Future Talks - Designing with values

Info and reflections
Seminar info - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HHSYOWQBliGy9Xwn0KX3CfH85Oa8IYA8

Keywords
Distributes Design, design driven by values, design for impact

Deliverables / Outputs
● Students are asked to submit their individual reflection tree task on the Miro board.
● Students are required to respond to two questions (each with a minimum of two
sentences and without a maximum length specified) on their MDEF websites.
○ The first question is an open reflection on the Reflection Tree-- the tree is in its
final iterations and we appreciate feedback on the tool itself
○ The second question focuses on the key takeaways from the activity.

Feedback on the Reflection Tree: 
The Reflection Tree is a practical tool that helps you evaluate the values of an old, current, and future project. It provides key points that are strong in your project, as well as areas for improvement. The tool’s structure helps you ask the right questions about a project (provided that you share the same values). I find it hard to organise my ideas and questions clearly in my head, so this tool is a good way to help me. I think I’ll use it again in the future, as the Reflection Tree has values that I would like to try incorporating into my future projects.
This tool also covers subjects that I don’t know much about, such as ‘value regeneration’ or ‘socially regenerative’, so it’s interesting to have new questions that I could not have envisioned.
Overall, I think it’s helpful for designers as a guideline for questioning the ethics of their projects.

Key takeaways from the activity:
This seminar gave me tools to understand my intentions more clearly while designing. Defining your values as a designer is important to me. It’s helping me grow and question the actions that I take. Defining your values also takes courage, sometimes you will go against certain opinions.
One of my key takeaways is my interest in how we could switch from sustainable to regenerative systems. I think that the idea of going from harming the planet less to engaging with the planet would be a potential way for us humans to reconnect with our environment and build new relationships with non-human beings. For my final project, I’m interested in exploring the questions of ‘our future relationships with invisible non-human beings in our cities’. It would be interesting to see how I could integrate the knowledge gained from the seminar into my future project. I’ll try doing a Reflection Tree for sure.
The Distributed Design platform felt empowering. It’s cool that through trust and honesty, such communities can be born. I think it’s super eye-opening and validating to discover platforms like Fablab, Makerspaces, or The Distributed Design community that do things differently and see the world through a different lens.