This is a workbook to engage with wicked problems as a designer, through design research. At the Strategic Creativity Readership at Design Academy Eindhoven, we do not know how to solve such complex problems (and indeed they might not even be solvable in the foreseeable future) but we have been getting on with addressing, intervening, engaging wicked problems for 8 years.

This workbook contains a few of the things we have learned in those 8 years, and students of our academy with us. The projects we have done, with a group of design researchers and students, as well as many partners in society and industry, are the materials we derived these lessons from.

The intention of the workbook is to help you build on our work and join the growing movement of designers who use their skills to change the world by addressing its hardest problems as activists, together with many other activists.

Bas Raijmakers

bas.raijmakers@designacademy.nl

Danielle Arets

danielle.arets@designacademy.nl

Readership Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven 2011-2019

Design Academy Eindhoven
The Readership explored how design and creativity can play a strategic role in society and the economy in general, and in service innovation in particular. Results of the programme are used within the educational programme of DAE, e.g. Open Design Spaces where students collaborate with researchers of the Readership, and in the Design Research minor Radical Ecologies. Results are also disseminated through public debates, conferences, workshops and publications.

Quicksand
Quicksand is an interdisciplinary consultancy that facilitates the creation of meaningful experiences through design research and innovation based in three cities in India: Delhi, Bengaluru and Goa. In 2017 and 2018, Quicksand teamed up with DAE in the Design Research minor Radical Ecologies to provide an eight day programme for DAE students in Bengaluru. For the microsite and the accompanying notebook Neha Singh was the producer, Sanchita Jain the designer of the notebook and the microsite, and Romit Raj the developer of the microsite.