Researchers in the School of Design explore the use of design to support social, community and organisational change. These researchers apply their own design process in many contexts and on many levels – from products, to services, strategy, systems and transitions – to help stakeholders navigate complexity, create new meaning in moments of transition, and support new practices.

Contact: Lindsay Asquith

The School of Design in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB) has deep expertise in engaging sensitively with people and places, facilitating collaboration with diverse stakeholders, finding human and playful ways to negotiate and explore serious social challenges, and in clarifying organisational challenges, barriers and opportunities to change through the application of design approaches and mindsets.

As a team, the researchers have a multidimensional relationship with design. As individuals, they are designers, architects, visual communicators, psychologists, anthropologists, engineers, criminologists, historians and organisational developers. The team works with partners by combining different elements of these multidisciplinary backgrounds, adapting and evolving co-designing unique approaches to help look at problems and solutions differently.

What impact do we create?

Nepean Blue Mountains Mental Health Unit

The team has had a longstanding partnership with the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, involving several projects. The first project used a co-design and participatory approach with consumers, carers and staff to develop a more therapeutic and person-centred model of care for the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District Mental Health Centre. The project focused on the Centre’s High Dependency and Acute Units, undertaking a critical examination of its current philosophy and practice, helping to frame the desired personalised and unique journeys of mental health recovery within a greater “Landscape of Care”. The project set precedents for new ways of working between stakeholders within the centre and its surrounding community.

The team and Nepean Health have also undertaken projects co-designing family therapy units, creating welcoming and inclusive signage and wayfinding with design students, and in supporting Telehealth for the region.

Nelly’s Healing Centre

This project supported the establishment of a healing centre in inner Sydney. The centre incorporates an intensive residential program and drop-in service for Aboriginal women and their children who are encountering the justice, health and child protection systems and may be battling abuse, mental health or other health and wellbeing issues. The project provided the basis for a service model that was culturally embedded, human-centred, Aboriginal-led, genuinely healing for Aboriginal people, and could be applied in subsequent locations and future programs. This involved the creation of maps and visualisations to help the Nelly’s team envisage and plan for a person’s journey through Nelly’s Healing Centre, and developing an evaluation framework that reflected priorities, values and needs of the Nelly’s team.

Carers, We See You

The project aimed to better understand the everyday experiences and challenges faced by UTS student carers, and develop ways that the university could better support student carers to achieve a better balance in their lives as both students and carers. In collaboration with the Centre for Carers Research, the UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion and Carers NSW, the project involved consultation via two focus group discussions with student carers and two focus group discussions with UTS Academic Liaison Officers. Subsequent design synthesis led to suggestions as to how UTS could better support student carers, in terms of products (e.g. carer’s card, welcome pack), people (development of a supportive carers network), process (e.g. student carer registration at enrolment), and policy (involving carers in the co-development of university policies in this area).

The DAB team and the Centre for Carer’s Research also explored the evaluation of Carer programs through a participatory lens, for Department of Communities and Justice.

Northcott Supported Living

Two projects are underway with Northcott, a disability provider with over 100 supported living (group) homes for people with disability. The first project involves mapping the complex system of supported living, with a focus on people with disability and those who support them. The aim of this project is to develop a visual representation of the supported living ecosystem that will be a working document for Northcott. It will enable Northcott to identify and act on issues and problems within their houses and the system as a whole. The second project will develop an internship program to build problem-solving and leadership capacity in frontline disability support workers. 

Who do we work with?

  • NSW Department of Communities & Justice
  • NSW Health Nepean Mental Health Unit
  • UTS Equity & Diversity Unit
  • iCare
  • CarersNSW
  • Stryker Medical Devices
  • Nelly’s Healing Centre
  • Hunter Partners in Recovery
  • NSW Mental Health Commission

Network Research Themes

  • Inclusion & Participation
  • Social Justice, Diversity & Equity
  • Health & Wellbeing