Amidst an already-existing polycrisis, the world’s an even more fragile and scary place right now, largely thanks to the seizure of power in the US by wannabe fascists, and their willing enablers. We can see exactly who would have stood next to the bully in the playground.1 Is obeying in advance a kind of prefigurative dystopian experiential future? Sadly we’re all going to find out without having opted into the experiment, starting with people already marginalised by society, from trans ...| architectures by Dan Lockton
This blog is now in its 20th year* and it’s been in the wilderness for a bit. I feel as though for the last few years, I’ve mainly used blogging, and the newsletter version of it, to recite lists of “things I have done”/”events I… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Save the date: Imagining Future Everydays| architectures by Dan Lockton
This article was originally posted in the Design Research Society’s DRSelects series, 4 December 2023 In this DRSelects, we speak with Dan Lockton, DRS Executive Board member, on his DRS Digital Library selections emphasising design tools for imagination and critical co-investigation. Hello, I’m Dan Lockton. I… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Hi everyone—it’s been a while since the last newsletter, but I thought it was time for a bit of an update, not least because of some upcoming events with dates and deadlines. The last few months have been a whirlwind, including the Researching the Future… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
I’m not going to do a full end-of-year review post this year, since I’ve just been through a tenure process at work (TU Eindhoven) which has exhausted my desire to write any more about what I’ve been up to! But, briefly: current projects include IMAGINE… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
This is a re-post of the Imaginaries Lab newsletter (subscribe here) It’s been too long since the last newsletter, back in those days before “all of this”. I didn’t even do one in 2020—the end of that year was just too fraught, too difficult. You’ve… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
What comes to your mind if we talk about maintenance? As Naomi Turner points out, the pandemic has in some ways made what was often “invisible” labour much more visible: people’s care for—and repair of—the systems around us (and each other) has been central to… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Sleep Ecologies: Tools for Snoozy Autoethnography (DIS 2020) from imaginaries on Vimeo. Sleep Ecologies, supported by Philips, explored how designed tools for autoethnographic inquiry could help people understand their own sleep health, and the wider wellbeing and lifestyle ‘ecologies’ around it. Taking student sleep as… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
New Metaphors First, some big news: we’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign for the New Metaphors toolkit. Please help us bring the project to fruition—get your own pack, and start generating new ways to think and imagine. More details on the toolkit here, including a great… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
We’d like to invite you to Climate Pathways, an exhibition of projects from the Imaginaries Lab‘s fall 2019 studio elective at Carnegie Mellon, Research Through Design. Download the catalog of projects Friday November 22, 5.30pm–7.30pm: Exhibition opening and project demos Saturday November 23, 10.00am–5.00pm: Exhibition… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
It’s the end of December, which means it’s time for an update. Here at the Imaginaries Lab we’re just completing our second year, currently based within Carnegie Mellon School of Design. We’re a pretty part-time lab at present, but have aims to do much more… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Can design help people think about and express their own mental health? Four ongoing projects from students in the Imaginaries Lab studio New Ways to Think, in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon, are exploring creative ways for us to describe, talk about, and… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Shengzhi Wu, Gray Crawford, Devika Singh, and Dan Lockton, 2017–18 Funded by the CMU College of Fine Arts’ Fund for Research & Creativity, and using data provided by CMU Facilities Management Services. Read our CHI 2019 Late-Breaking Work paper Lockton, D., Crawford, G., Singh, D.,… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” William Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, 1928 — later named as the ‘Thomas Theorem’ The events of the last couple of years, from Brexit to Trump, have been a vivid demonstration for our… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
We often hear the phrase ‘intelligent environments’ used to describe spaces in which technology is embedded, in the form of sensors, displays, and computational ability. This might be related to Internet of Things, conversational interfaces or emerging forms of artificial intelligence. But what does ‘intelligence’ […]| architectures by Dan Lockton
by Dan Lockton, Delanie Ricketts, Shruti Aditya Chowdhury (Imaginaries Lab, Carnegie Mellon School of Design) and Chang Hee Lee (Royal College of Art) Much of how we construct meaning in the real world is qualitative rather than quantitative. We think and act in response to,… Read more| architectures by Dan Lockton
Design Students Explore Landscape Metaphors for Project Modeling Delanie Ricketts and Dan Lockton This article originally appeared on the Carnegie Mellon School of Design website We often use landscapes as metaphors in everyday speech, particularly to talk about complex systems—understanding a complex information system as […]| architectures by Dan Lockton
In Materializing the Invisible, we considered invisible and intangible phenomena—the systems, constructs, relationships, infrastructures, backends and other entities, physical and conceptual, which comprise or influence much of our experience of, and interaction with, environments both physical and digital. ‘The invisible’ here is potentially everything from […]| architectures by Dan Lockton
Jasper Tom investigated patterns of people’s behavior in Pittsburgh’s Greyhound Bus Station In this short introductory unit, we looked at ways in which the design of environments, and features within them, affects people’s behavior and interaction with each other. Design influences what people do, but […]| architectures by Dan Lockton