Disruptive Design for Health and Well-being

This project is a development of on-going work whose collective objective is to bring about positive change via disruptive design acts at a local, regional, and ultimately national level. Here, disruptive design is a method for breaking the cycle of well-formed opinions, strategies, mindsets, and ways of doing things that tend to remain unchallenged. A disruptive design approach provides possibilities for developing richer and more varied solutions and possibilities to everyday issues. Although the term "activism" is synonymous with protest or dissent, and typically has negative connotations, the form of design disruption proposed here can be seen as a positive act and as change for the better. This view of design is based firmly on Herbert Simon’s notion of design as a process by which decisions are taken to move the world from its current situation to a preferred one. Importantly, the preferred situation must be perceived to be an improvement on the existing situation by the people who encounter it on a day-to-day basis (Simon, 1988). To date, this work has led to four extant design disruption projects – “Plaques for Northern Heroes”, “Quote Unquote City Tagging”, “Design a Fortune”, and “Angels of the North” which each exemplify the power of design as an agent of significant social change on the streets of Newcastle. The context of this work is set against a world that we experience today which is increasingly complex and interdependent. The problems of society we now encounter are not isolated to particular sectors or disciplines. Commonly, the problems can be characterised as emergent phenomena with non-linear uncertainties. Moreover, in this era where fluid movements in, between, across, and beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries is evident, where massive economic shifts have transformed the way public services are funded and historical patterns of employment have been obliterated, and where the digital has transformed the manner in which we design, produce, distribute, and consume goods appears to herald opportunities for designers to enact alternative, positive systems. Nicolas Bourriaud proposes a new term “Altermodern” announcing a new era following Postmodernism to describe aesthetic proposals critically engaging with an increasingly global context (Bourriaud, 2009). The work proposed here embraces Bourriaud’s notion of “Altermodernism” as a viable and appropriately alternative explorative platform in search of a 21st century design modernism. We believe this alternative, explorative manifesto for change to be more inclusive, forward looking and deeply interested in the “unknown” as opposed to design in clear relation to previously held agendas.

Enquiries regarding this studentship should be made to Prof. Paul Rodgers, [Email Address Removed]

Applicants should hold a first or upper second class honours degree (in a relevant subject) from a British higher education institution, or equivalent. Students who are not UK/EU residents are eligible to apply, provided they hold the relevant academic qualifications, together with an IELTS score of at least 6.5.

You should apply using the University’s Research Application Form, available via the link on this page. Applications should be submitted to Mark Grant, email [Email Address Removed]