Designing with institutions
Oct 2023 - ongoing
Design practices bring valuable repertoire to complex societal challenges in the public sector. However, the impact of design in the public domain remains contested. Design practices often stabilise the status quo rather than transform it, in part because designers often view public organisations as monolithic, inertial entities that mostly resist change, rather than understanding the dynamics of the political-administrative context that both enables and constrains transformation.
This research project explores how design can engage more effectively with institutions—the rules, norms, shared meanings, and relational patterns that guide behaviour in public organisations. The project adopts a “designing with institutions” perspective, recognising that institutions are constituted through everyday organisational practices. Design interventions do not simply operate within institutional contexts; they actively participate in the ongoing reproduction and potential transformation of institutional arrangements. Understanding which organisational structures constrain and enable agency becomes essential for creating meaningful change.
The project adopts a co-evolutionary, Through longitudinal engagement with public design practices and research-through-design approaches, the project examines the trajectory from initiation through implementation to institutionalisation. This involves analysing how design interventions can balance challenging existing structures while reproducing beneficial aspects, how new practices become normalised and routinised, and how they can be translated across different contexts. The research will generate knowledge, frameworks, tools, and methods that support designers in addressing these structural factors, contributing to more effective design practice for transforming organisational practices in the public sector.