032 Chapter Five: A Journey Through Inquiry, Observation, and Dialogue

Looking back, the Symbiotic Design Framework, as it now stands in this book, feels less like something I invented and more like something that gradually emerged, something I uncovered through a process that was far from linear or solitary. The image of the lone academic, locked away, forging theories in isolation – that simply wasn’t my reality. Instead, this framework is a synthesis, a convergence point born from a journey that spanned several years and unfolded across multiple stages. It was a path carved through deep dives into theory, particularly grounding myself in biology and systems thinking from a design perspective, but theory alone felt insufficient, almost sterile. It desperately needed the grounding of reality, which came through immersive observation out in the field, watching design happen in all its messy, complex glory. And perhaps most crucially, it was shaped and reshaped through extensive, often challenging, always illuminating collaboration and dialogue with designers literally scattered across the globe.

Why was this complex, multi-stage process necessary? Because from the outset, I felt I was trying to grasp something slippery, something alive. My goal wasn’t just to create another design methodology, another set of neat boxes to tick. It was an attempt, perhaps audacious, to understand design itself not as a static toolkit or a fixed discipline, but as something more akin to a living system – adaptive, dynamic, constantly recreating itself. Could design, I wondered, even be understood as an autopoietic system, in the sense Maturana and Varela described living beings? A system whose own potential for contributing meaningfully, for helping us navigate towards a truly sustainable and flourishing future, lies not in external mandates, but paradoxically, within its own capacity for self-awareness, self-reflection, and ultimately, self-transformation? This story of how the framework came to be, the methodological path taken, isn’t just incidental background information; it feels integral to its very identity, reflecting its ongoing evolution. It’s a story I feel compelled to briefly review here, as it illuminates the framework’s foundations and perhaps its potential.

033 Design as an Epistemological Object

Before I could even begin to think about a framework, I had to wrestle with the fundamental nature of design itself. It’s not just something we do; it’s also something we study. For decades, perhaps centuries, scholars across the social sciences and humanities have circled around design, trying to define it, analyze it, pin it down from their various disciplinary perspectives. Yet, my own experience, both in practice and in reviewing the literature, showed me just how stubbornly design resists a single, neat, unifying definition. Why is that? Is it because design operates at the messy intersection of art and science, culture and commerce, intuition and logic? Is it because its boundaries are constantly shifting, adapting to new technologies, new societal challenges, new modes of thinking?

I found one particularly helpful way to start unpacking this complexity, not as a definitive answer but as a structured way to hold the different facets of design in view simultaneously. It involved looking at design through a multi-dimensional lens, considering several interconnected dimensions that together constitute the discipline. Thinking about these dimensions wasn’t about finding a final definition, but about appreciating the richness and inherent complexity I was trying to engage with. The work of Roxana Ynoub around understanding disciplines was a guide during this journey.

First, there’s the Historical-Social Dimension. This felt crucial. Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s profoundly shaped by the currents of its time – the economic imperatives, the political climates, the prevailing cultural values, the available technologies. Think about the shift from craft production to industrial manufacturing, or the influence of wartime needs, or the rise of consumer culture, or the current urgency around climate change. These broad historical and social forces constantly mold what design is, what it does, and what is considered ‘good’ or ‘relevant’ design. Trying to understand design without this context, as sociology of science often explores, felt like looking at a plant without considering the soil it grows in.

Then, I considered the Institutional Dimension. How does a community of practice define itself? Design certainly does this. It’s shaped by the collective agreements, the shared conventions, the unspoken rules, the educational systems, the professional organizations, the awards, the publications – all established and maintained by its practitioners. Anthropology often studies these kinds of cultural practices and shared understandings within communities. How do designers learn the ropes? What constitutes legitimate practice? Who gets to call themselves a designer? These institutional factors create a kind of social reality for the discipline, giving it structure and coherence, even amidst diversity.

Of course, there’s the Procedural (Methodological) Dimension. This is often what people first think of when they think about design processes – the methods, the tools, the ‘design thinking’ steps. Over time, design has developed its own distinctive ways of working, repeatable (though adaptable) approaches to identifying problems, exploring possibilities, prototyping solutions, and iterating based on feedback. Understanding these methodologies – human-centered design, participatory design, speculative design, and countless others – is central to grasping how design actually functions as a practice. How do designers move from ambiguity to clarity, from need to form? This dimension felt tangible, teachable, but also potentially reductive if viewed in isolation.

Closely related is the Logical-Inferential Dimension. What kind of thinking underpins these procedures? Design involves specific modes of reasoning – abduction (generating plausible hypotheses), deduction (testing them), analysis (breaking down complexity), synthesis (bringing elements together in new ways), critical judgment, and complex decision-making under uncertainty. It’s about the internal logic, the cognitive operations required to translate intangible ideas, needs, and constraints into tangible forms, services, or experiences. How do designers navigate trade-offs? How do they justify their choices? This dimension speaks to the intellectual rigor, often hidden beneath the surface, of the design process.

Digging deeper, I confronted the Epistemic-Ontological Dimension. This felt like getting to the bedrock. What are the fundamental philosophical commitments embedded within design practice, often implicitly? What assumptions does design make about the nature of reality (ontology)? What does it consider valid knowledge (epistemology)? How does it understand existence, value, or ethics? Does design primarily see the world as resources to be exploited, problems to be solved, or systems to participate within? Does it prioritize empirical data, intuitive insight, or stakeholder consensus? These underlying beliefs profoundly shape how designers approach their work and what they deem possible or desirable. Questioning this dimension felt essential for any attempt to reorient design towards sustainability and symbiosis.

Finally, there’s the Semiotic-Communicational Dimension. At its heart, isn’t design almost always about communication? It’s about conveying meaning, function, emotion, and value through form, color, texture, interaction, narrative, and symbolism. Whether it’s a physical product, a digital interface, a service blueprint, or a piece of communication design, it’s trying to ‘speak’ to someone. This dimension, explored through fields like semiotics, aesthetics, and communication studies, focuses on how design creates and transmits meaning, how it shapes perception and influences behavior through its expressive qualities.

What struck me most powerfully about this multi-dimensional model wasn’t just the individual dimensions themselves, but their profound interdependence. Trying to understand one without the others made no sense. Think of the process as a Borromean knot, where removing any one ring causes the entire structure to fall apart. That metaphor resonated deeply. The historical context shapes the available procedures; institutional norms influence philosophical commitments; the need for communication drives methodological choices. Recognizing this intricate entanglement felt crucial. Design wasn’t just a set of practical skills (procedural), nor just an object of academic study (historical-social, institutional), nor just a way of thinking (logical-inferential, epistemic-ontological), nor just a form of expression (semiotic-communicational). Its true, dynamic nature seemed to emerge only from the interplay between all these dimensions. Holding this complexity in mind felt like the necessary starting point for developing a framework that could honor, rather than simplify, the reality of design.

034 The Methodological Journey

With this appreciation for the multifaceted nature of design simmering in my mind, the journey towards constructing the Symbiotic Design Framework itself began. It wasn’t a neat, linear progression from A to B. It felt much more like an expedition into partially charted territory, guided by persistent questions and a growing sense that a different approach was needed. It was a methodological journey that unfolded over several years, weaving together deep theoretical dives, immersive real-world observation, and countless enriching, sometimes challenging, dialogues. It was a process driven less by seeking confirmation and more by embracing curiosity, grappling with complexity, and nurturing a conviction that our collective understanding of design needed a fundamental recalibration if we were serious about engaging with the intertwined challenges of sustainability, ethics, and social responsibility in a meaningful way.

035 The Spark: Questioning Design’s Foundations

Where did it truly begin? Like many research journeys, perhaps, it started not with an answer, but with a question – a deceptively simple one that echoed my earlier struggles: What is design? As I formally embarked on my Ph.D. research, this question felt absolutely foundational. Yet, the more I read, the more I talked to practitioners, the more definitions I encountered – spanning historical accounts, disciplinary manifestos, contemporary theories – the more elusive a satisfying answer became. Each definition seemed to capture a facet, a perspective, a snapshot, but none felt encompassing enough. They struggled to contain the fluidity, the adaptability, the sheer aliveness I sensed in design practice. Was design a problem-solving process? A meaning-making activity? A strategic capability? An artistic expression? A technical discipline? It seemed to be all of these and none of them exclusively.

This initial inquiry inevitably, frustratingly, spiralled outwards. If defining design itself was proving so difficult, then what on earth was sustainable design? Was it just ‘design plus green constraints’? A checklist of materials and energy efficiencies? Or something deeper? And pushing further still, beneath even that question, lay another, even more fundamental one: What, truly, is sustainability? The term was everywhere, often used loosely, sometimes greenwashing, sometimes genuinely aspirational.

At its core, sustainability seemed to speak to endurance, persistence, balance, the ability of a system – whether an ecosystem, a community, a practice – to maintain itself over time. But how does a system achieve this? What are the underlying principles of endurance? The more I wrestled with this, reading environmental science, economics, sociology, the clearer it became that perhaps the most profound answers didn’t lie solely within the established boundaries of design theory or even conventional sustainability discourse. Perhaps, I needed to look towards a domain that has been the undisputed master of self-sustenance for billions of years: biology. Life itself, in its staggering diversity, its incredible resilience, its constant adaptation and evolution over 3.8 billion years, felt like the ultimate reference system for sustainability. If I truly wanted to understand the principles that allow complex systems to persist and flourish over the long haul, nature, in its intricate workings, seemed the most profound, most reliable teacher. Could the principles of living systems shed light on designing for enduring systems?

036 The Turn to Biology: Discovering Autopoiesis

This turn towards biology wasn’t just a vague search for metaphors. As I previously exposed, it led me specifically, and quite transformatively, to the work of two Chilean biologists whose names kept appearing in the systems thinking literature: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. In the 1970s, they had posed a question that uncannily echoed my own initial inquiry, but they aimed it at the very essence of existence: What is life? What fundamentally distinguishes the living from the non-living? AS we already saw their answer, was the groundbreaking concept of Autopoiesis.

As I delved into their work, the core idea began to crystallize, and its implications felt immense. Just to remember, they proposed that the fundamental, defining characteristic of a living being isn’t just its components (molecules, cells) or its specific functions, but its unique organization. A living system, they argued, is an organization realized as a dynamic network of processes that continuously produces and regenerates the very components that constitute the network, while simultaneously maintaining the network itself as a distinct unity in space. It pulls in matter and energy from its environment, but uses them according to its own internal logic to constantly rebuild itself, thereby maintaining its identity and distinguishing itself from its surroundings. Life, in essence, is defined by its capacity for self-creation and self-maintenance from within.

A connection sparked vividly in my mind, a moment of intense intellectual excitement mixed with trepidation. If living systems sustain themselves through this incredible process of autopoiesis, could design – viewed not just as a set of outputs, but as a dynamic human activity, a discipline, a community of practice – also function as an autopoietic system? Could it possess this remarkable quality of self-generation, self-maintenance, and boundary definition? The idea felt radical, pushing the boundaries of the original biological concept, yet it also felt strangely intuitive. Hadn’t I observed design constantly defining and redefining its own problems, generating its own methods, maintaining its own discourse, distinguishing itself from (while interacting with) other fields like engineering or art?

I soon remembered I wasn’t entirely alone in considering autopoiesis beyond its strict biological origins. The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann had already, compellingly and controversially, had extended the concept to the realm of social systems. Let’s remember his ideas… He argued that systems like law, economy, politics, or science could exhibit autopoietic characteristics. He proposed that these systems weren’t made of people, but of communications – communications that recursively referred to and generated further communications within the system, thus maintaining the system’s operational closure and distinct identity. Luhmann’s work, though dense and challenging, provided a crucial bridge. It suggested that autopoiesis, as a principle of self-organizing closure and identity maintenance, might indeed be applicable to complex, non-biological, human systems – perhaps even one as dynamic and multifaceted as Design. I had green light.

037 The Doctoral Deep Dive: Testing the Autopoietic Hypothesis

This possibility coalesced into the central driving hypothesis for my doctoral research: Could Design, when examined rigorously, be identified as exhibiting the core characteristics of an autopoietic system? This wasn’t about simply drawing a loose analogy or finding superficial similarities. It demanded a systematic investigation. Could design, viewed as a practice and a global community, demonstrably meet the specific operational criteria – particularly self-production of components through a closed network of interactions, establishment of operational boundaries, and structural coupling with its environment – that Maturana and Varela had laid out for defining autopoiesis?

Embarking on this investigation required a methodological approach that was itself adaptive and systemic, capable of handling the complexity and potential emergence inherent in the research question. I consciously chose not to follow a purely deductive path (starting with a rigid theory and forcing the data to fit) nor a purely inductive one (hoping a theory would simply emerge from raw data). Instead, I adopted what the Argentinian methodologist Juan Samaja, later referenced by Roxana Ynoub in her insightful work on research methodology, described as a ternary or abductive logic. And it felt like the right fit. Abduction involves a continuous, dynamic dialogue between theoretical constructs and empirical observations. Theory guides observation, observations challenge and refine theory, leading to new theoretical insights, which then guide further observation, and so on. It’s a cyclical process where understanding evolves iteratively, through the mutual shaping of ideas and evidence. Basically a self-creating methodological approach to research.

Empirically, my investigation proceeded along two intertwined paths. First, I undertook an extensive, almost overwhelming, literature review. I dove into countless definitions and descriptions of design across history and different sub-disciplines, including compilations like Gabriel Simón Sol’s “100 Definitions of Design” (Sol, 2011). My goal wasn’t just to collect definitions, but to sift through them, searching for recurring patterns, underlying assumptions, and implicit evidence of self-generating, self-maintaining principles at play, even if the authors never used the term autopoiesis. Were there common ways designers described their process, their community, their boundaries?

Second, and absolutely crucially, I needed to engage directly with the lived reality of the global design community. Theory and texts could only take me so far. I developed and conducted interviews and distributed surveys involving over 360 designers from diverse backgrounds and locations worldwide. I sought not just their explicit opinions on definitions, but deeper insights into the underlying structures of their practice: How did they learn? What constituted a ‘design problem’? What were their shared methods and tools? What tacit knowledge did they rely on? How did they perceive the boundaries of their discipline? What internal processes of critique, iteration, and validation shaped their work?

The findings that emerged from synthesizing the literature review and the global practitioner data were compelling, even exciting. I knew there was a vacancy when, unsurprisingly, I discovered the term ‘autopoiesis wasn’t being used. Also because their collective descriptions of their practice, their community, and their discipline consistently revealed patterns that strongly aligned with its core principles. 

To confirm Design was actually an autopoietic entity we needed a rigorous assessment and this was achieved by using Varela, Maturana, and Uribe’s six-point phenomenological model for autopoietic entities. This analysis confirmed design as a dynamic, self-organizing network that sustained its identity through internal operations. Applying these criteria demonstrated a strong correspondence, supporting the classification of design as an autopoietic system and the outcomes for each of the six points where:

1. Identifiable Boundaries:

“Determine, through interactions, if the unity has identifiable boundaries. If the boundaries can be determined, proceed to 2. If not, the entity is indescribable and we can say nothing.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

Design, as a discipline and a social system (Luhmann, 1995), possesses identifiable, though primarily conceptual, social, and operational boundaries rather than strictly physical ones. These boundaries are actively negotiated, defined, and maintained by the design community through its discourses, educational systems (e.g., accreditation, curricula), professional organizations (e.g., codes of conduct, membership criteria), specialized publications (journals, conferences), and shared practices. These boundaries distinguish “design” from other disciplines like art, engineering, or sociology, even while acknowledging significant overlaps and interdisciplinary collaborations at the frontiers. The Design Community, through its collective actions and self-regulation (a form of distributed control), plays a pivotal role in constituting and policing these frontiers. Design selectively absorbs and integrates external influences (e.g., new technologies, social theories) through its frontier, but it does so in a way that typically reinforces or evolves its core identity rather than dissolving it. This selective permeability and active maintenance are hallmarks of an autopoietic boundary.

It is within this criterion that we can briefly address the distinctions formerly discussed as Protodesign and Pseudodesign. From an autopoietic perspective focused on the discipline of design as a self-producing social system, not all intentional creative acts or shaping of the world necessarily qualify as “Design” in this specific operational sense. While activities like a skilled artisan crafting a traditional object demonstrate immense skill and produce valuable outcomes, they may operate outside the recursive network of component production that characterizes the autopoiesis of the modern design discipline and we should refer to them as Protodesign. Similarly, outcomes resulting from superficial engagement without rigorous research process were not Design but rather Pseudodesign as defined by Karel Vredenburg during the 32nd World Design Assembly hosted by the World Design Organization in 2022, could not be recognized by the system as legitimate productions contributing to its self-maintenance, even if they superficially resemble design outputs. The autopoietic system of design maintains its integrity by recognizing and reproducing operations that conform to its established (though evolving) organizational logic. This is not to devalue other forms of making or problem-solving, but to clarify what constitutes the core operations of “Design” as a specific, self-regulating social system.

2. Constitutive Elements (Components):

“Determine if there are constitutive elements of the unity, that is, components of the unity. If these components can be described, proceed to 3. If not, the unity is an unanalyzable whole and therefore not an autopoietic system.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

Design is not an unanalyzable, monolithic entity but a composite unit with describable and interacting components. The Symbiotic Design Framework explicitly identifies seven such overarching components: Humans, Commissions, Observations, Procedures, Partners, Tools & Material, and Outcome. These elements, in their dynamic interplay, produce the practices, discourses, institutions, and ultimately, the recognizable identity and boundaries of the design discipline. For example, the interaction between “Humans” employing specific “Procedures” using certain “Tools & Materials” to address a “Commission” results in an “Outcome” that is then subjected to “Observation” (critique, evaluation) often involving “Partners,” which in turn refines future “Procedures”, thus recursively producing and reproducing the system. This example has been sketched in a linear way, but take note that Symbiotic Design is never linear as we will further discuss.

3. Mechanistic System (Relations over Properties):

“Determine if the unity is a mechanistic system, that is, the component properties are capable of satisfying certain relations that determine in the unity the interactions and transformations of these components. If this is the case, proceed to 4. If not, the unity is not an autopoietic system.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

Design functions as a mechanistic system in the systemic, not simplistic, sense. The interactions between its components are not random but follow rule-governed (though dynamic, emergent, and often uncodified) relational principles determined by its own organization and the historically developed consensus within the design community. For example, the way design methodologies (“Procedure”) are selected and applied is influenced by the nature of the “Commission,” the skills of the “Human (Agency),” and the available “Tools & Material.” The outputs (“Outcome”) are evaluated based on established (though contested and evolving) criteria internal to the design discourse. The evolution of design practices, theories, and educational curricula expresses these internal dynamics of component interaction and transformation. While the environment triggers structural changes, the way the system responds is determined by its internal organization.

4. Boundary Components Constitute Boundaries Through Preferential Relations:

“Determine if the components that constitute the bouncaries of the unity constitute these boundaries through preferential neighborhood relations and interactions between themselves, as determined by their properties in the space of their interactions. If this is not the case, you do not have an autopoietic unity because you are determining its boundaries, not the unity itself. If 4 is the case, however, proceed to 5.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

Design’s conceptual and social boundaries (e.g., shared standards of practice, distinctive bodies of knowledge, ethical codes, specific discourses, educational requirements) are constituted and reinforced through preferential interactions and communications within the design community. For example, a new design methodology or theory (“Procedure,” “Observation”) gains legitimacy and becomes part of the design canon not arbitrarily, but through processes of discussion, peer review, adoption, critique, and teaching primarily among designers and design scholars. This internal validation and recursive referencing define what “counts” as design knowledge or practice, thereby shaping the discipline’s frontier. The SDF’s “Core” dimension exemplifies this, where foundational practices and values are continuously reinforced.

5. Boundary Components Produced by Interactions of the Unit’s Components:

“Determine if the components of the boundaries of the unity are produced by the interactions of the components of the unity, either by transformation of previously produced components, or by transformations and/or coupling of non-component elements that enter the unity through its boundaries. If not, you do not have an autopoietic unity; if yes, proceed to 6.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

The elements that constitute design’s boundaries (its defining norms, theories, ethical stances, educational curricula, professional standards) are themselves produced by the ongoing interactions of the broader set of components within the design system. For example, new ethical standards for design (a boundary component) emerge from critical reflection (“Observation”) on the “Outcomes” of past design actions, discussions within the “Human (Agency)” component (e.g., design ethicists, practitioners), and are codified into “Procedures” (e.g., ethical guidelines in education or professional bodies). Similarly, new design theories (“Observation,” part of the Core) are generated through research (“Procedure”) that analyzes “Outcomes” and interacts with existing knowledge, becoming boundary-defining elements when adopted and propagated by the community (“Human,” “Partners”). This includes the transformation or re-interpretation of existing components or the selective assimilation and integration of external elements (e.g., incorporating sustainability science into design thinking) through structural coupling.

6. Production of All Other Components by Interactions; Role of Non-Produced Permanent Components:

“If all the other components of the unity are also produced by the interactions of its components as in 5, and if those which are not produced by the interactions of other components participate as necessary permanent constitutive components in the production of other components, you have an autopoietic unity in the space in which its components exist. If this is not the case and there are components in the unity not produced by components of the unity as in 5, or if there are components of the unity which do not participate in the production of other components, you do not have an autopoietic unity.”
Varela, Maturana, and Uribe

Design’s operational components that feed back into the system are continuously produced and reproduced through the interactions among these elements. Critically, humans and the capacity for heteropoiesis (intentional, conscious action by the “Human” component) can be seen as a necessary, permanent constitutive component that, while originating “outside” the abstract “design system” (i.e., humans exist prior to and beyond their role in design), is indispensable for the system’s operation and is selectively incorporated. The design system cannot exist without human beings who choose to engage in design. The specific manifestation of this agency within design such as “designerly” skills, ways of thinking, are however, shaped and produced by the design system itself.

This systematic examination indicates a compelling alignment between the discipline of design, as conceptualized through the SDF, and the six criteria for autopoiesis. Design, from this perspective, is not merely a collection of activities or a service profession, but a dynamic, self-producing, and self-maintaining system that preserves its identity and coherence through the continuous interaction, regeneration, and transformation of its own components and boundaries. It is a “living” system in a very operational sense.

This realization felt pivotal. It wasn’t just an interesting theoretical classification; it had profound implications. It suggested that design’s relationship with critical challenges like sustainability wasn’t merely about applying ‘green’ techniques as external constraints or passively following regulations imposed from the outside. If design was indeed autopoietic, then its capacity for sustainable action – or, conversely, its tendency towards unsustainable practices – was deeply intertwined with its own internal structure, its operational logic, its self-generated norms and values. Fostering truly sustainable design, therefore, might require interventions aimed at strengthening or redirecting these internal, self-generating mechanisms – enhancing its capacity for critical self-observation, embedding ethical considerations into its core operational codes, fostering different kinds of structural couplings with its environment. It was from this fundamental understanding – design as a “living”, self-producing system – that the core components of what would become the Symbiotic Design Framework began to crystallize in my work: elements like Human Agency, Observation, Time, Commissions, Procedures, Partners, and Tools, weren’t just disconnected parts of a linear process, but interacting components actively participating in the continuous maintenance and regeneration of the design system’s coherence and identity. My Phd ended with the illumination of design from an autopoietic perspective.

038 From Theory to the World Stage: Validation in Valencia

Theoretical insights, however compelling they feel in the quiet of research, demand contrasting in the messy, complex, unpredictable crucible of real-world practice. The perfect, almost serendipitous, opportunity arose when Valencia was designated World Design Capital® (WDC) for 2022. This prestigious designation, awarded every two years by the World Design Organization® (WDO), recognizes cities that effectively use design as a tool for advancing economic, social, cultural, and environmental development. For me, Valencia 2022 offered an unparalleled ‘living laboratory’. It was a chance to step outside the relatively controlled environment of academic research and immerse myself for a full year, observing how the nascent ideas of the framework interacted with, and were challenged by, the dynamic, diverse reality of global design practice gathered in one place.

Valencia during that year was an extraordinary kaleidoscope of activity. It brought together designers from countless disciplines, policymakers grappling with urban challenges, entrepreneurs launching innovative ventures, educators shaping the next generation, and citizens engaging with design’s impact on their lives. They came from vastly different cultural backgrounds, spoke different languages, and operated with different assumptions. Witnessing firsthand their diverse approaches to tackling complex, real-world problems – from designing more inclusive public spaces and regenerating post-industrial areas, to developing circular product ecosystems and using communication design for social change – was both incredibly humbling and profoundly illuminating.

This immersion forced me to confront the framework’s adaptability and relevance head-on. Could a model rooted in seemingly universal biological principles like autopoiesis actually resonate and prove useful across such a dizzying array of contexts, scales, and cultures? Could it offer practical guidance without imposing a rigid, one-size-fits-all structure? Several key realizations emerged during that intense, exhilarating year of observation and conversation in Valencia.

Firstly, I observed a recurring pattern, a kind of gap. Many designers I met were clearly, intuitively grappling with systemic thinking, with the demands of sustainability, with complex ethical considerations. They were often operating within their own implicit, personal frameworks, trying to do ‘good work’. Yet, they frequently seemed to lack a shared language, a common conceptual map, or a structured methodology to articulate these complex dimensions clearly, to integrate them consistently into their process, or to communicate their importance effectively to clients or collaborators. This wasn’t, I felt, due to a lack of will or awareness, but perhaps a lack of readily available, practical tools designed for navigating this complexity. This observation powerfully reinforced my conviction that the initial approaches to the Symbiotic Design Framework wasn’t just an abstract academic construct; it held the potential to serve as a practical navigational aid, a thinking tool to help designers map their own process, surface hidden assumptions, and ensure critical dimensions weren’t inadvertently overlooked in the heat of a project.

Secondly, the theme of relationships echoed with striking power through countless projects, presentations, and informal discussions. While the framework, rooted in systems thinking and autopoiesis, already incorporated a systemic view of interconnected components, the experience in Valencia underscored the absolutely vital importance of the quality of those relationships. Achieving meaningful, lasting impact seemed strongly correlated with the presence of symbiotic relationships – genuine mutualism, deep collaboration, equitable partnerships, shared value creation – between designers, clients, users, communities, and even the non-human environment. It was also possible to see the envy, power struggles discrepancies within groups, among the various individual players, and among companies. Even political parties played a role in appropriating or disregarding the work of the design community. These relationships could often generate unexpected results, but the collective decisions always prevailed over individual interests. And Valencia as the World Design Capital, managed to recreate Valencian design once again. This pushed me to refine the framework’s focus, making the nature and cultivation of these relational dynamics much more central and explicit.

Thirdly, the sheer global diversity present in Valencia starkly highlighted the critical need for universality tempered with profound context-sensitivity. Core principles like sustainability, ethics, or social responsibility don’t manifest identically everywhere. Their meaning and application are shaped by local cultures, specific ecological conditions, varying economic realities, and different political structures. A framework aiming for broad relevance couldn’t be a rigid blueprint imposing uniform solutions. It needed to function more like a flexible compass – offering structural guidance, prompting critical questions, highlighting key dimensions, but allowing for significant adaptation and interpretation based on the unique realities of each specific place and situation. This realization emphasized the importance of agency and situated knowledge within the framework.

Finally, Valencia amplified the growing, palpable call for deeper reflection within design practice. The sense of urgency surrounding complex ethical dilemmas – the social impact of algorithms, the environmental cost of consumption, the equity implications of new technologies – and the need to consider long-term consequences was undeniable in many conversations. Yet, structured methods for embedding foresight, ethical deliberation, and critical self-assessment consistently into the design process itself seemed relatively scarce or underdeveloped compared to methods focused on creativity or user needs. The framework, I hope, with its emphasis on observation (including self-observation) and guiding principles, could provide a necessary reflective space, prompting designers to pause and consider the ‘why’ and ‘what if’ alongside the ‘how’.

The immersive experience of Valencia 2022 was undeniably a turning point. It stress-tested the framework’s core ideas against the vibrant complexity of global design practice. It revealed gaps, highlighted strengths, and prompted crucial refinements. It transformed the framework from a primarily theoretical proposition, validated through surveys and literature, into a tool honed by real-world observation and feedback, ready for wider dialogue and collaborative development. It solidified my belief that a systemic, relational, ethically grounded approach wasn’t just an alternative ‘flavor’ of design; it was rapidly becoming a necessity for navigating the challenges of our time.

039 Forged in Dialogue: Collaborative Refinement

The final, and in many ways ongoing, stage in the framework’s construction has been one of deliberate opening-up, of actively sharing the evolving ideas and inviting co-creation. It wasn’t enough to validate it theoretically or observe its resonance in the field; it needed to be put into the hands of other designers, educators, and students, subjected to their scrutiny, shaped by their insights. This unfolded through countless presentations, interactive workshops, university courses I taught, and ongoing dialogues within the burgeoning community of the Symbiotic Design Academy, as well as at major international design events. Presenting the framework wasn’t just about disseminating a finished product; it was conceived as an invitation to challenge its assumptions, probe its weaknesses, enrich its perspectives, and collectively learn from its application. Each engagement became a site of potential learning and iterative refinement.

The feedback loop was dynamic and incredibly valuable. Presenting early versions at Valencia Design Week highlighted specific areas where the terminology needed greater clarity or where the visual representation could be improved. Applying the framework collaboratively to complex circular economy challenges during the CV+i Circular Days revealed the need to make cyclical processes and feedback loops even more explicit within its structure. Engaging in discussions at the Festival of the New European Bauhaus in Brussels prompted deeper reflection on how to better integrate global considerations and cultural dimensions alongside the ethical and systemic ones. Conducting hands-on workshop sessions during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven yielded practical suggestions for making the framework more intuitive and usable as a practical tool in fast-paced project environments. Integrating it into university curricula brought invaluable perspectives from both students grappling with it for the first time and experienced educators considering its pedagogical implications.

This ongoing collaborative crucible led to significant evolutions in the framework’s structure and emphasis. The four core mottos which we will further see in depth – Ethics, Sustainability, Social Responsibility, Economics – had emerged as critical considerations, were formally integrated not just as components to consider, but as overarching guiding principles, intended to provide a clear ethical and value-based orientation throughout any design process using the framework. The concept of symbiotic relationships, highlighted in Valencia, was defined more sharply and explored in greater depth, clarifying different types of interdependence (mutualism, commensalism, etc.) within the broader design ecosystem and emphasizing the importance of cultivating healthy connections. Perhaps one of the most notable shifts concerned our understanding of Time. Initially, It was conceived of as one component among the others within the framework. However, repeated feedback and deeper reflection revealed its pervasive, cross-cutting influence. Time wasn’t just one component; it felt more like a fundamental constant, the medium within which the entire dynamic system of design operates – influencing observation, shaping procedures, impacting outcomes, framing ethical considerations. This led to its reconceptualization as a persistent dimension enveloping the entire framework.

Intriguingly, and perhaps fittingly, this very process of collaborative refinement – of sharing the framework, receiving feedback from its ‘environment’ (the design community), processing that feedback as information, and adapting its own structure and emphasis in response – seemed to mirror the very concept of autopoiesis that the framework sought to describe in design itself. By engaging in this open dialogue, by allowing itself to be perturbed and shaped by its interactions, the framework itself was undergoing a kind of self-organizing, evolutionary process. It was learning, adapting, and hopefully, becoming more robust and relevant, sustained and shaped by the very community it aims to serve. This ongoing dialogue remains essential; the framework isn’t finished, but alive.

040 References

(Note: Specific page numbers would be needed for precise academic citation, but these references indicate the key sources.)

Luhmann, N. (1995). Social Systems. Stanford University Press. 

Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. D. Reidel Publishing Company. 

Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Shambhala Publications. 

Sol, G. S. (2011). 100 Definitions of Design. Tipo e. 

Ynoub, R. C. (2015). La investigación científica como proceso de abducciones. Contextos metodológicos y reconstrucción lógica [Scientific research as an abduction process. Methodological contexts and logical reconstruction]. In Metodología de la investigación social: lógicas y procesos para el diseño y la construcción del dato [Social Research Methodology: Logics and Processes for Data Design and Construction]. Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche. (Note: This citation reflects the likely source based on the description; precise details might vary.)