Welcome to the website for RTD 2019 – the third biennial Research Through Design (RTD) conference. The conference was held in Edinburgh, UK, between the 22nd and 24th of March 2017 focusing on New Disciplines of Making – Shared Knowledge in Doing. The RTD conference series supports the dissemination of practice-based research through a novel and experimental conference format, comprising a curated exhibition of design research, accompanied by round-table discussions in ‘Rooms of Interest’. The exhibition is used as a platform for presenting and demonstrating research processes and outputs, and for generating debate on the role of the design practitioner and their work in a research context.
Building on the success of the second RTD conference held in Microsoft Research’s lab in Cambridge in 2015, RTD 2017 was hosted at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. This provided an exciting venue for exploring new and emerging making disciplines, in a sustainably minded and socially aware community of practice. RTD 2017 offered a unique opportunity for conference exhibits to be juxtaposed with traditional curated NMS artefacts and collections, challenging contemporary and future notions of value and expertise.
Submissions were accepted from all areas of design research – product, fashion, graphic, communication, jewellery, industrial, interaction, service, digital and many related areas and disciplines of design. Although the conference has now passed, this website acts as an archive of its call for submission, its programme of rooms of interest and plenary sessions, and the full proceedings.
