Design Professorship
In the Design Professorship, led by professor Perica Savanović, designers and researchers work together on new ways to understand and shape the future. This ranges from new materials and knowledge to new solutions for social challenges. Through design and design research, we offer alternatives, develop new ideas and make change possible.
Design research at ArtEZ
Design is more than a final product. It is a connected way of thinking and doing that brings together art, technology, science and society. Through design research, designers make complex questions and collaborations clear and concrete.
By looking critically, imagining possibilities and making things, design and design research reinforce one another. This leads to knowledge that you do not only read or hear, but also experience – knowledge that drives change.
Many forms of intervention play a role here, from product and system design to artistic and educational experiments. Designers and researchers from different disciplines work together to develop new insights and new ways of thinking and doing for a shared future. Through prototyping, tangible boundary objects emerge – forms that make ideas concrete, experiential and open to discussion. They function both as research tools and as communication instruments: A shared language between different worlds.
Our mission: designers as connectors and changemakers
We explore how designers can make a meaningful contribution to social transitions. Two questions guide our work:
How can designers, through their ideas and proposals, contribute to a different future?
How can designers bring together different partners and disciplines in this process?
We use approaches that look for solutions and open up new possibilities to share knowledge and connect worlds. In doing so, we create bridges between communities, each with its own language, values and interests.
Our vision: design research as a driver for transformation
Society faces major challenges, from climate change to social inequality. There are no simple answers, which is why we embrace complexity. Design can be a creative, connecting and innovative force in this.
As artistic professionals, designers make a difference by thinking critically and acting boldly. With artistic methods, they imagine alternatives, make ideas tangible and involve people through co-creation and participatory design. They use design as visual communication, as a tool for collaboration and as an invitation to dialogue. In doing so, they open up new perspectives for the future.
Practice-based design research shows that change is not the straight line from A to B we often picture, but a process that moves, shifts and continually reshapes itself.
More about our research on design
How we work: collaboration in design research
The professorship is a place for collaboration and exchange. Students, designers, researchers and external partners work together on current challenges. This is how we collectively develop knowledge that can be applied directly in practice. We share our insights through research projects, publications and events, and strengthen them through collaboration in national and international networks such as NADR, Dutch Circular Textile Valley and CLICKNL.
Our research community NewTexEco, where textile innovations are developed, is an example of such a transformative ecosystem. In this way, we contribute to the transition towards a more sustainable world.
