Design Against Crime as Socially Responsive Theory and Practice

This paper, the first in a series co-written (50/50%) with Adam Thorpe, Associate Director of Design Against Crime Research Centre/founder of Vexed Generation, was presented at the Design Research Society Conference (Lisbon 2006) and Design 2006 (Croatia 2006). It documents a socially responsive design process and evolving design research methodology that we argue can be applied to other ethical (non crime) approaches to design.

The published article (also downloadable from www.sociallyresponsibledesign.org) discusses DAC/Vexed outputs as “socially responsive design”, and argues contemporary approaches to ethical design do not easily fit the model of socially responsible design as narrowly defined by Papanek (1971). Thirty-five years after Papanek, there is an awareness of social and environmental concerns by designers who want to address issues differently. To pursue this, in 2007 we started collaborating with designers from Khio University, Oslo, and Elisava, Barcelona.

Our paper argues that socially responsive design is linked to ethical design rather than a naïve model of innovation, and can engage with the marketplace if critical frameworks are rigorous. The paper uses outputs delivered by DAC and Vexed Generation to explain that commercial and ethical products can be achieved by using the model of the iterative design/expert review process discussed in our paper. This and further articles on socially responsive design have been well received inside and out of design discussion; for example our account of socially responsive anti terrorist design has been circulated by the GLA, who in July 2007 invited us to engage with the creation of a socially responsive anti terrorist bike parking guideline strategy for London developers.

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