UJ FADA Faculty Brochure 2022

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The Design Society Development (DSD) DESIS Lab is a multi-
disciplinary community of practice, based at the Faculty of Art,
Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg, that seeks to
better understand how design can best serve the emerging needs of
broader society, specifically in the face of staggering inequality and
rapid change in Gauteng, South Africa. Our lab is currently focused
on challenging the ethnocentric view of the world brought about
through modernization, and hence plays particular interest to
our local context, cultural diversity and local needs. As designers
we undertake design research projects through participatory, and
preferably multi-stakeholder, human-centred methodologies in order
to bring about appropriately considered change. The DSD DESIS Lab
includes participants from design, the social sciences, economics
and art. Activities undertaken within the auspices of the lab include
practice, research activities and information dissemination.
The DESIS Network is an international network of 48 design labs, based in design
schools and design-oriented universities, actively involved in promoting and supporting
sustainable change. The DESIS association was formed between the Politenico di
Milano (Italy), The New School (USA), University of Arts London (UK), Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Jiangnan University (China), and Tongji
University (China). In June 2014 and the DSD DESIS Lab was accepted as the fourth
lab based in Africa shortly thereafter. The DSD DESIS Lab is also a promoter of the
international DESIS Food Cluster together with Polimi DESIS Lab, Milan and Strategic
Design Senarios (SDS), Brussels.
The DSD DESIS Lab meets monthly to interrogate research, projects, methods
and products that impact on the intersection and interplay between design, society
and development in our specific context. We understand design as referring to the
conscious choices we make in creating systems (community, society & productive
systems) and technologies (products, artefacts, communicative technologies, systems
integration);society as the human context that includes the broader social systems
of culture, economy, politics and environment; and development as the discourse and
practice of positive and considered change. We draw on critical political economy, social
sciences, appropriate technology development, participatory and human-centered
design, and other design approaches in our practice and research. For more info please
visit
DSD DESIS Lab