The Systemic Design Association aims to:

• Advance knowledge, theory, methodology, practical application and publication in the domain of systemic design, including the planning, design, facilitation, visualization, governance, management and evolution of diverse industrial and socio-technical systems
• Convene an annual international symposium, Relating Systems Thinking to Design (RSD)

SDA was founded in 2011 when the Norway and Toronto chapters jointly formed Systemic Design Research Network (SDRN), anchored in Toronto by a research group in Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAD University. As Profs. Jeremy Bowes and Dr. Peter Jones have developed the primary courses in Systemic Design for OCADU's Strategic Foresight and Innovation program, we have trialed (and erred) enough to recognize and validate highly effective approaches to quickly and powerfully combine social research, expert studies, stakeholder workshops and mapping to inform systemic services and societal innovations. We have several years and courses of gigamaps and synthesis maps demonstrating the deep synthesis and creative research from student teams. Today, SFI graduates now bringing positive impact through systemic design through employment in numerous places of influence, including Elections Canada, Policy Horizons, the government of Alberta's systemic design policy innovation group.

History and Aims

SDA (née SDRN) was founded at AHO, Oslo School of Architectural and Design, Norway, in partnership with OCAD University, Toronto, Canada, and is organized by a standing committee of four co-organizers Birger Sevaldson, Peter Jones, Harold Nelson, and Alex Ryan. SDRN was a cooperative association based on both academic and industry relationships, and invites faculty and students worldwide to participate in events and share research.  We are a member group of IFSR and host a moderated, open online community. RSD participants are invited to join the online forum, and are welcome to participate with us in future activities: workshops, publishing, symposium events.

 As organizers of the Relating Systems Thinking to Design (RSD) symposium, discourses and publications have been developed for the following areas of research:

• Strategic Design and Social Systems
• Systems Oriented Service Design
• Advanced Design Methods and Systems Thinking
• Systems Theory in Design
• Teaching Systemic Design and Systemic Literacy

Systems theory and design developed clear interdisciplinary connections during the era of the Ulm School of Design and Buckminster Fuller's design science, resulting in the design methods movement (informed by Rittel, Alexander, JC Jones and Archer). However, in the recent decades this co-evolution has not persisted, as each field has specialized in preferred core disciplinary methods. Practitioners in both systems science and design have attempted to entail the more effective models and techniques from the other field, but usually in piecemeal fashion, and only if a problem was so suited or if supported by clients.  Systems thinking has generally considered design thinking a soft complement, or analogous to creative planning. Design schools and consulting practices have developed well-packaged presentations of "systems change" approaches, but these are poorly supported by systems theory, interdisciplinary courses or rigorous systemic methods.

There are significant societal forces and organizational demands impelling the requirement for "better means of change." As Fred Collopy (RSD2) wrote in Fast Company several years ago, the (2nd gen) systems movement may have failed us and we're not yet sure if design thinking will restore its promise.  As Jones (2009) replied, systems thinking never had a chance, the way it was presented in the last decade — so perhaps it might be redesigned as a discipline. Now we call on advanced design practice to lead programs of strategic scale and higher complexity (e.g., social policy, healthcare, education, urbanization) we have adapted systems thinking methods, creatively pushing the boundaries beyond the popular modes of systems dynamics and soft systems.

Research Agenda & Practices

Systemic design is distinguished from service or experience design in terms of scale, social complexity and integration — it is concerned with higher order systems that entail multiple subsystems.  By integrating systems thinking, theory and appropriate methods, systemic design brings human-centred design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems. It adapts from known design competencies - form and process reasoning, social and generative research methods, and sketching and visualization practices — to describe, map, propose and reconfigure complex services and systems.

Publications, Projects & Presentations

Publications that have contributed to locating systemic design as a human-centred systems-oriented design practice include:

• Nelson and Stolterman, 2012; Sevaldson, 2011; Jones, 2014

Forthcoming & Recent:

• Peter H. Jones, ISSS 2014, Washington DC: Emerging Contexts of Systemic Design
• Van Alstyne, Skelton, & Cheng, Systemic Design and Its Discontents: Designing with Emergence and Accountability

Publications by the co-organizers can be considered seminal works in systemic design and systems thinking in design practice:

• Jones, P. (2014). Design research methods for systemic design: Perspectives from design education and practice. Proceedings of ISSS 2014, July 28 - Aug1, 2014, Washington, D.C.
• Jones, P. (2014). Systemic design principles for complex social systems. In G. Metcalf (ed.), Social Systems and Design, Volume 1 of the Translational Systems Science Series, pp 91-128. Springer Japan.
• Nelson, H.G. & Stolterman, E. (2012). The design way: Intentional change in an unpredictable world. Second edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Sevaldson, B. (2011). Gigamapping: Visualization for complexity and systems thinking in design. Proceedings of the Nordic Design Research Conference. Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

Navigating complex urban eco-problems with systems thinking, design and visualization.

As urban inhabitants and designers, we are sensitive to the experience of the city as both a social community and built environment that creates our beliefs about the city and our society. The city’s urban ecosystems by their nature are dynamic and complex. SystemCity group is an action-based research and think tank group focused around complex urban ecosystem problems.

The inter-relationships of urban infrastructure, food and shelter provision, and social/cultural network structures in our communities, requires creative visual and imaginative tools of a systemic design nature to understand and make sense of these complex urban patterns. As a research think tank, the approach is to use systems design visualization tools and methods in the collection, recognition, interpretation and identification of urban city patterns, behaviours and eco-integrated relationships.

Through the use of mapping techniques, soft systems thinking analysis, and foresight methods and techniques, design collaborators can engage in interpretation and emergent sensemaking approaches to navigate, sustain and implement change.
 

Research Projects

Exploring Innovation in Housing Typologies

How do want to live in cites, individually and collectively? How might we build and finance sustainable and healthy communities that support and celebrate a diversity of people? Our research pays particular attention to Toronto, highlighting challenges faced by many urban centres including housing affordability; rental bias/stigma; aging housing infrastructure; ‘missing middle’ supply of affordable homes, over-reliance on condo rentals; and underutilization of viable industrial and commercial lands. Report by SystemCity Research Group, 2018. Exploring Innovation in Housing Typologies (PDF, 6.1 MB).
 

Mapping Neighborhood Living Patterns

The notion of the city as an evolving organism, where people, and the city support of soft infrastructure is as important as that hard infrastructure service systems signifies a shifting focus to human centred community planning with respect to infrastructure development.

This is a research project to gather knowledge about livable community eco - infrastructure in the downtown core neighborhoods of Toronto as case studies. The investigation maps patterns of cultural, social, entrepreneurial, and residential identity and supports within the context of neighborhood land use allocations. An inventory of communal activity centres, residential typologies, social infrastructure, location, density, and amenity will provide strategic community patterns for understanding key community ecosystems.

Utilizing Toronto’s downtown neighborhoods and urban fabric as laboratory, and a variety of visualization methods and map types to capture salient information,there is an enormous opportunity for knowledge visualization and mapping; graphically, digitally, and virtually. The collection, use and interpreting of data into defining patterns and behaviours is necessary for a sociological developing city, and the task of processing, and interpreting this data into strategic opportunities for new types of tools and methods for capturing, measuring, quantifying, data, and interpretive analysis in an on-going interactive way.

These “livable patterns” provide information for future sustainable strategies and development such as social structure support, residential and community development, community gardens, urban farming and infrastructure building.SystemCity research will support innovation development and implementation in city infrastructure, and could work extensively with commercial and municipal partners to achieve this realization. For more information contact Jeremy Bowes.

Alternate Approaches to Urbanized Dwelling – Backyard and Alley Infill

This research project is targeted at identifying alternate housing infill typologies that are appropriate for urban contexts. Garage and backyard infill, granny flats, and laneway housing are all typologies that build density without vertical concentration, and with less impact on the existing infrastructure and neighborhoods. Identifying residential typologies and development opportunities within the context of selected Toronto urban communities for potential residential infill prototypesprovides a strategic system understanding and framework for further affordable residential community possibilities and support building within this ecosystem. Opportunities for housing infill are a focus,while consideration of dwelling infill types and affordability beyond financial factors suggests alternative prototypes of co-living, shared dwelling, and other approaches to affordable urban living for the city that can be prototyped.For more information contact Jeremy Bowes.

Disruptive Communities

This context of a “disruptive” and a temporary city community is an exciting one, because it is not defined by zoning or urban planning but by the context of need. This research focuses on essential living elements, and available urban materials to create temporary dwelling prototypes that integrate into a variety of community contexts and provide alternatives to a variety of homelessness conditions. Exploration of stationary and mobile homeless street solutions, emergency and disaster relief needs provide a primary agenda for temporary living prototypes.For more information contact Jeremy Bowes.

Research Areas

• Mapping Neighborhood Ecologies – Patterns and eco-infrastructure
• Defining Affordable Housing Criteria
• Alternate Approaches to Urbanized Dwelling – Backyard and alley infill
• Transient Communities – Mobile, relief, and emergency habitat
• Resilient Cities – Approaches to sustainable city planning and risk-proofing
• Sustainable Policy and Implementation
• Urban Farming – Alternative urban green growing
• Regenerative Urban Ecosystems
• Accessible and Green Transportation
• Urban Material Ecosystems – Regenerative strategies

Related Major Research Projects (MRPs) in Strategic Foresight & Innovation

For more information please contact: Jeremy Bowes

DEMO Publishing presents new genres and formats of interdisciplinary design and media research. We seek to illuminate complex social and organizational systems, to foster foresight and innovation. All of these domains manifest emergence and demand continual updating of our systemic design thinking.

To read texts, interact with authors, editors and readers via social media, or learn more about DEMO Publishing plans and futures titles, visit the DEMO Publishing site online at http://demopublishing.com

The first volume published by DEMO is What is Information? by Dr. Robert K. Logan. Bob Logan is Chief Scientist and a co-founder of Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAD University. Dr. Logan’s work at sLab follows a luminous career as Professor of Physics at University of Toronto. Bob’s academic research bridges complexity science, information theory, biology, environmental studies, linguistics, design and media studies. Dr. Logan is the author of a dozen books, and twice-recipient of awards from the Media Ecology Association (MEA).

“So, what is information? And why is it such an enormously difficult question to answer with any clarity and thoroughness? It is an ambitious book that sets out to answer this question, much less present an elaborate theory of how it has morphed into a seemingly independent universe of meanings, rituals, art-forms, values, and technologies since our ancestors first learned to talk. Who would tempt such a challenge?”
—from the Foreword by Terrence Deacon