“Design has been extended from the details of daily objects to cities, landscapes, nations, cultures, bodies, genes, and . . . to nature itself — which is in great need of being re-designed.1”     
        — Bruno Latour, 2008

Futures by Design surveys the depth, breadth, and diversity of contemporary practices contributing to our understanding of “design.” Over the past decades, various conceptions of design research and design thinking have been articulated, with many authors claiming design as its own unique epistemological form. In these formulations, design research most often refers to the process and products of knowledge produced about and through design, as distinct from knowledge produced by methods associated with the humanities and sciences. Originating in discussions of design methods in architecture and urban design, design research emerged as a formulation now found relevant to a range of cognate disciplines. Often these fields of inquiry are characterized by their interest in and capacity for intervention in the world.

Design can be characterized by its methods and media, as well as by its sites and subjects for work, and the dissemination and reception of its findings. Design is synthetic, incorporating information relative to a particular project from a diverse array of disciplinary, professional, social, and cultural sources. It is often characterized by its capacity to organize and visually represent complex arrays of information. Design is most often propositional, rather than simply empirical or descriptive. This projective condition for design is concerned with material, spatial, or temporal interventions in the world, rather than simply describing the world as found. In this respect, design is characterized by its capacity to propose alternative and better futures, particularly in contexts where traditional forms of knowledge production are found inadequate when faced with complex, nonlinear, open-ended, multivariate, and wicked problems.

Futures by Design is a required course for all Master in Design Studies degree candidates and is open to all other GSD, Harvard University, and MIT students. In addition to the lecture, the course includes an hour-long discussion section. Weekly lectures present progressive precedents for contemporary design practices internationally. Weekly case study workshops gather students around a select range of detailed case studies. The course presents a range of English-language literature defining design across disciplines and introduces a selected list of historic moments in the ongoing transformation of design. 

1. Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk),” keynote lecture, Networks of Design, Design History Society, Falmouth, Cornwall, England, September 3, 2008. Bruno Latour, “A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design (with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk),” Proceedings of the 2008 Annual International Conference of the Design History Society, ed. Jonathan Glynne, Fiona Hackney, and Viv Minton (Boca Raton, FL: Universal Publishers, 2009), 2.