Climate and design collaborative studio
communicatE · use · risk communication · Design, visualization and art
From conducting user research, design, and systems thinking, to creating products and platforms for risk communication—the field of Science and other disciplines often borrow from the Design discipline without actually knowing the rigor it entails. Many people talk about prioritizing user needs and user centric design, but just having ‘better workshops’ and ‘more interactive user stakeholder meetings’ doesn’t mean that the outputs are going to be better. Further, implicit bias and data privilege exists in ‘climate smart’ processes and ‘solutions’, increasing the likelihood of negative direct and indirect side effects from a future driven by both large (international/global) and small (community level) climate adaptation and mitigation projects.
Extending from a new course at NYU, the Climate & Design Collaborative Studio run by designer Clarisa Diaz and scientist Andrew Kruczkiewicz, this session intends to share with participants main themes of what climate and design could mean as an integrated process. In the course, students from various disciplines receive climate science and design training to work together in proposing communication strategies and solutions in site-specific locations.
Course outputs addressing floods in Dar es Salaam and zuds in Mongolia will be presented as examples, along with unpacking what user research, brainstorm, sketch and prototype mean. The session will then focus on a specific case study, where participants will be able to interact with one another, sharing knowledge and experiences with design methodologies for a takeaway process they can apply to their work.
Organizer: New York University
Partner organization: NYU