Making-with the environment through more-than-human design

Abstract

Current climate and ecological crises require questioning currently dominant under-standings and relations to nonhumans. While design is a human-centered field and practice, many intruders or competing theories challenge human-centered ap-proaches and propose ways to include nonhumans in design. This article explores different perspectives for post-anthropocentric design approaches and focuses on how design can approach the notion more-than-human as an intruder to human-centered design. Proposing practice-based studies of making-with the environment as an alternative to human-centered design, it explores how to design beyond ideas of “human progress”. Firstly, more-than-human and related concepts are introduced. Secondly, how human-centered design can be challenged is explained through the concept of core theories and intruders, relating it with “more-than-human” and posthuman theories. Afterwards, traditional knowledge is introduced as a concept to explore more-than-human approaches, and a case study is introduced as a post-anthropocentric making activity. The case study demonstrates that designers should acknowledge and listen to traditional and indigenous knowledges, while shifting to a more-than-human design approach.

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