Author: Theo Zamenopoulos

  • Co-designing inclusive design education

    Co-designing inclusive design education

    How can we shape an inclusive design education that is responsive to the diversity of students’ needs, interests and professional and personal context? This was a question we started exploring yesterday in an online workshop with students from our current Design and Innovation qualification. We feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to hear […]

  • The design thinking of children

    The design thinking of children

    One may argue that we are all natural designers. From very young age, we are designing: we are looking around us with a critical eye, we develop opinions about things and spaces that we like or dislike, we are dreaming about a better future, but also we experiment and make things that could make our […]

  • Engaging children in design

    Engaging children in design

    As part of a research project that aims to explore the processes of empowering people to design (www.empoweringdesign.net), the research team has occasionally explored different ways for engaging the children of participating families in the design of community spaces. This typically occurs in workshops and open day events where children of adult participants engage in […]

  • The role of design education in addressing world challenges

    The role of design education in addressing world challenges

    Over the last months, I have been repeatedly involved in conversations around the relation between design education and the world’s challenges. How does design education contribute to dealing with big challenges such as poverty, hunger, people’s displacement or environmental disasters? Some conversations will approach design education as a space for developing the design capacity of […]

  • Design and anticipation

    Design and anticipation

    Anticipation is the ability to act in response to, or in preparation of, a potential future reality. This is a key ability for people and social groups that are involved in design tasks (see Zamenopoulos and Alexiou, 2007; Zamenopoulos, 2012). There is a very interesting conference on Anticipation coming up next week from the 8th […]