Today’s society is making great leaps in its effort to obtain ever more and ever more specific know-how in various specialties, with the consequence that the structures of today’s companies are become increasingly complex. This in turn leads to problems at the points of interface, which calls for a comprehensive approach to solutions.Creating Desired Futures defines design a creative, analytical method to develop and explore alternative solutions to complex problems, and it shows that design is particularly well suited to the business world’s current need for innovative strategies. In twenty-four essays by designers, architects, and representatives of large companies such as Nike and Shell, the book shows how such a design-based approach can help define, assess, and solve problems for companies. It presents not only specific strategies from actual practice but also innovative approaches from the world of corporate consulting. Essays by researchers and teachers discuss theoretical aspects of the subject "Design Thinking." Michael Shamiyeh is a practicing architect with his own firm (Shamiyeh Associates) and also founder and direction of the DOM (Design—Organisation—Media) Research Laboratory at the Kunstuniversität Linz. He works on the relevance of creative, analytical approaches in architectural thinking to solve complex problems in the area of Strategic Business Thinking and Innovation. Shamiyeh has received numerous awards, including the Innovation Prize (2008) of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research and well as the Future Award (ZuP, 2003) and the Award for Entrepreneurship (2000), both awarded by the Austrian government.

This fascinating book will prove a thought-provoking read for academics, researchers and students in the fields of environmental studies _ particularly sustainability _ and public policy. Practitioners and policymakers concerned with achieving sustaina

Design has been employed as an agent of social and political change, and a catalyst for spatial and urban transformations in cities across the world. Concurrent Urbanities argues for the centrality of designing in the conceptualization and production of inclusive and participatory urban space, by bringing together civic and urban activists, urbanists, designers and architects committed to exploring designing as a socio-spatial praxis concerned with the reorganization of urban socio-economic systems and relations of power. The blend of first-hand experiences and reflections of the urban practitioners featured reframes design practice beyond the design of physical objects and public amenities, to the design of social protocols, processes, and infrastructures for radically reframing practices of socio-spatial inclusion ‘on the ground.’ Through illustrated examples, this book features the work of Stalker and Stealth who employ design to negotiate new social contracts; Teddy Cruz's design of urban political and economic processes; models of urban pedagogy by the Center for Urban Pedagogy; Cohabitation Strategies’ work on designing urban social cooperatives; and others. Concurrent Urbanities presents a compendium of the emerging models of design-driven urban practice that offers important new insights to professional urban practitioners as well as to students of urbanism, architecture, urban design, and urban and spatial planning.

“THE TRUE DIMENSION OF CITIES IS NOT SPACE, BUT TIME” (Konstantinos Doxiadis) This shift from the spatial dimension to that of time, places the focus on the individual’s scale of perception. How individuals spend their time shapes and infuses our environments with meaning, influencing social dynamics and cultural values. The Next Generation EU project exemplifies this shift by integrating lifestyle and environmental sustainability into urban planning. The goal is to facilitate a just transition to a circular economy, redefining not only the physical layout of cities but also the lived experience of its citizens within these evolving spaces. The evolution from the “Citizens’ Sustainable eXperience” to the “Communities’ Sustainable eXperience” , in the interdisciplinary research funded by the European Union, underscores a significant progression from individual to collective experience. UX, rooted in human-centered design, focuses on optimizing products and environments for personal use and satisfaction, CX expands these principles into the realm of more-than-human-centered design, where the focus extends beyond individual users to include wider community interactions and ecosystems. Therefore, the shift from UX to CX in urban planning and design is profoundly ethical. It calls for a paradigm that prioritizes collective well-being and sustainable development, inclusivity and cooperation.

In Design for Services, Anna Meroni and Daniela Sangiorgi articulate what Design is doing and can do for services, and how this connects to existing fields of knowledge and practice. Designers previously saw their task as the conceptualisation, development and production of tangible objects. In the twenty-first century, a designer rarely 'designs something' but rather 'designs for something': in the case of this publication, for change, better experiences and better services. The authors reflect on this recent transformation in the practice, role and skills of designers, by organising their book into three main sections. The first section links Design for Services to existing models and studies on services and service innovation. Section two presents multiple service design projects to illustrate and clarify the issues, practices and theories that characterise the discipline today; using these case studies the authors propose a conceptual framework that maps and describes the role of designers in the service economy. The final section projects the discipline into the emerging paradigms of a new economy to initiate a reflection on its future development.

Design is becoming a recognised academic discipline, and design research is the driving force behind this transformation. Design Research Now – Essays and Selected Projects charts the field of design research with introductory essays and selected research projects. The authors of the essays, all leading international design scholars, stake out positions on the most important issues of design research. They locate the significance of design research at the interface with technological development, describe what makes it a necessary ingredient of the continued development of the design disciplines, and assign it a seminal role in the relevant developments of society. The essays are supplemented by the presentation of recently completed research projects from universities in the Netherlands, the UK and Italy.