Category Challenges

Boston’s human-centered research to design middle-income housing

In Boston, the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics is conducting ethnographic, human-centered research to design middle-income housing that reflects people’s lived experiences, reports the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This includes intensive planning sessions in which residents, designers, and policy…

Designing for the circular economy

As reported by Knowledge@Wharton, the London-based Agency of Design (AoD) came up with three different approaches, “each of which embodies a different strategy to designing circularity from the outset”: They are (1) designing for longevity (and durability), which also implies…

[Report] Consuming Differently, Consuming Sustainably: Behavioural Insights for Policymaking

The objective of this report, published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is to shed light on opportunities to strengthen the effectiveness of policies for sustainable consumption in both developed and developing countries. The publication provides evidence-based insights from…

The complexity of plastic bags

As societies face increasingly complex problems, design is emerging as the tool to solve some of Asia’s biggest issues. Through field trips with designers skilled in human-centered design, the team behind Ethnographers’ Field Guide to Innovation, a new series on…