Questioning the Health and Future of Design

Design is drawing an open field of enquiry involving a wide range of expertise and products. In the wake of innovation, the process of design displays dynamic practice and research, trespassing any hard disciplinary boundary. Always looking into material and scientific discoveries, the final outcomes are defining a wide range of physical and informational artifacts surrounding our everyday life. Making and thinking are intertwined in design to the point that the creative action may develop a form of knowledge and awareness of the world surrounding us. As we are living in a time of transition, communities of designers, educators, and researchers are opening their spaces of action to the outer fields of enquiry. As a consequence, the new creative professions are exploring a wide plurality of languages and methodologies, thereby contaminating and articulating the design field into a number of pioneering hybrid spaces of research. Now more than ever, design as a discipline is questioning itself through its challenges and opportunities.