About us
The Design in / for Transformations Symposium is an international conference organized by the Institute of Design Research (HKB) as part of a joint event of the Swiss Design Network (SDN) and the Junior Design Research Conference (JDRC).
The Institute of Design Research is a transdisciplinary research institute based at the Bern Academy of the Arts.The symposium is organized as part of the Swiss Design Network, which aims at promoting and fostering the development, quality and constant improvement of design research in the Swiss Universities of Design and Art. This year we join forces with the Junior Design Research Conference (JDRC), which is an annual event that brings together MA students from all Swiss University of Applied Sciences.
Conference Organising Team
Prof. Dr. Paola Pierri
Dr. Anna Antonakis
Robert Lzicar
Jost Zeindler
Concept
How is design involved with transformations? This might seem an obvious question, since design is traditionally understood as a profession of making and transforming, as well as a discipline of questioning, facilitating, and sustaining change. Since the emergence of industrial mass production in the 19th century, design has been discursively intertwined with social transformation. In the 2000s, this connection became explicit through labels such as "design for social change" and "transformation design," articulating new roles for design in reshaping organisations, public services, and everyday routines. Today, amid multiple crises – climate change, social inequality, digital disruption – this discourse gains renewed urgency as transformation design establishes itself as a transdisciplinary practice that positions design not merely as a response to change, but as a conscious co-creation of profound societal transitions.
The Swiss Design Network (SDN) Symposium 2026 and the Junior Design Research Conference 2026 (JDRC) invite design researchers, educators, practitioners, and students to collectively explore and redefine the role of design in and for transformations, as well as to reassess this relationship in light of the profound and accelerating transformations we live in—social, ecological, technological, and economic ones. Formally, the term «transformation» will be examined in four different tracks, each one focussing on a specific perspective.