Center for Design and Material Culture

Design for Civil Society: Fostering Dialogue for Completely Human Agents

graphics including white text on a black background and several photographs of people in Keflonia, Greece and notebook paper with written notes

How can we understand the relationships among place, history, nation, and identity?  

Design for Civil Society: Fostering Dialogue for Completely Human Agents is an ongoing series of interactive projects examining and visualizing the effects of globalization on local communities. Through projected animations and digital interactive tools, Design for Civil Society: Fostering Dialogue for Completely Human Agents displays community engagement strategies and fosters participatory coalition-building among community members, academics, and designers to address specific problems in the community. New design methodologies transform the gallery setting into a community-centered learning laboratory. By using principles of Design and Social Innovation, the exhibition creates “design coalitions” to attempt to solve local problems through the social capital of the community, tapping into community and stakeholder networks and resources.

This project was made possible with financial support from the Anonymous Fund.

This exhibition was on view in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery from January 18 – March 26, 2023.

Prioritizing People: Designing as Sociability

Dr. Maria Patsarika and Professor Scott Townsend’s public talk will overview their design research conducted over the last seven years primarily in Greece. With a focus on design and social innovation, Patsarika and Townsend have developed design strategies and methods used to support the preservation and application of cultural knowledge within communities.

Working within design frameworks such as Transition Design, their project questions how research and design can be more inclusive and sustainable. Patsarika and Townsend will address issues such as local context and histories, the different conceptions that researchers, designers, and community members have that shape the participatory process, and how participatory community projects must be collaborative and not simply interjecting knowledge into people’s everyday lives.

Maria Patsarika and Scott Townsend are the exhibition partners for the spring exhibition Design for Civil Society: Fostering Dialogue for Completely Human Agents.

Maria Patsarika holds a Ph.D. in the sociology of education and design participation and is research associate at the Social Design Institute, London. Her research is in learning, participation and place-making, co-design and community engagement. Her articles have appeared in Children’s Geographies, Discourse: Studies in Cultural Politics of Education, Co-Design, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Scott Townsend is a Professor in the Department of Graphic and Experience Design, NCSU. His interdisciplinary research interests are in interaction design, visual language, motion, and social sciences with an emphasis on design and social innovation. His exhibitions, projects and presentations have been in over 200 national and international venues. Peer-reviewed conference presentations have been given in various cross-disciplinary venues in design and art, distanced education, the social sciences and the built environment. Articles and/or book chapters in Zed, Statements, Brujula, Art Papers, Visual Communication, Design and Culture, Design Issues, The Education Forum, What People Leave Behind (ESA), Teaching Motion Design.

This project was made possible with generous support from the Anonymous Fund. Funding for this lecture is provided by the University Lectures Anonymous Fund and the Design Studies Department. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture, the Design Studies Department, the Environmental Design Lab, and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.