ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the context, outcomes and insights of exploratory, practice-based design research conducted over a prolonged period. The research focuses on how contemporary concerns about personal meaning, social equity and environmental care disturb our assumptions and understandings of design, which can lead to new ways of thinking about how people create our material culture. The discussion begins with a consideration of design as it emerged during the twentieth century and its ties to mass production, globalization and consumerism. Because these developments are inescapably linked to unprecedented environmental and social harm, the agenda of design research is developed from one of gradual improvement within the current manufacturing context to one of fundamental, systemic change; that is, from incremental design to holistic design. To remedy unprecedented environmental and social effects will require substantial shifts in policy, binding international agreements and regulation, and far greater efforts in terms of corporate ethics and responsibility.
