Dissertation in the field of design: MA Claudia Garduño García

The dissertation explores freedom as an alternative driving principle for design and develops a co-design process that aims for the mutual empowerment of participant end-users and designers.

MA Claudia Garduño will defend her dissertation Design as Freedom on Friday 10 March 2017.

Opponent: PhD, prof. Johan Redström, Umeå Institute of Design
Custos: professor Tuuli Mattelmäki, Aalto University Department of Design

The discussion will be in English.

INFORMATION ON THE DISSERTATION:

The dissertation explores freedom as an alternative driving principle for design. Based on philosophical discussions, freedom is seen as tightly linked to morality, leaving room for sustainability, which for its part, is understood as a moral ideal that implies justice in the environmental and social spheres. The model of assemblage is introduced as a unit of study, which enables the treatment of users and their environments to be the initial situation for a design intervention. By generating new relationships among elements, a better assemblage is achieved.

The Design as Freedom principle is observed in practice through a project called Aalto LAB Mexico (ALM). ALM is developed in a marginalised, rural, indigenous community in the municipality of Calakmul, in the state of Campeche, Mexico. ALM identified the emergence of a double-sided mirror perspective, in which the design team and the participant end-users reciprocally inspire each other to reflect deeply, and assess and even change their own ways of life. Design as Freedom is a longitudinal co-design process that aims for the mutual empowerment of participant end-users and designers.

WELCOME!

The dissertation notice and the published dissertation are placed for public display at the Learning Hub Arabia (Hämeentie 135 C, 5th floor, room 570), at latest 10 days before the defence date.