The Glasgow School of Art

European Academy of Design Conference
16-20 October 2023

Track/Day 5: Friday 20 October 2023, Scotland, UK

Extreme Making: Expansive Methods and Critical Themes in Design Doctoral Research and Education

Hub: The Glasgow School of Art, School of Design in partnership with Edinburgh College of Art / The University of Edinburgh, School of Design

City host: Glasgow

This conference hub explores the present and future possibilities of doctoral research and education in design through creative practice research, located in making and materials, critical theory and history, and by identifying ways in which new knowledge emerges in studio-based inquiry. We use the term ‘extreme making’ to suggest the breadth of practices in design, from established craft skills and techniques, through to smart technologies and materials, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and systems design. As new technologies of making generate new forms of practice, we recognise a related expansion of methods associated with design research and intrinsic to doctoral research. This ‘methodological pluralism’ (Borgdoff, 2019) presents the field with exciting possibilities. At the same time, critical themes in doctoral design research and education have intensified over the past twenty-five years to encompass climate injustice, identity politics, sustainable, cyclical, and slow-growth economics and human and more-than-human relationships.

We also recognise that new articulations of worldviews such as New Materialism, in combination with practice research, are having an impact on the normative forms of doctoral submission, examination, and claims to contribution to knowledge. If, as Rosie Braidotti has surmised, we are facing a whole ‘new paradigm’ in critical theory, we want to discover how doctoral research and education might make best use of theoretical knowledge attached to design histories, particularly in critical and speculative design. Conversely, in what ways are doctoral candidates in design framing futuring and world-making as research?

These themes are key to the practice and quality of doctoral research in design yet pose a particular set of challenges and opportunities for supervisors and candidates. Therefore, we invite delegates to join us in exploring the lively and diverse possibilities of doctoral research and education in design, and welcome submissions from doctoral students, early career researchers, supervisors, and senior researchers.


Themes of enquiry/questions: 

• Theoretical knowledge of design and its histories as embedded in doctoral research and education

• New craft methods emerging in design research and education, for example, through digital and post-digital crafts

• ‘Extreme making’ in design research as a response to present-day challenges? For example, of limited resources, slow-growth economics, and sustainable goals

• The challenges and opportunities of ontological design in doctoral education

• Design research and education as creative practice in and beyond the studio: partnerships and participation

• ‘Extreme making’ as ethics: care, ecology, multi-species interactions

• Methods of doctoral design research and education through materials; expertise, material knowledge


Submission Details: 

Please submit a 3000-4000-word short paper (including references) in response to one or more of the conference themes here

Also, for posters, please submit your poster in one the following formats: jpg or pdf, 300dpi (minimum). 

We will be holding a small, curated, week-long exhibition of works related to the European Academy of Design Hub Host event in the Glasgow School of Art Reid Building, and welcome submissions from participants who wish to be considered for this. Therefore, we are accepting submission of images, moving images (such as showreels), videos and website links, as low-resolution files initially (less than 10MB). Please include a 150-word abstract explaining the research basis of your work, and the format chosen to present this. Please look out for further instructions on how to submit high-resolution files via file sharing on our conference hub website. 

Submissions must reach the conference organisers no later than 7 April 2023