Lucy Kimbell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3476931 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lucy Kimbell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lucy |
| FAMILY NAME | Kimbell |
| SIGNATURE | KIMBELL L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Royal College of Art |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7875-9226 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
How do policy and design intersect? Three relationships
Design for policy’ is a prominent framing of the intersection between policy and design. Here, we ask, if design is ‘for’ policy, then what exactly is it doing? We make a critique of literature that explains the interaction of design and policy by listing practices (prototyping or visualisation, for example) but that misses the reasons why those practices are being used. We build on and advance scholarship that anchors design in relation to the d…
Design Practice Research: Conditions and Outcomes
There is no agreed framework for classifying what is, and is not, design practice research. This is a problem at a time when funders are interested in supporting practice research in the university context and look at design research as an example. This article addresses this challenge. Based on the key themes identified from a literature review - situated understanding, networked knowledge production, community of validation, and the knowledge s…
Keeping the System Going: Social Design and the Reproduction of Inequalities in Neoliberal Times
The reproduction of inequalities is a necessary product of neoliberal economic systems. Meanwhile, attempts to ameliorate this within social design actually perpetuate this situation. This, we argue, is partly due to the institutional configuration of design whose precarious professional norms mitigate against long-term consolidation. Relatedly, this struggle for recognition produces a kind of performativity of social design that draws the focus …
Design Ethnography, Public Policy, & Public Services: Rendering Collective Issues Doable & at Human Scale
Scenarios and design: Scoping the dialogue space
The Object Strikes Back: An Interview with Graham Harman
At a time when many design professionals concern themselves with designing interactions, experiences, and services, it seems timely to reconsider the role of objects in design. This interview with philosopher Graham Harman offers a summary of his thinking about objects and uses it to reconsider their role in design. Strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger and Bruno Latour, Harman's philosophy is object-oriented in that it treats objects as real b…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II
This paper uses resources from anthropology and science and technology studies to propose understanding design expertise and activity as constituted materially and discursively in practice. Introducing a pair of concepts—design-as-practice and designs-in-practice—as an analytical device for discussing design solves a number of problems facing researchers working in design studies. First, it helps researchers see design as a situated, local accomp…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I
The term design thinking has gained attention over the past decade in a wide range of contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem-solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. This paper reviews the origins of the term design thinking in research about designers and its adoption by management educators and consultancies wi…
Closing Keynote Address - Reassembling the visual
In her presentation to EPIC, Kimbell reflects on how data is visualized and how it is experienced. Drawing on work in the visual arts and design, she considers what practices that seem to be gathering and visualising data are actually doing, from installations such as her project 'Physical Bar Charts' (2005-8) to methods such as cultural probes. These examples are combined with ideas from Science and Technology Studies (STS), which foregrounds th…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I
The term design thinking has gained attention over the past decade in a wide range of contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem-solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. This paper reviews the origins of the term design thinking in research about designers and its adoption by management educators and consultancies wi…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II
This paper uses resources from anthropology and science and technology studies to propose understanding design expertise and activity as constituted materially and discursively in practice. Introducing a pair of concepts—design-as-practice and designs-in-practice—as an analytical device for discussing design solves a number of problems facing researchers working in design studies. First, it helps researchers see design as a situated, local accomp…
Scenarios and design: Scoping the dialogue space
The Object Strikes Back: An Interview with Graham Harman
At a time when many design professionals concern themselves with designing interactions, experiences, and services, it seems timely to reconsider the role of objects in design. This interview with philosopher Graham Harman offers a summary of his thinking about objects and uses it to reconsider their role in design. Strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger and Bruno Latour, Harman's philosophy is object-oriented in that it treats objects as real b…
Closing Keynote Address - Reassembling the visual
In her presentation to EPIC, Kimbell reflects on how data is visualized and how it is experienced. Drawing on work in the visual arts and design, she considers what practices that seem to be gathering and visualising data are actually doing, from installations such as her project 'Physical Bar Charts' (2005-8) to methods such as cultural probes. These examples are combined with ideas from Science and Technology Studies (STS), which foregrounds th…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I
The term design thinking has gained attention over the past decade in a wide range of contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem-solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. This paper reviews the origins of the term design thinking in research about designers and its adoption by management educators and consultancies wi…
Rethinking Design Thinking: Part II
This paper uses resources from anthropology and science and technology studies to propose understanding design expertise and activity as constituted materially and discursively in practice. Introducing a pair of concepts—design-as-practice and designs-in-practice—as an analytical device for discussing design solves a number of problems facing researchers working in design studies. First, it helps researchers see design as a situated, local accomp…
The Object Strikes Back: An Interview with Graham Harman
At a time when many design professionals concern themselves with designing interactions, experiences, and services, it seems timely to reconsider the role of objects in design. This interview with philosopher Graham Harman offers a summary of his thinking about objects and uses it to reconsider their role in design. Strongly influenced by Martin Heidegger and Bruno Latour, Harman's philosophy is object-oriented in that it treats objects as real b…
Scenarios and design: Scoping the dialogue space
Design Ethnography, Public Policy, & Public Services: Rendering Collective Issues Doable & at Human Scale
Keeping the System Going: Social Design and the Reproduction of Inequalities in Neoliberal Times
The reproduction of inequalities is a necessary product of neoliberal economic systems. Meanwhile, attempts to ameliorate this within social design actually perpetuate this situation. This, we argue, is partly due to the institutional configuration of design whose precarious professional norms mitigate against long-term consolidation. Relatedly, this struggle for recognition produces a kind of performativity of social design that draws the focus …
Design Practice Research: Conditions and Outcomes
There is no agreed framework for classifying what is, and is not, design practice research. This is a problem at a time when funders are interested in supporting practice research in the university context and look at design research as an example. This article addresses this challenge. Based on the key themes identified from a literature review - situated understanding, networked knowledge production, community of validation, and the knowledge s…
How do policy and design intersect? Three relationships
Design for policy’ is a prominent framing of the intersection between policy and design. Here, we ask, if design is ‘for’ policy, then what exactly is it doing? We make a critique of literature that explains the interaction of design and policy by listing practices (prototyping or visualisation, for example) but that misses the reasons why those practices are being used. We build on and advance scholarship that anchors design in relation to the d…
Sociology (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Design Education and Practice (5 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction (4 works) · Crafts, Textile, and Design (3 works) · Engineering ethics (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Information Systems Theories and Implementation (3 works) · Political science (3 works)