Designing Cultures of Care

Designing Cultures of Care brings together an international selection of design researchers who, through a variety of design approaches, explore the ways in which design intersects with cultures of care.

Unique in its focus and disciplinary diversity, this edited volume of essays develops an expanded discourse on the role and contribution of design to broader social, cultural and material challenges. Based around a unifying critique of the proposition of care as a theoretical framework for undertaking design research in real world contexts, each chapter presents a case study of design research in action.

This book provides readers - both academics and practitioners - with insights into the possibilities and challenges of designing cultures of care. The disciplines represented in this collection include architecture, visual communication, participatory and social design, service design, critical and speculative design interventions and design ethnography. Case studies provide real world insights that have relevance and value to design students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and to researchers at all levels within and outside of the academy.

Laurene Vaughan is Professor of Design and Communication at RMIT University, Australia, where she is also Dean, School of Design. She is the editor of Practice-Based Design Research (Bloomsbury, 2017), Designing Cultures of Care (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Using PhDs for Design Practice (forthcoming with Bloomsbury, 2023).