How wicked are the Wicked Problems of Design?
From the End of Design Anthropology to the Rise of Social Design
Everybody talks about design’s ‘wicked problems’ — but do we truly understand them? It’s been over 30 years since Buchanan published his seminal article, “Wicked Problems in Design Thinking,” yet its relevance persists today. What has happened in the decades since? How has design evolved in the face of these challenges? Are we still grappling with the same issues, or have we created new ones? Design anthropology was once poised to lead the charge in addressing these wicked problems, but shifts and changes in design practice and research have reshuffled the field. In this lecture, I aim to revisit and define these wicked problems, examine what has happened to design anthropology since its promising beginnings, and explore whether there might be better-suited alternatives to this approach.
Bio
Prof. Jonathan Ventura (PhD) is a design anthropologist specializing in social and healthcare design, applied design research, and design theory. Jonathan is currently the Director of The Unit for History and Philosophy of Art, Design, and Technology at Shenkar: Engineering. Design. Art, a Research Fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art, London, and a member of the Doctorate School at MOME University in Budapest. Jonathan is also the co-founder and co-director of the international Social Design Network (socialdesignnetwork.org) and serves as head of the knowledge committee of design at the Ministry of Education in Israel. His latest book, Introduction to Design Theory, co-authored with Michelle Gal, was published in July 2023 by Routledge. His latest article, "Decoding Visual Culture,” was published in 2024 in Visual Studies (Routledge).
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