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With COVID-19, while questioning the coverage areas, duties, and functionality of objects that are indispensable for our lives, we see that objects destroy the weak and the design itself eliminates the non-immune and the weak in some cases. In this process, it is of great importance to reconsider design for the reason of existence of humanity and to develop new design concepts from a holistic perspective. The decolonisation of design, social innovation, and transformations of production and consumption forms in relation to the crisis are possible with speculative design approaches. In the new world order, designing forward-looking nanotechnologies with measureless and extraordinary scenarios will be the beginning of new alternatives. Emergency situations overcome the fluid modernity in our lives and the new developing normality is possible with design projects covering emergency situations. While each crisis creates its opportunities in itself, transition design needs to be planned by adopting an interdisciplinary understanding of how to initiate and direct change in social and natural systems through design. In this study, the reconstruction of COVID-19 social distance alerts on objects in the light of science and technology will be examined.

Designing with a positive lens is inspired by positive psychology, which turns attention away from the treatment of dysfunctions and toward the encouragement of human strengths. I present a positive design method that is inspired by Appreciative Inquiry and draws on a comprehensive theory of design from sculpture. By incorporating a comprehensive theory of sculpture as a guide for designing with a positive lens, we can take advantage of design lessons from the arts, and strengthen the positive design movement in all stages of the design development process. From a theory of sculpture we see that designing includes forming. Forming, in turn, always involves two opposed energies, which can be thought of as a warm and a cold, or an inside and an outside, force. By using a theory of sculpture to guide designing with a positive lens, we reframe our attempts to create new information and organization designs so as to make them achievable even though the positive designer is not an artist. Design thinking and design processes based on a theory of sculpture can ease our dependence on artistic creativity and expand the organizational impact of a positive lens.

This paper aims to highlight the need to place focus on ensuring soft factors in construction projects’ design management and to discuss whether soft factors are hidden success factors.

The presented data is a result of findings from two master theses. The approach is qualitative research and consists of nine semi-structured interviews with design managers and two case studies involving document analyses, meeting observations and descriptions of seven interviews.

This empirical study demonstrates that soft factors are considered important for design managers’ achievement of a successful design process. Focus on soft factors promotes good communication and will improve team performances. Factors are hidden because they are invisible and immeasurable. Furthermore, soft factors are not defined as assigned tasks and are, therefore, easily neglected. Designers are hesitant to explore the possibilities of new technology owing to the fear that they will forfeit human interaction.

This paper is limited to the presentation of empirical findings. Therefore, theory is not a basis for the study but rather a framework for the discussion.

The results in this paper broaden the understanding of human behaviour during the design phase. This knowledge should be considered when the project’s delivery model is designed as it will safeguard actor concerns during the ongoing technological transformation.

This paper contributes knowledge of the view regarding soft factors among project actors. It expands the traditional understanding of value by adding soft factors to the traditional success measures of time, quality and cost.

The role and potential contribution of a positive lens to the design of systems and organizations is the focus of this essay. The positive lens refers to an emerging perspective in the social sciences that emphasizes a positive stance toward our capacity to construct better organizations and technologies through a positive discourse. Joining a positive lens onto organizing with the transformative power of design thinking opens new horizons and uncovers previously overlooked possibilities for creating organizational and social well-being. We discuss the core practices that drive design and argue that they hold the key for applying a positive design attitude.

This paper aims to review and assess the sustainable design and management considerations affecting workplaces’ productivity in Saudi Arabia.

The study uses a mixed approach, commencing with literature review, development and pilot-testing of a structured questionnaire instrument to assess design and management considerations towards productively sustainable workplaces (PSWs). In total, 31 considerations affecting sustainable workplaces’ productivity were identified and clustered under five main directions. A collective group of stakeholders, including architects/engineers (A/E), workplace users and facilities managers, were approached to correlate and compare their individual assessment of the identified PSWs. The relative importance index (RII) for each of the PSW considerations is correlated and discussed.

A high level of agreement is recognized among the three stakeholder groups for PSWs considerations’ assessed rankings. The provision of sufficient ventilation and illumination levels, availability of occupational health, security and safety, availability of ergonomically oriented technological infrastructure, availability of formal and informal meeting spaces, efficient space utilization and ergonomic workstations are all ranked highest in importance as design considerations towards PSWs.

The study stems from the need to understand how the PSWs’ design and management considerations are perceived by all streams of stakeholders. The findings identify the considerations’ importance for prioritization on PSWs’ investments.

The aim of this study was to empirically examine how much traditional attributes and green attributes characterize products within design-oriented firms. Further, we explored how these attributes relate to the perceived level of innovation of the firms.

An exploratory research was carried out in 86 Italian manufacturing companies that are members of the Industrial Design Association. Using the questionnaire method, the entrepreneurs’ perceptions have been analyzed. Data have been treated with hierarchical cluster analysis.

The analysis shows that environmental sustainability is the least important attribute of a design product and four clusters of highly design-oriented firms differ by design-product attributes. Further, the least green firms are also the least innovative in terms of incremental and general innovation.

The small size of the sample and the provenance of firms from a single country imply limited generalizability, and further research on the topic is recommended.

Design-driven innovation based on traditional design attributes provides many competitive advantages to firms. However, given the growing concern about environmental challenges, investing in green attributes in design products allows for remaining competitive and more effective in innovation.

This study, for the first time, reveals the heterogeneity among design-oriented firms, particularly regarding the presence and assortment of traditional design attributes, as well as the incorporation of environmentally friendly attributes in their products. Moreover, the study uncovers the relationship between varying levels of green attributes in the offerings and the perception of the firm’s innovativeness.

This study aims to examine the connection between biophilic workplace design and its effect on Gen Z employees’ mental well-being and job contentment. The aim is to provide insights for the top management to acknowledge and implement biophilic workplaces to create a more productive and fulfilling work environment.

The research study is supported by a literature review of 45 peer-reviewed papers. The research involved a comprehensive review of databases such as Scopus, EBSCO, Elsevier, Jstor and Google Scholar using relevant keywords and Boolean operators. The inclusion criteria for the study are limited to articles published between 2013 and 2024. The review results provide insights into the current state of research on biophilic office spaces and their impact on Gen Z employees’ mental well-being and productivity.

The findings of this study reveal how biophilic office design positively impacts the mental well-being and job contentment of Gen Z employees, leading to increased productivity. It demonstrates that being around elements of nature at work can reduce stress and enhance cognitive function, leading to increased job contentment.

Few studies have been done on the impact of biophilic-designed offices on Gen Z employees, a cohort increasingly becoming the dominant workforce. The conceptual model proposed in the study has defined the positive aspects of biophilic design for Gen Z employees.

This study aims to determine, examine and rank the factors/subfactors that may influence the students’ productivity through different design phases inside the architectural design studio. In addition, it examines the relationships/interrelationships between these factors and students’ educational level.

This research used different research methods: literature review, semi-structured interview and questionnaire (n = 420), and different statistical analysis methods: descriptive, comparative and Pearson r correlation analysis.

This research found that physical and administration factors significantly influence students’ productivity, followed by social and psychological, design and operational, personal and natural environmental factors. Additionally, thermal comfort was the subfactor most affecting the students’ productivity through all design phases. This research found that there were significant strong/very strong positive linear relationships/interrelationships between the student’s education level and all the factors that may increase the students’ productivity (r > 0.647), and between all the factors that may increase the students’ productivity (r ranged between 0.521 and 0.873). The factors affecting students’ productivity in the architectural design studio must be considered as a pool when designing architectural spaces.

The research findings provide the stakeholders, researchers, architects and facilities managers in architectural education with information on improving students’ productivity and enhancing the learning experience that positively affects their confidence and well-being in the design studio. In addition, this research provides information to develop guidelines for evaluating, designing and/or improving design studio environments that facilitate students’ productivity.

This research provides valuable insights into the students’ productivity during design study and how to prepare students for future professional roles, increase their involvement in their design development process and improve the quality of design education. The productivity of the architectural design students during the design studio hours plays a significant role in improving the architectural learning process. Enhancing students’ productivity during design studio hours promotes their design skills and future abilities of a problem-solving approach, which enhances the profession, provides an effective and comfortable student work environment, reduces the students’ stress inside the design studio and meets the students’ physical and emotional needs.

This paper shows how Bruno Latour’s novel work and methodological approach can enrich management and organization studies, accounting and science and technology studies on what it takes to redesign sustainable societal infrastructures. Latour’s notions of trials of strength, macro-actor and design as redesign are used in a case study to describe and analyse how the laboratory becomes decisive in negotiating the bridge design and project budget to the benefit of a more sustainable transport infrastructure.

Latour’s notion of the detective-author is used to research and write a longitudinal qualitative case study that reconstructs the project processes and chain of related events by following the actors/actants.

The case analysis shows how a project design becomes an emerging powerful macro-actor through the mobilization of laboratory simulations and calculations. The role of the project budget changes; from a strong supporting role as input to a decision option in favour of a cheaper stayed bridge to a weak role as an output from a process of redesign supporting a much larger, costlier and more sustainable suspension bridge.

We use Latour’s methodological approach to engage primarily in detailed process descriptions to go beyond the often-pointless call for further theory development and to rather account for what is at work in specific situations. Latour’s notions of redesign as an outcome from trials of strength, we consider a useful approach to further our understanding since it also takes account of the distributed knowledge production that is integral to the actors’ cognitions and recognitions. Relatedly, the specific Latourian notion of redesign opens up new avenues for researching the more or less powerful role accounting devices such as a project budget can play in valuing, supporting and/or undermining the design of sustainable societal infrastructures.