CONFERENCES
E&PDE 2026 - 28th International Conference on Engineering & Product Design Education
The Conference will bring together representatives from education and industry interested in sharing new perspectives on design education.
Knowledge Base Repository
In addition to research papers, the Design Society is developing several valuable resources for those interested in the study of design. These include a repository of PhD theses, a library of case studies and transcripts of design activities, and an archive of our newsletters. Please note that these resources are accessible exclusively to Design Society members.
MAPPING KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION CHALLENGES IN PARTICIPATORY AND CO-DESIGN PROCESSES: TOWARDS A DESIGN KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION SPECTRUM
Yuan, Zhongtian; Zhang, Yang
Type:
Year:
2026
Editor:
Buck, Lyndon; Brisco. Ross; Bohemia, Erik
Author:
Series:
E&PDE
Institution:
Nanjing University of the Arts, China
Page(s):
274 - 279
DOI number:
ISBN:
978-1-912254-24-8
ISSN:
3005-4753
Abstract:
Participatory and co-design approaches have been widely recognized for enabling collaboration between designers and non-designers. However, despite their emphasis on shared creativity and co-creation, existing frameworks often offer limited explanations of how diverse forms of knowledge are identified, exchanged, and integrated throughout the design process. This paper presents a critical review of recent participatory and co-design studies to examine how knowledge integration is conceptualized and operated within contemporary design research. Building upon Sutcliffe and Sawyer’s (2013) classification of knowledge into known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, this study analyzes how these categories are implicitly addressed within the design frameworks. The findings suggest that current design approaches primarily focus on the first two types of knowledge, while largely neglecting strategies that enable the emergence of the knowledge that cannot be acknowledged from existing experience. To address this gap, the paper proposes the Design Knowledge Integration Spectrum, to map these epistemic boundaries and guide knowledge activation in design practices.
Keywords:
