Abstract
This commentary, presented in support of my candidacy for a PhD by publication degree, aims to describe, analyse, and reflect on a selected body of work I have developed over the last 14 years of my career.While each single publication is framed around specific topics, objectives, constraints, and actors, they are all driven by two major lines of inquiry.
The first one addresses the relation between product design and its geo-cultural location. Historically rooted in the inclination towards the multiplication of solutions and the distribution of “western wealth”, the discipline of design often carries a deep desire for replicability and mass distribution at the detriment of the preservation and development of cultural values.
The second research question, which is addressed to a certain extent across the various publications, concerns design pedagogy and the production of knowledge through the design practice itself. Most of the work described in these pages involves communities, students, collaborators, it is never the result of an individual perspective but the celebration of a mediated research space in which experience comes before theory and methodologies are malleable tools for situated use.
To build a context-driven design research practice requires the rejection of homogenization, the need to embrace a multi-perspective design approach, and the will to distance design processes from universal prescriptive guidelines and ethnocentric standards. In this regard, my texts, which are not just words but the narration of participatory initiatives and hands-on projects, have helped to question traditional design canons and contributed to understanding of its required plurality.
Reinforcing the idea of local identities and fostering a critique-based research-through-design methodology, this document highlights crucial conversations about authorship and collectivism, critique and market, future and past. These are conversations in which I actively participate and to which I have contributed with tangible examples, new ways of thinking, and innovative means of making. The international breadth of the research subjects and contexts I engaged with speaks to the relevancy of my work in increasing global awareness, to the enrichment of the existing design vocabulary and the promotion of a more diverse array of actors.
| Date of Award | 14 Nov 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Claire Bailey-Ross (Supervisor) |