Design Resiliency: Unpacking the Design Process to Create Adaptive Change

Overview

In a matter of weeks, we have seen our entire health system retract, our economic system crash and our political system divide. Ironic! Guess again. We are in the middle of reorganizing some of the largest systems we value; our health, our economy and our political structure. In today’s episode, we are going to take a deep dive into the concept of design resiliency to unpack and inspire you as a designer to embrace change and sustain your design practice.

Design Resiliency is the practice of adapting to change. Being nimble, flexible, reflective, adaptive, and even embracing chaos. - Elizabeth Lockwood

“Resilient thinking is about how and why the system as a whole is changing, we are better placed to build a capacity to work with change as opposed to being a victim of it. A resilient system that has the capacity to rebound from disturbances does this by increasing its diversity and redundancy, by forgoing growth and speed in favor of sustainability, and by engaging in a wide range of small local actions that connect to one another.” - Margaret Wheatley

Health, economic and political systems collide.

Shortly after the world went into the stay at home order due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the conversation shift from human health to economic health and then it quickly became political. We began to divide as a nation and question even our good friends’ political views. It is more apparent then ever how interconnected our human health, economic health and political systems are. When we talk about one these days, we tend to lead into another. So now what? How do we unpack this all to advise our clients to make the best informed decisions when we are in the middle of a massive reorganization of our health, economic and political system. This is where the theory of Design Resiliency can be applied. It is a theory, model and tool to us during different phase of design or during business restructuring.

Moving forward through this episode I will speak on two different levels. One being the notion of having a healthy design practice during a recession and the second notion designing in response to pandemics.

The full shownotes include: adaptive cycle diagrams, key quotes and related architectural references. Check them out!
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Till Next Time Keep Designing Y'all.