Design

Description

This doctoral programme is oriented towards research in the field of design, understood globally from its systemic, complex and global dimension. The UPC entities that shape and promote the programme are the Department of Engineering Graphics and Design (DEGD), the Department of Architectural Representation (RA) and the Image Processing and Multimedia Technology Centre (CITM).

The research focuses on the emerging and interdisciplinary aspects of design, opening up new, unprecedented spaces of knowledge with the potential for exponential growth. Design, linked to companies and organisations both globally and locally, is one of Catalonia's strategic assets. Research, innovation and reflection on the future in the field of design are obvious contributions to improving both the social and the economic system and people's well-being. Design is also currently a strategic activity for business competitiveness that is recognised by public entities responsible for industrial policies (the CIDEM of the Generalitat de Catalunya; the Desarrollo del Diseño y la Innovación -DDI- of the previous Ministry of Industry) and private entities (chambers of commerce).

This programme is devoted to design, an area of knowledge with its own identity and characteristics, which is the focus of the research. Its cross-disciplinarity is the result of the growing need for participation from different disciplines, in more and more cases, and this implies considering the system in which each case is located and assuming all of its complexity. Thus, a cross-disciplinary and systemic approach to design must contemplate aspects of diverse but ever-present registers, such as humanistic (related to people), environmental (related to the environment) and technological (related to media) registers.

Design research on the programme must always know how to relate the elements that are specific to these different areas, considering to what degree and in which role they participate in each case. In addition, the range of UPC entities that promote this programme, and their complementarity, provide great research potential in new areas and topics in which design can establish unprecedented relationships, promoting innovation and knowledge creation in emerging sectors in which design plays a relevant role as a catalyst of future reality.

Research areas

The programme treats design as an area of knowledge in its own right, with its specific properties and its own space for action. Regarding research, given that it often deals with original and emerging topics, one of its characteristics is that it is difficult to classify. The following areas should not be understood as restrictive elements but as spaces to be developed, promoting both the relationship between them and the emergence of new, unprecedented research spaces:

- CONTEMPORARY DESIGN AND SYSTEMS (Contemporary design and systems)

A systemic approach to design in relation to cross-disciplinary themes in which new, emerging and/or innovative situations are discussed. Design as a tool for interconnection and transfer of influences between, for example:

• New transport and mobility systems. Territory and city.
• Circular economy and sustainable systems. Product and distribution.
  
• Local and global. Relocation, identity and local product.
  
• Systems and networks, collaborative design. Collective self-production. 3D printing and DIY.
  
• Object, environment and territory. Interaction between scales.
  
• People and environment. Posthumanism and design for social innovation.

- ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN. TOOLS AND PROCESSES (Architectural design. Tools and processes)

Research surrounding the architectural design process, across the full range of scales and themes. From the object to the territory, including its relationship with both the definition of cultural concepts and aspects and the tools and technologies used.

• Cultural, social and historical meanings as design materials.
• Parametric and generative design. Neural networks applied to architectural design.
  
• Design as a formal construction process. From the mental image to physical reality. Object, space and landscape.
  
• The human dimension of design. Perception, emotion and well-being.

- REALITY AND THE FUTURE, REPRESENTATION AND MATERIALITY (Reality and future, representation and materiality)

In-depth study of the capacity of design as a tool for previsualisation, anticipation and preconfiguration of reality and the future. Design understood as an instrument that has allowed us to construct the present and that, at the same time, must allow us to speculate rigorously about the consequences and evolution of the decisions and options adopted in relation to issues that have an impact on the future.

• Speculative design. Utopia, dystopia and reality.
• Representation, materiality, virtuality and physical materiality.
  
• Virtual reality and augmented reality. New perceptions and new capabilities. Transhumanism.
  
• The limits of design. Fluidity and mutability.
  
• Design, inclusion and accessibility. Design for everyone.

- DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN (Digital experience design)

Studying and practising digital design provides new critical, aesthetic, format, possible futures and thinking approaches to the social and cultural technological transformation of the digital age. The design methodologies applied in HCI for new interfaces and the design of immersive experiences, video games, data and digital art offer innovative approaches to experience design. Approaches focused on human factors, such as more than human, post-digitalisation and digital, feminist and inclusive ethnography, propose innovative research that critically prototypes or studies experience and new social and communicative digital ecosystems.

• Interface design.
• Digital design and new formats (video games, narratives, animation, data, art).
• Innovation and design through art. Art, science, technology and society.
• Design of inclusive, people-centred digital experiences.
  
• Creative technologies and design.

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