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Special Issue of Design Issues

A Special Issue of Design Issues (MIT Press) has been published this month (July 2017, Vo. 33, No. 3), entitled: Research Through Design: Twenty-First Century Makers and Materialities http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/desi/33/3. This collection brings together reflective commentaries about conducting and disseminating practice-based design research.

Articles in this special issue focus on work that was exhibited and discussed at the Research through Design (RTD) Conference held in Cambridge, UK in 2015. The RTD conference was established in 2013; the 2017 edition was recently held in Edinburgh, UK; and the next edition will take place in The Netherlands in 2019.

In this issue the authors uniquely reflect, not just on the processes and outcomes of ‘research through design’, but also on the experience of being involved in the RTD conference itself, and critically evaluating the design of the event. Many of the articles highlight interesting opportunities and challenges for developing experimental dissemination platforms that support design practitioners and researchers and that place the material artefacts of design, along with the practices at the heart of proceedings.

Contributors to this issue include those who presented work at the RTD 2015 Conference, extending accounts of this work, and delegates who offer reflections on attending in 2015: Amy Twigger Holroyd, Alex S. Taylor, Kristina Andersen, Dan Gibson, Jane Norris, Elizabeth Edwards, Paul Coulton, Andy Derby, Mike Chiasson, Rebecca Taylor, Jon Rogers, Jo Foster, Sean Kingsley, Nantia Koulidou, Erika Shorter, Mike Shorter, Natasha Trotman, Ian Lambert, and Chris Speed. The guest editors were Abigail Durrant, John Vines, Jayne Wallace and Joyce Yee, with an introduction from the journal editors Bruce Brown, Richard Buchanan, Carl DiSalvo, Dennis Doordan, Kipum Lee, Victor Margolin, and Ramia Mazé.

Featured image from article by Kristina Anderson and Dan Gibson. Photo Credit: Dan Buzzo.

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To contact the RTD Steering Committee please email researchthroughdesign@gmail.com