Indiscipline: social design principles and practices

The doctoral research entitled “Indiscipline, social design principles and practices: how designers work in this realm” (2013-2020), supervised by Prof. Rita Almendra (FAUL) and Prof. Thomas Binder (Design School Kolding), was an exploratory and critical study of participatory processes, aiming to understand the transformations that happen to conventional design practices in the encounter with others.

Some of these processes included the collaboration with the research group GESTUAL (CIAUD/FAUL) in the Project “Exploring the contributions of Relational Space for promoting the Right to the City: experimental research in Cova da Moura, Amadora, Greater Lisbon” funded by national funds through FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, EXPL/ATPEUR/1772/2012, coordinated by anthropologist Júlia Carolino (FAUL/CIAUD/GESTUAL); the local partnership project BIP/ZIP “2 de Maio todos os dias” in the neighborhood 2 de Maio in Ajuda, Lisbon; the NGO ACMJ – Associação Cultura Moinho da Juventude to co-design their 40^th anniversary event in the neighbourhood Bairro Alto da Cova da Moura, Amadora (2014); and the collaboration with the visual artist Sofia Borges in the project “Vitória Gardens Collection: Trees and Plants from Quinta da Vitória Neighbourhood” (2015).

These processes questioned the designer’s role and ethical responsibility as both a professional and a citizen. Therefore, departing from a graphic design background, the concept ‘indiscipline’ became a way to explore different meanings of the ‘social’ when co-designing with local communities, institutions and experts in social intervention, visual arts, architecture, and urban planning.