Special Call – Design and Sustainability: Practices, Transitions, and Systemic Impact

CONTEXT AND TOPICS OF INTEREST
The contemporary world faces complex and interdependent challenges — climate crisis, biodiversity loss, social inequality, resource scarcity, and the collapse of economic and ecological systems. In this context, Design plays a strategic role in proposing solutions, mediating transition processes, and shaping futures guided by socio-environmental, regenerative, and territorial justice criteria. However, this demands conceptual, methodological, and practical advancements grounded in systemic and transdisciplinary approaches applied across multiple scales.

Below are the topics of interest that this special issue aims to address, critically contextualizing the challenges and potentials of research and professional practices within a strategic design perspective:

1. Design for Sustainable Transitions: Approaches, Challenges, and Possibilities
Design for Transitions has emerged as a field focused on fostering deep changes in ways of living, producing, and consuming. Centered on sociotechnical transformation processes, it proposes tools and approaches that integrate multiple forms of knowledge, temporalities, and scales. Challenges include the construction of future narratives grounded in sociotechnical and environmental scenarios. This approach expands the role of designers as mediators of conflict, facilitators of cultural change, and catalysts of regenerative practices.

2. Regenerative Design
Regenerative Design goes beyond sustainability by seeking to restore and revitalize social and natural ecosystems. Inspired by principles of deep ecology, living systems, and reciprocity, this field advocates for territorially situated practices guided by ecological and social relationships. Research in this area demands transdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and design practices oriented toward co-evolution, regeneration of life cycles, and the construction of resilient and biodiverse futures.

3. Circular Economy and Design
The transition to a Circular Economy requires a strategic repositioning of Design, which becomes central to conceiving products, services, and systems capable of eliminating waste, preserving value, and optimizing material and energy flows throughout product and system life cycles. This involves reconfiguring industrial processes, business models, and consumption patterns, with a focus on closed loops, modularity, maintenance, and reuse. Research on circular design expands intersections between innovation, engineering, user behavior, and public policy.

4. Sustainable Materials, Biodesign, and Ecodesign
The development of sustainable materials represents a critical frontier for contemporary design. Biodesign integrates biotechnology, materials science, and speculative design to create nature-based solutions, while Ecodesign focuses on reducing environmental impacts from the earliest stages of the design process. These approaches propose new productive regimes and aesthetic criteria linked to impact reduction, while also raising ethical questions related to scalability, biodegradability, identity, technological autonomy, and environmental justice.

5. Design and Sustainability in the Health Sector
The relationship between Design and Health has gained prominence amid weakened public systems, unequal access to care, and the rise of chronic and environmentally related diseases. Design can contribute to well-being promotion, service humanization, assistive technology development, and expanded care practices. Research in this field ranges from devices to healthcare ecosystems, addressing integrative practices, prevention, accessibility, equity, and planetary health.

6. Social Innovation, Distributed Design, and Emerging Territorial Practices
Design as a catalyst for social innovation seeks to address complex challenges through co-creation with communities, articulating local knowledge, distributed infrastructures, and appropriate technologies. Distributed Design strengthens territorial autonomy and resilience by proposing decentralized, collaborative, and sustainable solutions. Research into emerging practices involves mapping forms of resistance and creating alternative forms of social, environmental, and economic value at the local scale.

7. Maker Culture, Fab Labs, Open Design, and Sustainability
Maker culture, Fab Labs, and Open Design introduce unprecedented possibilities for sustainability grounded in autonomy, reuse, customization, and sharing. By promoting access to digital fabrication tools and open knowledge, these practices reshape the role of citizens in producing local solutions through collaboration and circularity. Research in this area examines tensions between open innovation, scalability, technological sovereignty, and pedagogies of making.

8. Design, Public Policy, and Governance for Sustainability
Design applied to public policy and sustainable governance acts as a mediator of interests, a space for institutional experimentation, and a driver of innovation oriented toward the common good. This field mobilizes approaches such as policy design, speculative design, and participatory design to contribute to more inclusive, transparent, and regenerative decision-making processes. Research may range from government labs to community engagement devices and speculative futures, proposing new arrangements between the State, society, and nature.

9. Design Education for Sustainability and Transitions
Educating designers committed to sustainability requires new pedagogies, curricula, and epistemologies. Design Education for Transitions proposes learning environments centered on ethical values, systemic thinking, co-creation, and collective agency. This field involves experimenting with interdisciplinary and reflective methodologies capable of articulating theory and practice, critique and proposition, confrontation and hope. The goal is to prepare professionals to critically engage in socio-environmental transition processes.

10. Design of Sustainable Systems, Products, Services, and Experiences
Designing for sustainability requires a systemic approach that integrates environmental, social, economic, and cultural dimensions. The challenge lies in conceiving products, services, and experiences that minimize impacts, promote well-being, and regenerate ecosystems. This demands value-driven innovation, impact metrics, user participation, and the articulation of sustainable value chains. Design thus becomes a situated, responsive, and conscious practice operating across multiple levels and temporalities.

11. Design in Contexts of Climatic, Social, and Economic Crisis: Emerging Practices and Adaptive Responses
Contemporary crises demand creative, collaborative, and adaptive responses. In such contexts, Design functions as a tool for resilience, conflict mediation, and the reconstruction of social bonds. Investigating emerging practices involves understanding local strategies of survival, care, and reinvention in the face of adversity. This theme analyzes devices, narratives, and ecologies of practice arising in vulnerable contexts, seeking to recognize potentials and promote actions oriented toward adaptation, risk mitigation, and community resilience.

12. Design, Local Knowledge, Communities, and Territories
The articulation between design and local knowledge challenges dominant epistemologies and broadens understandings of sustainability through cultural, ecological, and cosmological diversity. Recognizing communities as producers of knowledge and technology legitimizes ancestral and insurgent ways of life often marginalized. This theme explores territorial co-design processes, ecologies of knowledge, decolonial pedagogies, and plural ways of imagining and sustaining the commons.

SPECIAL ISSUE OVERVIEW
This special issue on Design and Sustainability of the Strategic Design Research Journal (SDRJ) invites researchers, educators, and practitioners to submit articles exploring the role of Design in sustainability across the 12 themes listed above, without being limited to them. The issue aims to gather cutting-edge practices and research addressing these transformations, fostering exchange among Brazilian and international researchers, educators, and professionals.

Contributions are sought that advance theoretical, methodological, and applied discussions, promoting an expanded understanding of Design as an agent of socio-environmental, economic, technological, and cultural transformation.

Key-words:
Design for Sustainability
Sustainable Transitions
Regenerative Design
Circular Economy
Social Innovation
Sustainable Materials

Guest Editors
Aguinaldo dos Santos - UFPR, Brasil
André Canal Marques - UNISINOS, Brazil
Angus Donald Campbell - Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), China
Carla Paoliello – Universidade de Évora, Portugal
Debora Barauna - UNISINOS, Brazil
Lucas R. Ivorra Peñafort - Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colômbia
Milena Calvo Juarez - Fab Lab Barcelona/ Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Espanha

Timeline:
January – April 2026: International dissemination of the call for papers
February – July 2026: Article submission period
July – September 2026: Double-blind peer-review process
October – November 2026: Final revisions and acceptance of articles
December 2026: Publication of the special issue

Submissions
Manuscripts must be submitted directly through the Strategic Design Research Journal submission system (https://revistas.unisinos.br/index.php/sdrj). Authors should follow the journal’s submission guidelines available on the website.

 

Guest editor's short bio

Aguinaldo dos Santos
Full professor at the Design Department of Paraná Federal University. Pos-doctored in Design for Sustainability (Politecnico di Milano – 2009); PhD in Built Environment at Salford University (England - 1999); MSc in Civil Engineering (1995); Civil Engineer (1992); Car Mechanic (SENAI – 1986). Head of the Design & Sustainability Research Center (since 2003) and Coordinator of UFPR´s Design Postgraduate Program (2024 – 2026). His main research interest is Design for Sustainability, with topics such as Product-Service Systems, Design for Sustainable Behaviour, Vernacular Design, Social Innovation and Green Economy and Non-Anthropocentric Design. Poet in his free time, marathon runner; amateur numismatist and a native stingless beekeeper.

André Canal Marques
Designer, professor, and researcher in the Graduate Program in Design at Unisinos, where he coordinates the FabLab Unisinos Porto Alegre, working at the intersection of design, technology, and sustainability. He holds a Postdoctoral degree in Design from PUC-Rio, a PhD and Master’s in Engineering from UFRGS, and an International PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Spain. He is a member of the LeNS Network (The Learning Network on Sustainability) and the LeNS Brazil Network, and has served as a jury member for the A’ Design Award and Competition since 2015. His work focuses on strategic design, design-driven innovation, sustainability, materials selection, life-cycle assessment, fablabs and maker culture, and emerging technologies — with emphasis on additive manufacturing, generative design, and Industry 4.0. He also collaborates as a reviewer for national and international journals in the fields of design, engineering, and sustainability.

Angus Donald Campbell
Prof. Angus Donald CAMPBELL is a designer, educator and researcher who critically explores the power of design to creatively, collaboratively and sustainably innovate at the complex nexus of social, technological and ecological systems. He is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Design and an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Auckland (UoA). Originally from South Africa, he worked in the Industrial Design (ID) Department at the University of Johannesburg for 18 years, co-founding the UJ DESIS Lab and finally heading the department. He moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021 to lead UoA’s new multidisciplinary Design Department. Key areas of his research include Lay Design, Service Design, Pluriversal Design, Appropriate Technology and Sustainable Development. He has secured funding from bodies like the European Commission and the Leverhulme Trust, and currently serves as an Associate Editor for Design and Culture. For more, visit www.angusdonaldcampbell.com 

Carla Paoliello
Assistant Professor at UÉvora, focused on collaboration, traditional practices, eco-consciousness, care, identities, and territory dynamics. She is currently investigating Nature-Centred Design. Graduated in Architecture and Urbanism from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1995), master's and doctorate in Structural Engineering from UFMG (2001 and 2008), the latter recognized by the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Post-doctorate from the University of Lisbon in the Design Section of the Center for Research and Studies in Fine Arts (2015-2016). In 2020, she finished another PhD in Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, specializing in Product Design.

Debora Barauna
PhD in Design (UFPR, 2018), Master's in Environment (Univille, 2009), Specialist in OnLIFE Education (Unisinos, 2022) and Graduated in Design (Univille, 2004). She is a professor and researcher at the School of Creative Industries at Unisinos, linked to the Postgraduate Program in Design, in the area of ​​"Strategic Design," focusing on research on design-driven innovation. She has taught Design and Fashion courses since 2009 and has been a researcher since 2006. Coordinator of the InovaDE Practices Group at Unisinos and of the ColetivoBio.design, linked to the Post-Doctoral project (CNPq) "Biodesign and Futures Speculation". She is a member of the LeNS (Learning Network on Sustainability) international network and coordinates the UNESCO Chair - Cities that Educate and Transform at Unisinos University. Awarded the Bornancini Prize, the Design for a Better World Award, and the Ozires Silva Award for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, in addition to an honorable mention in the Design Award from the Brazilian House Museum.

Lucas R. Ivorra Peñafort
Project Management Professional (PMP). Assistant Professor in the Design Department of the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Pontifical Javeriana University. PhD from Swinburne University of Technology. His experience has focused on project management in sustainable production and consumption systems, circular economy, strategic innovation, and building trust to foster collaboration among stakeholders. He is currently the Coordinator of the Design Factory Javeriana Bogotá, a member of the Design Factory Global Network (DFGN). He is a member of Committee 014 of the Colombian Institute of Technical Standards and Certification (Icontec) on Environmental Management. He has participated in the review of international standards such as ISO 59010:2024 and the World Resources Institute's Food Loss and Waste Protocol. He has been a national and international speaker and mentor on innovation and the circular economy.

Milena Calvo Juarez
Brazilian and Spanish creative professional and action researcher, working as a facilitator and consultant in social innovation, collaborative practices and open technology. With a background in Environmental Engineering and a Master in Industrial Ecology, she has been part of the research team at Fab Lab Barcelona, within the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, since 2018. Exploring the intersection of technology, design, and circular economy, she has contributed to numerous European-funded projects, co-leading the community-driven Remix El Barrio initiative, which won the European Commission’s S+T+Arts Prize 2021. In recent years, Milena has coordinated projects that emphasize the role of the cultural and creative sector, acting as an ecosystem articulator through platforms such as Make Works and the ENSEMBLE network, which focus on making manufacturing more accessible in urban contexts while connecting designers, makers, and innovators in reimagining regenerative futures at both local and global scales. As a consultant, she has implemented capacity-building programs and supported the establishment of digital fabrication laboratories in Europe and the Global South, advising on strategies for distributed production, innovative products for the industry and urban resilience practice.