. Designing for sustain-ability takes time as a central medium in which to ‘make more time’, countering defuturing. This involves seeing design and its impacts unfolding over time, and shifting focus away from the designed thing, towards attending to ongoing and unfolding impacts – something which is of course central to futures studies⁵. In recognising directionality, engaging with the temporal dimension of ontological design also involves gaining understanding of how the future is already “colonized by what the past and present have sent to it” (Fry 2020, 10). Defuturing is perpetuated by short-sightedness which fails to account for the longevity of designed things and long-term consequences. Engaging with temporality seeks to stretch the concerns of design towards further futures, establishing a greater futures literacy in design (Miller 2018; Mulgan 2020; Slaughter 1996). Whilst the future remains ultimately unpredictable, unless we can recognise defuturing over time, then our futures will be compromised.

As discussed, Transition Design involves understanding the historical development of a situation, just as redirection emphasises the need to first understand what is defuturing. Transition-oriented futuring primarily centres on normative long-term visioning and backcasting, what ontological design calls ‘designing back from the future’ (Willis 2014), but also highlights the need for further practices of predictive and exploratory futuring are suggested to complement this approach (Börjeson et al., 2006; Fry, 2021; Yu, 2024). A more comprehensive practice of futuring that addresses the anticipated longevity of designing forces would benefit Transition Design to identify opportunities and barriers to redirection. Supporting this with exploratory futuring to engage in more alternative possibilities, opens ways for seeing and experience new ontological possibilities, which Dator (2009) argues is a critical aspect of a visioning practice.

Furthermore, through a series of ontological changes over time while we transition into new worlds, so do our notions of what are probable, plausible, possible and preferable futures. Transitions are not a linear trajectory, but entangled, iterative and diverse. What was once a desirable future has been materialized in a past, which is arrived at through a present desiring of another future. In recognition of plural and relational agency through time, opens transition-oriented futuring to explore “a diverse unfolding of potential futures” (Howell et al. 2021, 1). Further exploring the alterity of futures presents opportunity for a greater expansion of transition-oriented futuring, in particular supporting a decolonial approaches to design and futures (Escobar 2018; Facer 2023; Ghosh et al. 2021; Jae 2023; Schultz 2018).

Contextuality

Contextuality calls attention to the particularities of situations in which designing occurs, set in place by designed forces over time. Engaging with context in ontological design is not just an acknowledgement of the (im)material environment in which design occurs, but a recognition of the dynamic nature of being designed by design, within this environment shared with other beings. Designing with respect to contextuality involves considering how one exists within the circular dynamic of being designed, along with others in a shared spatio-temporal context.

Transition Design highlights the significance of context through an emphasis on localised place-based designing, whilst recognising how a transition is nested within broader domains of living (Kossoff 2015). It aims to understand a wicked problem as situated within a particular context, through a multi-level perspective, that addresses both macro and micro factors that contribute to a problem’s entrenchment over time. It also highlights the importance of understanding the various relevant perspectives within a shared context, recognising them as a source of both opportunities and barriers to change, and aspires to integrate design-led approaches to participant management and conflict resolution. For transition-oriented futuring, this means a need to recognise just how the specific (im)material fabric of the situation at hand has been direct over time, how this shapes ways of being for relevant stakeholders in each context. Futures imagined must recognise the specificity of particular ontological conditions, which will be unique to each context of transition. Although these futures may be probable, possible or preferable in one context, it will not necessarily be for another. However, there may be some transferable knowledge to draw from.

Pluriversality

Pluriversality addresses the coexistence of multiple ways of seeing, interpreting, thinking, valuing and being. This highlights the many ontologies of and within different contexts and peoples, which should be recognised and considered when designing. This does not mean individualised experiences are distinct, as (im)material environments are shared, but recognises that different people, beings and things, will have differing ways of existing and interacting. Importantly, pluriversality does not mean co-existence within one overarching system, i.e. pluralism, and calls into question the notion of universality. This establishes the foundations for a pluriverse – ‘where many worlds fit’ alongside and amongst one another, as opposed to one singular hegemonic world (Escobar 2018). Pluriversality critically challenges the ongoing dominance of modern, Western, colonial globalisation, underpinned by a neoliberal economic system and view of development that currently drives defuturing (Boehnert 2018; Fry 2020). Pluriversality seeks to recognise the existence of alternative ways of knowing and being, giving rise to alternative modes of envisioning and designing towards a range of sustain-able futures. Sustain-ability is predicated on an ability to open up possible futures, and with this, must be an openness to diverse, alternative and other forms of being.

Engaging with pluriversality is well established in Transition Design, with emphasis on the multiplicity of wicked problems, engaging various peoples and communities, and developing ecologies of interventions which together build momentum of transition in different ways. Transitions must be designed across contexts, places and scales in order to counter the dominant modes of defuturing. Recognising this in transition-oriented futuring highlights again the challenging task of moral deliberation in normative futuring. The notion of desirable futures within pluriversality emphasises the significance of asking ‘which futures are most worthy of desiring to transition towards?’, as well the need to address political questions of ‘whose futures?’ and ‘who gets to decide?’. Transition-oriented futuring must engage with the diverse entanglement of different preferences and ideals for the future, which will inevitably present both alignments, and tensions between differing ideals. Ontological design emphasises the inescapability of politics in designing, and as such engaging with the inherent power, politics and social relations within pluriversality is central to just transitions (Boehnert et al. 2018). This requires contextual sensitivity to who, where and how transitions are approached, and in particular, attention to the hegemonic structures which continue to marginalise alternative perspectives.

Relationality

Relationality highlights the inherently interconnected nature of being and the inseparability of beings, things and the world around them. This shifts designs focus towards seeing processes and practices emerging from connections, as opposed to individualised things. We exist as a part of the worlds in which we live, and designing is as such, inseparable from our contextual relations. This departs from individualist, mechanistic, and anthropocentric framings of design, towards an understanding of design as situated within amongst other aspects of being. Rather than designing things, we must design (for) relations with other beings and things. As design goes onto design, our lives within our worlds emerge from within these relations in constant transition. Defuturing is a consequence of ignoring relationality, resulting in the breaking down of socio-ecological relations through which life is sustained.

A relational paradigm is highlighted in Transition Design, underpinned by living systems theory (Capra and Luisi 2014). Adopting a relational approach, beings and things in transition are understood not as discrete entities, but as hybrid entities in a network of ongoing exchange. Transition is thus a breaking, re-making, and redirecting of existing (im)material relations towards relations that can enable sustain-ability. This shifts the concern away from imagining and designing individualised things and how people interact with them, towards designing for sustain-able relations in which things go on to reinforce sustain-able relations back with people – a concern for second-order relations. With a relational approach, transition-oriented futuring should pay greater attention not just to futures of sustainable things like products/diegetic prototypes (Bleecker et al. 2022) or services (Srivastava and Culén 2018), but to more holistically imagined world(s) considered through the relations of humans, non-humans and things, as well as the relations between plural worlds. This calls for richer, more expansive and cohesive worldbuilding in which the people and beings, in relation to (im)material conditions of future world(s), are envisioned in ways that structure and reinforce sustain-able ways of living. Furthermore, as Ortega Pallanez (2024) highlights, recognising relationality fundamentally requires a rethinking of our ways of working, values, mindset and paradigms, to ‘heal’ defutural modes of practice and shift them towards caring for interrelationships with others (Korsmeyer et al. 2022).

Towards More Ontologically Attuned Future-making Practices

Transition Design promotes a radical shift in how design futures can be practiced in order to redirect towards more sustainable and just futures. As a developing space, its futuring components would benefit from further clarification. By exploring ontological design’s idea within this paradigm, transition-oriented futuring is made richer by harnessing both “the worldbuilding capabilities of futures and the worldmaking ethos of design” (Cowart and Maione 2022). The principles outlined above seek to clarify ontological design in relation to transition-oriented futuring, and through this, offer futures studies further insight into future-making via design theory. Again, this has not been an attempt to comprehensively define all aspects of ontological design, but rather to emphasise important aspects relevant to futuring in the context of sustainable transition. As Transition Design entails the imagining and materialising of alternative desirable worlds, the dynamic of how shaping these worlds and subsequent conceptions of future worlds must be recognised in order to redirect defuturing wordly conditions towards more sustain-able futures.

Whilst not all the principles presented are necessarily new to futures studies, this paper serves to substantiate key values, mindsets and orientations for transition-oriented futuring. As a conceptual proposal, this paper acknowledges the need for further research to continue investigating the intersection of ontological design, transitions and futures. This is the just beginning of the conversation and future research is warranted to further integrate design theory into futures, and more importantly, translation of insights to practice. Each principle would be worthy of their own paper to further validate and elucidate their implications for transition-oriented futuring in practice.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Australian Government (Australian Government Research Training Program).

ORCID iD

Samuel Yu

Notes

Author Biography

Samuel Yu is an Associate Lecturer and PhD candidate at the Transdisciplinary School, University of Sydney. His research explores critical approaches to envisioning futures for sustainable transitions.

References

Angheloiu

Corina

Chaudhuri

Goldie

Sheldrick

Leila

. 2017. “Future Tense: Alternative Futures as a Design Method for Sustainability Transitions.” The Design Journal 20 (sup1): S3213–S3225. doi: 10.1080/14606925.2017.1352827.

Bleecker

Foster

Girardin

Nova

. 2022. The Manual of Design Fiction. Near Future Laboratory.

Boehnert

Joanna

. 2018. Design, Ecology, Politics: Towards the Ecocene. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Boehnert

Lockton

Mulder

. 2018. “Editorial: Designing for Transitions.” In Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 25–28 June 2018.

Börjeson

Lena

Höjer

Mattias

Dreborg

Karl-Henrik

Ekvall

Tomas

Finnveden

Göran

. 2006. “Scenario Types and Techniques: Towards a User's Guide.” Futures 38 (7): 723–39. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2005.12.002.

Candy

Stuart

Potter

Cher

. 2019. Design and Futures. Tamkang University Press.

Capra

Fritjof

Luisi

Pier Luigi

. 2014. The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision. Cambridge University Press.

Clune

Stephen

. 2017. “Futuring and Ontological Designing.” In Kristina

Niedderer

Stephen

Clune

Geke

Ludden

. Design for Behaviour Change, 128–37. Routledge.

Coops

Femke

Lockton

Dan

Gaziulusoy

İdil

, et al. 2024. “Designing (For) Transitions and Transformations: Imagination, Designing (For) Transitions and Transformations: Imagination, Climate Futures, and Everyday Lives Climate Futures, and Everyday Lives.” In DRS2024: Boston, Boston, USA, June 2024.

10.

Cowart

Adam

Maione

Donna

. 2022. “Transitioning toward the Slow and Long: Developing Experiential Futures Approach toward System Change in Fashion.” Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación 157: 29–63.

11.

Dator

. 2009. “Alternative Futures at the Manoa School.” Journal of Futures Studies 14 (2): 1–18.

12.

Dilnot

Clive.

1998. “The Science of Uncertainty: the Potential Contribution of Design to Knowledge.” In Proceedings of the Ohio Conference, Doctoral Education in Design.

13.

Edwards

Mark G.

2008. ““Every Today Was a Tomorrow”: An Integral Method for Indexing the Social Mediation of Preferred Futures.” Futures 40 (2): 173–89. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2007.11.014.

14.

Escobar

Arturo

. 2018. Designs for the Pluriverse. Duke University Press.

15.

Facer

Keri

. 2023. “Possibility and the Temporal Imagination.” Possibility Studies & Society 1 (1-2): 60–6. doi: 10.1177/27538699231171797.

16.

Fesmire

Steven

. 2003. John Dewey and Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics. Indiana University Press.

17.

Fry

Tony

. 2007. “Redirective Practice: an Elaboration.” Design Philosophy Papers 5 (1): 5–2. doi: 10.2752/144871307X13966292017072.

18.

Fry

Tony

. 2009. Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice. Berg Publishers.

19.

Fry

Tony

. 2012. Becoming Human by Design. Bloomsbury.

20.

Fry

Tony

. 2020. Defuturing: A New Design Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing.

21.

Fry

Tony

. 2021. Writing Design Fiction: Relocating a city in crisis. Bloomsbury.

22.

Garduño García

Claudia

Gaziulusoy

İdil

. 2021. “Designing Future Experiences of the Everyday: Pointers for Methodical Expansion of Sustainability Transitions Research.” Futures 127: 102702. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2021.102702.

23.

Gaziulusoy

İdil

Öztekin

Elif Erdoğan

. 2019. “Design for Sustainability Transitions: Origins, Attitudes and Future Directions.” Sustainability 11 (13): 3601. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/13/3601

24.

Gaziulusoy

A. İdil

Ryan

Chris

. 2017. “Shifting Conversations for Sustainability Transitions Using Participatory Design Visioning.” The Design Journal 20 (sup1): S1916–S1926. doi: 10.1080/14606925.2017.1352709.

25.

Geels

Frank W.

2011. “The Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainability Transitions: Responses to Seven Criticisms.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 1 (1): 24–40. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2011.02.002.

26.

Ghosh

Bipashyee

Ramos-Mejía

Mónica

Carvalho Machado

Rafael

Yuana

Suci Lestari

Schiller

Katharina

. 2021. “Decolonising Transitions in the Global South: Towards More Epistemic Diversity in Transitions Research.” Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 41: 106–09. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2021.10.029.

27.

Goode

Luke

Godhe

Michael

. 2017. “Beyond Capitalist Realism-Why We Need Critical Future Studies.” Culture Unbound 9: 1–22.

28.

Goss

Hannah M.

Tromp

Nynke

Schifferstein

Hendrik N. J.

. 2024. “Design Capability when Visioning for Transitions: A Case Study of a New Food System.” Design Studies 91-92: 101246. doi: 10.1016/j.destud.2024.101246.

29.

Hartnett

. 2021. “Ontological Design Has Become Influential in Design Academia – but what Is it?” AIGA Eye on Design. https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/ontological-design-is-popular-in-design-academia-but-what-is-it/

30.

Howell

Noura

Schulte

Britta F.

Holroyd

Amy Twigger

Arana

Rocío Fatás

Sharma

Sumita

Eden

Grace

. 2021. “Calling for a Plurality of Perspectives on Design Futuring: An Un-manifesto.” In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Yokohama, Japan, May 2021.

31.

Inayatullah

Sohail

. 1990. “Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Future: Predictive, Cultural and Critical Epistemologies.” Futures 22 (2): 115–41. doi: 10.1016/0016-3287(90)90077-U.

32.

Irwin

Terry

. 2015. “Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research.” Design and Culture 7 (2): 229–46.

33.

Irwin

Terry

. 2018. “The Emerging Transition Design Approach.” In Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 25–28 June 2018.

34.

Irwin

Terry

Kossoff

Gideon

. 2024. “Transition Design: Wicked Problem Resolution as a Strategy for Catalyzing Positive, Systems-Level Change.” In Rachel Beth

Egenhoefer

. Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design, 472–92. Routledge.

35.

Irwin

Terry

Cameron

Tonkinwise

Kossoff

Gideon

. 2020. “Transition Design: The Importance of Everyday Life and Lifestyles as a Leverage Point for Sustainability Transitions.” Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación 105: 67–94. doi:10.18682/cdc.vi105.4189

36.

Jae

Kevin

. 2023. “Decolonizing Futures Practice: Opening up Authentic Alternative Futures.” Journal of Futures Studies 28 (1): 15–24. doi: 10.6531/JFS.202309_28(1).0002.

37.

Korsmeyer

Hannah

Light

Ann

Grocott

Lisa

. 2022. “Understanding Feminist Anticipation through ‘back-Talk’: 3 Narratives of Willful, Deviant, and Care-Full Co-design Practices.” Futures 136: 102874. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2021.102874.

38.

Kossoff

Gideon

. 2015. “Holism and the Reconstitution of Everyday Life: a Framework for Transition to a Sustainable Society.” Design Philosophy Papers 13 (1): 25–38. doi: 10.1080/14487136.2015.1085698.

39.

Lockton

Dan

Candy

Stuart

. 2018. “A Vocabulary for Visions in Designing for Transitions.” In Design as a Catalyst for Change - DRS International Conference, Limerick, Ireland, September 2018.

40.

Mellick Lopes

Abby

. 2017. “Ontological Design as an Ecological Practice.” Arena Journal 47/48: 172–191.

41.

Miller

Riel

. 2018. Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. Routledge.

42.

Milojević

Ivana

Inayatullah

Sohail

. 2015. “Narrative Foresight.” Futures 73: 151–62. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2015.08.007.

43.

Mulgan

Geoff

. 2020. The Imaginary Crisis (And How We Might Quicken Social and Public Imagination). UNTITLED, Helskini.

44.

Oomen

Jeroen

Hoffman

Jesse

Hajer

Maarten A.

. 2022. “Techniques of Futuring: On How Imagined Futures Become Socially Performative.” European Journal of Social Theory 25 (2): 252–70. doi: 10.1177/1368431020988826.

45.

Ortega Pallanez

Marysol

. 2024. “Healing Our Designing: Practices of Care for Human and More-Than-Human Relations.” In DRS2024 Boston, Boston, USA, June 2024.

46.

Ramos

José M.

2003. From Critique to Cultural Recovery: Critical Futures Studies and Casual Layered Analysis. Australian Foresight Institute Monograph Series. 1–26. Australian Foresight Institute Swinburne University.

47.

Rohrbach

Steenson

. 2018. “Transition Design: Teaching and Learning.” In Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 25–28 June 2018.

48.

Saha

Tanushri

Nusem

Erez

. 2024. “Ecologies Otherwise: Mapping Ontological, Speculative, and Transition Design Discourses.” Design and Culture 16 (2): 191–21. doi: 10.1080/17547075.2024.2335429.

49.

Schultz

Tristan

. 2018. “Mapping Indigenous Futures: Decolonising Techno-Colonising Designs.” Strategic Design Research Journal 11 (2): 79–9. doi: 10.4013/sdrj.2018.112.04.

50.

Schultz

Tristan

Barnett

Bec

. 2015. Cognitive Redirective Mapping: Designing Futures that Challenge Anthropocentrism. Nordes.

51.

Scupelli

Peter

. 2019. “Teaching to Transition Design: A Case Study on Design Agility, Design Ethos, and Dexign Futures.” Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación 73: 111–132. doi:10.18682/cdc.vi73.1041

52.

Shove

Elizabeth

Pantzar

Mika

Watson

Matt

. 2012. The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How it Changes. Sage.

53.

Sides

Madeline

Carey

Hillary

Dorn

Erica

Theriault

Noah

. 2022. “Engaging with Theories of Change in Transition Design.” Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación 157: 141–158. doi:10.18682/cdc.vi157.6849

54.

Simon

Herbert A.

1988. “The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial.” Design Issues 4 (1/2): 67–8. doi: 10.2307/1511391.

55.

Simonsen

Jesper

Robertson

Toni

. 2013. Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design, Vol. 711. Routledge.

56.

Slaughter

Richard

. 1989. “Probing beneath the Surface: Review of a Decade’s Futures Work.” Futures 21 (5): 447–65. doi: 10.1016/0016-3287(89)90085-2.

57.

Slaughter

Richard

. 1996. “Futures Studies: From Individual to Social Capacity.” Futures 28 (8): 751–62. doi: 10.1016/0016-3287(96)00009-2.

58.

Slaughter

Richard

. 1999. “Towards Responsible Dissent and the Rise of Transformational Futures.” Futures 31 (2): 147–54. doi: 10.1016/S0016-3287(98)00124-4.

59.

Slaughter

Richard

. 2002. “Beyond the Mundane: Reconciling Breadth and Depth in Futures Enquiry.” Futures 34 (6): 493–57. doi: 10.1016/S0016-3287(01)00076-3.

60.

Srivastava

Culén

. 2018. “Transition-oriented Futuring: Integrated Design Fordecreased Consumption Amongst Millennials.” In Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 25–28 June 2018.

61.

Tonkinwise

Cameron

. 2015a. “Design for Transitions ‒ from and to what?” Design Philosophy Papers 13 (1): 85–9. doi: 10.1080/14487136.2015.1085686.

62.

Tonkinwise

Cameron

. 2015b. Just Design. Medium.

63.

Tonkinwise

Cameron

. 2018. “‘I prefer not to’: Anti-progressive designing.” In Undesign: Critical Practices at the Intersection of Art and Design, edited by Coombs

Gretchen

McNamara

Andrew

Sade

Gavin

. Routledge.

64.

Tonkinwise

Cameron

. 2019. “Design’s (Dis) Orders: Mediating Systems-Level Transition Design.” Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación Ensayos 73: 85–96.

65.

van der Duin

Patrick

. 2019. “Toward “Responsible Foresight”: Developing Futures that Enable Matching Future Technologies with Societal Demands.” World Futures Review 11 (1): 69–7. doi: 10.1177/1946756718803721.

66.

Vervoort

Joost M.

Bendor

Roy

Kelliher

Aisling

Strik

Oscar

Helfgott

Ariella E. R.

. 2015. “Scenarios and the Art of Worldmaking.” Futures 74: 62–7. doi: 10.1016/j.futures.2015.08.009.

67.

von Stackelberg

Peter

McDowell

Alex

. 2015. What in the World? Storyworlds, Science Fiction, and Futures Studies. Journal of Futures Studies 20: 25–6. doi: 10.6531/JFS.2015.20(2).A25.

68.

Willis

Anne-Marie

. 2006. “Ontological Designing.” Design Philosophy Papers 4 (2): 69–9.

69.

Willis

Anne-Marie

. 2014. “Designing Back from the Future.” Design Philosophy Papers 12 (2): 151–60. doi: 10.2752/144871314X14159818597595.

70.

Yelavich

Susan

Adams

Barbara

. 2014. Design as Future-Making. Bloomsbury.

71.

Samuel

. 2024. “What Kind of Futuring Is Transition-Oriented Futuring? Conceptualising and Expanding Notions of Futuring in Transition Design.” In DRS2024: Boston, Boston, USA, June 2024.

72.

Zaidi

Leah

. 2019. “Worldbuilding in Science Fiction, Foresight and Design.” Journal of Futures Studies 23 (4): 15–16. doi:10.6531/JFS.201906_23(4).0003

Transition Designing as Ontological Redirection: Key Principles for Transition-Oriented Futuring

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction: Designing Transitions to New Futures

The Ontological Nature of Futuring and Designing

Transition Design as Redirection

Transition-Oriented Futuring as Critical Futures

Key Principles for Transition-Oriented Futuring

(Im)materiality

Directionality

Intentionality

Temporality

Contextuality

Pluriversality

Relationality

Towards More Ontologically Attuned Future-making Practices

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author Biography

References