Design in an Age of Long Emergencies
This talk by Indy Johar is part of the Design Interrupted talk series organized by the Department of Design, Aalto University.
About the talk:
Design in an Age of Long Emergencies
The nature of design—and how we design for a world shaped by increasing volatility and uncertainty—is undergoing a fundamental shift. Traditional design, rooted in industrial-era assumptions of predictability, stability, and instructability, is no longer sufficient in a world defined by cascading crises and deep systemic interdependencies.
As uncertainty and complexity become the defining conditions of our time, the very foundations of design must evolve. This shift demands not only new methodologies but also a profound reorientation in how we perceive and engage with the world. Before we can design differently, we must first learn to see differently—to recognize the world in its emergent, dynamic state and to embrace design as a practice of continuous adaptation, stewardship, and transformation.
This lecture will explore this paradigm shift, tracing its implications for design practice, governance, and the future of human and planetary systems. How must design evolve in an era where uncertainty is not a problem to be solved, but a condition to be navigated? What new capabilities, frameworks, and sensibilities must we develop to create futures that are not only resilient but regenerative?
Agenda:
- 17:00 Welcome words
- 17:10 Talk by Indy Johar
- 18:00 Panel discussion
- 18:50 Closing words
- 19:00 Event ends
Panelists:
- Indy Johar,
- Marco Steinberg,
- Hella Hernberg, Architect, Postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Design, Aalto University
- Annu Mathew, Social & service designer, Co-founder of thinnan
About the speaker:
Indy Johar
Indy is co-founder of Dark Matter Labs and of the RIBA award winning architecture and urban practice Architecture00. He is also a founding director of Open Systems Lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) and Open Desk (open source furniture company).
Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, the Nordic Hub for sustainable urbanization. He is on the advisory board for the Future Observatory and is part of the committee for the London Festival of Architecture. He is also a fellow of the London Interdisciplinary School.
Indy was 2016-17 Graham Willis Visiting Professorship at Sheffield University. He was Studio Master at the Architectural Association - 2019-2020, UNDP Innovation Facility Advisory Board Member 2016-20 and RIBA Trustee 2017-20.
He has taught & lectured at various institutions from the University of Bath, TU-Berlin; University College London, Princeton, Harvard, MIT and New School. He is currently a professor at RMIT University.
He was awarded the London Design Medal for Innovation in 2022 and an MBE for Services to Architecture in 2023.
Host:
Marco Steinberg
Marco Steinberg is Founder and CEO of Snowcone & Haystack, a Helsinki-based strategic design practice focused on helping governments innovate. He is currently also a Professor of Practice at Aalto University in Finland, where he is focused on advancing the craft of strategic design. He has worked with local and central governments across the world on issues of development, sustainability, and transformation.
From 2008-2013 Marco was Director of Strategic Design at Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, where he established the fund’s strategic design capability. He launched a portfolio of public governance innovation initiatives including Helsinki Design Lab (www.helsinkidesignlab.org) a government innovation initiative, and Low2No a low-to-zero carbon urban development transition strategy. From 1999-2009 Marco served as Associate Professor at the Harvard Design School where he led the Stroke Pathways Project a system redesign approach to health delivery in the US.
He is an author of numerous publications on design and innovation.
He holds degrees from Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University.
In 2020 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Delft Technical University (TU Delft).
About the talk series:
Design Interrupted Conversations for a 21st Century World
www.aalto.fi/en/design-interrupted
Today, the study and practice of design are in great flux. We are amidst the biggest socio-economic transformation since the 1750s, experiencing the fifth Industrial Revolution. There is a growing pressure to transition economies driven by extractive, wasteful and polluting logics towards systems designed to fit the planetary limits. Such transformation requires the design of new types of products and services, as well as new systems and approaches to large-scale changes.
At the same time, design as a practice area is also changing. It is shifting away from a more rigidly defined practice of professionally trained designers creating graphics, objects and spaces towards a practice that is loosely defined, fuzzy and seemingly omnipresent. Many have been calling for democratizing design and recognizing the efforts of non-professional designers. Design thinking, methods and practices have entered many contexts, including governance, jurisprudence, sciences and activism. The design community has been grappling with the ever-expanding definitions of what design is and who a designer is.
This talk series invites design professionals, students, academics and anyone interested in these challenges to a series of conversations. Each event features a scene-setting lecture by a leading practitioner and thinker followed by open discussion. Three themes give focus to the series: digital, societal and material transformations. What is design’s role in these transformations? How do we generate new know-how to support the needed transitions, and what examples already exist that we can learn from? What stands in the way of progress towards equitable, diverse, and sustainable lives, and what is the role of design in removing such blockages? What are design and designers in this new context?
Department of Design at Aalto University invites you to join our conversations to explore what design is, can and should be in the 21st Century.