Postgraduate Programmes [Degrees] at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture 24 | 2023 | The Design Society Development (DSD) DESIS Lab is a multi-disciplinary community of practice, based at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Johannesburg, that seeks to better understand how design can best serve the emerging needs of broader society, specifically in the face of staggering inequality and rapid change in Gauteng, South Africa. Our lab is currently focused on challenging the ethnocentric view of the world brought about through modernization, and hence plays particular interest to our local context, cultural diversity and local needs. As designers we undertake design research projects through participatory, and preferably multi-stakeholder, human-centred methodologies in order to bring about appropriately considered change. The DSD DESIS Lab includes participants from design, the social sciences, economics and art. Activities undertaken within the auspices of the lab include practice, research activities and information dissemination. The DESIS Network is an international network of 48 design labs, based in design schools and design-oriented universities, actively involved in promoting and supporting sustainable change. The DESIS association was formed between the Politenico di Milano (Italy), The New School (USA), University of Arts London (UK), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Jiangnan University (China), and Tongji University (China). In June 2014 and the DSD DESIS Lab was accepted as the fourth lab based in Africa shortly thereafter. The DSD DESIS Lab is also a promoter of the international DESIS Food Cluster together with Polimi DESIS Lab, Milan and Strategic Design Senarios (SDS), Brussels. The DSD DESIS Lab meets monthly to interrogate research, projects, methods and products that impact on the intersection and interplay between design, society and development in our specific context. We understand design as referring to the conscious choices we make in creating systems (community, society and productive systems) and technologies (products, artefacts, communicative technologies, systems integration); society as the human context that includes the broader social systems of culture, economy, politics and environment; and development as the discourse and practice of positive and considered change. We draw on critical political economy, social sciences, appropriate technology development, participatory and human-centered design, and other design approaches in our practice and research. For more info please visit http://www.designsocietydevelopment.org/ DSD DESIS Lab
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