The Design:Lab as platform in participatory design research

Abstract

The notion of laboratory or simply ‘lab’ has become popular in recent years in areas outside science and technology development. Learning Labs, Innovation Labs, Usability Labs, Media and Communication Labs and even Art Labs designate institutions or fora dedicated to change and experimentation. Influenced by these currents, we use the expression ‘Design:Lab’ as a shorthand description of open collaborations between many stakeholders sharing a mutual interest in design research in a particular field. Many have reacted to the term ‘laboratory’ or ‘lab’ as foreign and awkward to design, and we as well as others have frequently used other metaphors like workshop, studio or atelier in design research. In this article we will argue that the laboratory metaphor is particularly suitable and useful for the Design:Lab, and we will give examples of how we have worked with the Design:Lab as a platform for collaborative inquiries and knowledge production based on design experiments.

Keywords:

• Design:Lab
• participatory design
• collaborative inquiries
• knowledge production
• design experiments

Acknowledgements

For the development of the idea of the Design:Lab we are heavily indebted to our former colleagues at the Interactive Institute in Malmö, Sweden, who have also been using the concept in different contexts. Thomas Binder took part in the Workspace Design project together with colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark, the Technological Institute, Crecea, and the Municipality of Copenhagen. Though the presentation here is solely our responsibility, the work reported is based on collaborative efforts.

Notes

1. The Change Laboratory developed by Yrjo Engestrom and others in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, University of Helsinki (see, e.g., Engestrom 2007) shares some similarities to a design:lab but is set in a broader context of developmental work research analysis and intervention for change in practices and organisations through cycles of expansive learning transformations of social praxis.