Philippe Gauthier

Considering that public engagement is pivotal to the mission of Responsible Research and Innovation, this article's aim is to examine how members of the public conceive of the relationship between responsibility and prospective health technologies. We organized four face-to-face deliberative workshops and an online forum wherein participants were invited to comment on scenarios involving three fictional technologies in 2030 and 2040. Our analyses describe how participants anticipated these technologies' impacts and formulated two conditions for their use: they should (1) be embedded within professional care and services and (2) include social protection of individual freedom and privacy. By clarifying what technological direction shall be avoided and who shall act responsibly, these conditions emphasize our participants' understanding of society as much as their understanding of science. For new technologies to be deployed in socially responsible ways, public engagement methods should be developed alongside public governance and regulatory strategies.

Nous affirmons donc l’unité fondamentale de toutes les pratiques du design authentique derrière les cinq principes suivants.

Principe 1. Un acte de design authentique est un acte social et critique. Il commence par un moment critique, c’est-à-dire un moment où le designer détecte l’existence d’une insatisfaction vis-à-vis du monde qui le propulse dans un projet en vue de rendre ce monde plus habitable pour la collectivité.

Principe 2. Un acte de design authentique est nécessairement tourné vers l’amélioration de la vie d’autrui et de la collectivité. Ses objets sont les usages sur lesquels le designer agit en façonnant les dispositifs de notre monde habité, artefacts matériels ou immatériels.

Principe 3. Le design est une pratique qui participe inévitablement à définir les contours du vivre-ensemble, et il est de la responsabilité des designers d’assumer pleinement ce rôle et de savoir rendre publique l’idée même du vivre-ensemble qu’ils mettent en œuvre.

Principe 4. Aucun apprentissage du design ne saurait avoir lieu sans une appropriation raisonnée de l’appareil conceptuel qu’il partage avec les sciences humaines et sociales.

Principe 5. La réflexion authentique en design s’intéresse avant tout aux relations entre les humains et leurs divers environnements, aux modalités du vivre-ensemble, à l’expression des cultures contemporaines et aux conceptions du bien commun.

L’article vise à exposer un travail de recherche amorcé à l’automne 2013 à propos des conditions, des enjeux et des effets de l’intégration des principes de l’innovation ouverte et, plus particulièrement, de l’approche design et du codesign dans le développement des institutions comme les bibliothèques publiques. Il propose dans un premier temps une théorie pragmatique originale du design social, à la frontière du design et de la sociologie, comme sociologie des associations par le design. Il présente ensuite deux démarches de codesign réalisées en 2014 en recherche-intervention dans le cadre de projets de rénovation de bibliothèques d’arrondissement de la Ville de Montréal.

This paper presents a study begun in fall 2013 of the conditions, issues and effects of incorporating principles of open innovation and, more particularly, the design and co-design approach, into the development of institutions like public libraries. It first outlines an original pragmatic theory of social design, on the boundary between design and sociology, as the sociology of associations by design. It then presents two action research codesign processes carried out in 2014 as part of City of Montreal library renovation projects.

The recent cross-breeding between design and social innovation sparks some interesting debates about the adequacy and real benefit of design for the search of answers to our political and social problems. What is so social about design in the first place ? Even if we do understand design as a set of practises that impact on the artificial environment we lean on in our everyday activities, hense on our material culture, can we really link that social dimension to the characteristic intention of designers ? On the other hand, if many recent experiences acknowledge the potential of design to support innovations stemming from local communities, does it really bear the essential critical ressources on which communities initiative hinges ? Answering those two questions seems now necessary to correctly advocate for the role of design in building new capabilities with respect to communities emancipation and human flourishing. With this track proposal we ought to laid down a setting that can help explore how social issues take place in the designer's critical engagement. The expected communications are to be structured around the presentation of social design case studies, reflecting on the social issues the outlined projects raise, the state of affairs they challenge, and the critical resources, moral, social or political, they lean on to stake their worthiness. In that way, we wish to offer an opportunity for participants to hold a critic of the critics, considering that, in the design field, moments where projects are criticized, may it be in the studio, in the schools workshops or in front of clients, represent one of the most common situation to see design being theorized.

Résumé

L’article vise à exposer un travail de recherche amorcé à l’automne 2013 à propos des conditions, des enjeux et des effets de l’intégration des principes de l’innovation ouverte et, plus particulièrement, de l’approche design et du codesign dans le développement des institutions comme les bibliothèques publiques. Il propose dans un premier temps une théorie pragmatique originale du design social, à la frontière du design et de la sociologie, comme sociologie des associations par le design. Il présente ensuite deux démarches de codesign réalisées en 2014 en recherche-intervention dans le cadre de projets de rénovation de bibliothèques d’arrondissement de la Ville de Montréal.

Abstract

This paper presents a study begun in fall 2013 of the conditions, issues and effects of incorporating principles of open innovation and, more particularly, the design and co-design approach, into the development of institutions like public libraries. It first outlines an original pragmatic theory of social design, on the boundary between design and sociology, as the sociology of associations by design. It then presents two action research codesign processes carried out in 2014 as part of City of Montreal library renovation projects.

The objective of this paper is to provide a proof of concept for a pedagogical apparatus aiming to foster moral education and reflection about the inner good of their practice among apprentice-designers. We designed this tool with the aim of helping students understand how modern moral pluralism imprints professional mores, and how particular conceptions of the good life may affect the way they envision and devise how the world should be (and how they ought to design it). Our tool comes in the form of a role-playing game based on different species of worth coexisting in modern democracies, and that French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot have been depicting in their book On Justification-Economies of Worth (2006). Our proof of concept is based on two use cases related to the many studio courses that offered us settings to develop our tool.

Design is gaining popularity as a way to address complex social problems in various fields of practices. Strangely, public health which, by nature, is concerned by such kinds of problems, remains foreign to this way of thinking. Building on the increasing popularity of design in policy making, we stress that public health could also benefit from this conceptual yet
pragmatic framework. To open a critical perspective about the potential of design for public health, we examine four design projects that address social determinants of health and whose outcomes promotes healthy living habits. Finally, we argue that the interest of design for public health lies on its concern for the users’ æsthetic experience emerging of its encounter
with the touchpoints that embody health policies. This contribution ought to act as a stepping stone to open a debate about design as offering a critical perspective for the practice and study of public health.

Alors que le design est aujourd’hui activement engagé dans l’amélioration
des soins, des technologies et des établissements de santé, les frontières
de la santé publique restent imperméables à ses approches, concepts et
méthodes. En prenant appui sur quatre projets en design social promulguant des modes de vie sains, cet article explore les liens entre les champs du design et de la santé publique. En prenant appui sur l’approche réaliste de l’esthétique, l’analyse révèle les qualités expérientielles de mesures de santé publique. De fait, l’analyse des projets montre comment on peut attester que les enjeux de design en santé publique débordent la seule question de la nature des objets concernés et interpellent les modalités du savoir à propos de ces objets. En conséquence, cet article jette les bases théoriques d’une approche design de la santé publique.