Participatory Systems at Delft University of Technology:

Together with colleagues we develop the concept of participatory systems. This interdisciplinary group is chaired by professor Frances Brazier. My focus is on how material and immaterial infrastructures have to be designed for the human capacity to accept responsibility in complex environments. Therefore I focus on human experience with being and bearing witness in the emerging network society. My research interests are theory on the network society, artistic research and research through design.

My social scientific and artistic research and design practice define my contributions to the larger group.  With ever expanding networks and more and more societal impact, this research is very timely and therefore important to me.  In my personal research practice I currently focus on validating the YUTPA framework, in which I have identified factors for the building and breaking of trust. Currently the YUTPA framework is used in two larger research projects: Samenmarkt and BART. By analysing YUTPA factors, design solution spaces are identified. In subsequent design processes YUTPA factors keep on being analysed and function as values in a value sensitive design process. Theoretically I focus on the act of witnessing, on being and bearing witness to each other. My research in the last years indicates that dynamics of witnessing are just as fundamental to establishing trust and truth in a networked world as before in many societies around the world.  Methodologically I focus on artistic research in the context of design about which I intend to start publishing in the coming year.

 

Current Research Projects:

  • CITYO -Can I touch you Online? with PhD candidate Karen Lancel, funded by NWO
  • Samenmarkt, on designing new dynamics in the horticultural food chain. In collaboration with Hogeschool InHolland, funded by RAAK
  • BART, on enhancing social cohesion as a means to create better chances for catching criminal behaviour. In collaboration with TNO, TGIL, CGI. Funded by, the National Police and the city of The Hague

Supervision of PhD candidates:

  • Karen Lancel (2010), on sharing senses
  • Angelo vermeulen (2011), in integrating social, technological and biological systems in spaceship design
  • Lipika Bansal (2011), on using technology for empowerment
  • Afaina de Jong (2013), on ‘vital’ urban participatory design for autonomy
  • Ino Paap (2013), on sharing experience in online environments
  • Coen Hubers (2013), on creating new market dynamics in the horticultural world
  • Alireza Seyed Rezae (2015), on developing participatory supply chain systems
  • Aysegul Binali (2015), on creating new information exchange between different UN agencies in migration and refugee crises.

Teaching:

  • Minor Responsible innovation
  • Minor International Entrepreneurship and Development
  • Engineering Sustainability Design - duurzaamheidsaantekening

 

Supervisory board Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam

The contemporary era is characterised by radical technological, economic, cultural and social shifts. Het Nieuwe Instituut aims to illuminate and map a rapidly changing world while at the same time fostering discussion of topics related to the vast field of design. All the institute’s activities are grounded in the principles of design and innovation – two concepts bound up with changing value systems and conflict.

Het Nieuwe Instituut organises exhibitions, lectures and fellowships, carries out research and development projects, and publishes reports on the outcomes of its projects. These are carried out within three multiyear programmes: Landscape and Interior, Things and Materials, and a third whose theme changes annually (2014: World War I; 2015: World’s Fairs).

Het Nieuwe Instituut arose on 1 January 2013 out of a merger of the Netherlands Architecture Institute; Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion; and Virtueel Platform, the e-culture knowledge institute.