The Shapes of Trust. On Weaving Trans-Sectoral Relationships Through Design

This journey unfolds in the wake of polycrisis, the systemic entanglement of multiple planetary crises, calling for systemic transformations of how we make sense of the world, decide upon it, and work (on) it together. By venturing in socio-material arrangements as the settings where systemic transformation can be worked on, the research engages with the two disciplinary fields that hold a strategic “grip" on them: design and policy. In current multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral entanglements, both design and policy are looking into collaborative practices, transforming their own ways of embracing, navigating and staying with complexity. Particularly, design’s expertise is being lately recognised as contributing to policy transformation. By taking a practice-based approach, the research identifies three facets that make-up collaborative practices as experimental areas for design and policy to intertwine: the qualities of consultation; the qualities of evidence; the qualities of infrastructuring. The research builds on Designing for Transforming Practices approach, testing it under the lens of design for policy within the experimentation areas. Through a three-lens compass, crafted upon the areas, the research makes sense of five applied project-cases, looking into how design (and policy) might contribute to fostering trans-sectoral collaborative practices. The research extrapolates common qualities as well as discrepancies, aiming at formulating a set of coordinates along which modes of sense making, modes of decision making, and modes of bridging can be worked on to foster trans-sectoral collaborative practices to achieve systemic transformation. By a further reflection, patterns of trust building are harvested, framing it as the emergent response of collaborative practices elicited by aesthetic engagement and embodied participation. The Shapes of Trust are the forms we weave collaborative practices into in the mission-driven innovation framework; the forms that, through design, follow presence, dialogue, and reflexivity, while being nurtured by scaffolds fostering mutual recognition, co-response-ability, and co-development.