The reciprocal value of Doctoral Design Research when housed within a Creative Business Center: a case study in Porto, Portugal

[EN] This paper presents the case study of a pilot partnership between a Doctoral Program in Design and a Science and Technology Park located in Porto, Portugal. The partnership has been in effect since 2013; the Doctoral Program has resided within the premises of the Science and Technology Park, as an immersive research environment, in order to foster knowledge transfer and collaborations through gradual, mutual and informal recognition of reciprocal assets. We contextualise the premises and stakeholders in this partnership, outline the empirical methodologies employed, and provide examples of selected projects that illustrate the implementation of these methodologies. Furthermore, we provide an inventory of challenges detected throughout the development of the partnership, as well as information on how these challenges are being overcome. We conclude by summarising the main accomplishments of this partnership, as well as outlining validation by various external agents and opening up prospects for future development. These will include thorough materials that may be of use for implementation in other academic, scientific and entrepreneurial environments. Keywords: Design research; entrepreneurship; knowledge transfer; creative industries.The authors wish to thank the Foundation for Science and Technology for the financial support of PhDDesign through the grant ref. PD/00048/2012.Alvelos, H.; Barreto, S.; São Simão, F. (2014). The reciprocal value of Doctoral Design Research when housed within a Creative Business Center: a case study in Porto, Portugal. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1263-1270. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.5580OCS1263127

E-Marketplace as a tool for the revitalization of Portuguese caft industry: the design process in the development of an online platform

The craft trade in Portugal faces challenges that compromise its productive and economic sustainability and may result in the disappearance of millenary techniques, traditions, and industrial practices of high symbolic and historical value. The growing incompatibility of these traditional activities with digital technologies, the lack of resources, and a growing age gap are among the main problems identified. This situation made worse by various restrictions pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic points towards the possibility of extinction of this type of manual arts. The goal of this research is to demonstrate how the design process of an e-marketplace platform, throughout its different phases, may contribute to the revitalization of traditional industries. The methodologies adopted in the framework consisted in the study of UX and UI best design practices, including wireframe design, user flows, definition of personas, development of prototypes, and style guides. The results of the conducted usability tests to the prototype allowed a gradual improvement of the solution, culminating in the confirmation of its effectiveness. The study concluded that digital technology, namely a designed e-marketplace solution, could potentially bring buyers and sellers closer together, thus being a tool with high potential for the dissemination and sustainability of the craft industry.The Anti-Amnesia Project (POCI-01-0145-ERDF-029022) is co-funded by the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI), by Portugal 2020 and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by national funds through FCT-Foundation for Science and Technology

Components of spirituality to safeguard life for the development of an integral design management approach

The present article is the initial result of fieldwork on design and spirituality in the scope of ongoing doctoral research in design. The research has been developed with Lusophone 'quilombolas', Afro- Brazilian and traditional family farming groups and communities from Brazil and Portugal, which present implicit spiritually driven design management approaches. The project proposes that a spiritual dimension should be a fundamental component of a design management strategy that is intended to be integral. The first learning case was carried out in ethnographic format with the Association of Women Farmers of Castelões (Associação das Mulheres Agricultoras de Castelões) in Portugal. The chosen methodology was the decomposition of the design and spirituality concept from the thoughts of Papanek (1971, 1995), Schumacher (1974), Walker (2011), Margolin (2014) and Escobar (2018). Components of spirituality were identified to guide field data collection. Subsequently, these components were identified from the participatory experience and participant observation with the artisans and analysed. In conclusion, it was possible to conceive 'components' of a reinvented spirituality for today, 'Spirituality to Safeguard Life'. These may support the development of a spiritually driven design management approach with a Lusophone reference, entitled 'Integral Design Management'. It is planned to apply this approach in academic, business, governmental, non-governmental and civil society environments. Through its practice, it is intended to promote the implementation of transformative systems with values and paradigm shifts for the recovery, flourishing and continuity of life

A cultura do design como ponte desde o local a uma estória global

A cultura do design é um tema relativamente recente na discussão da cultura em geral e nas suas relações com a criatividade, as organizações e os cidadãos. O design é incluído nas políticas e apoiado como promotor do desenvolvimento. O presente artigo desenvolve esta reflexão, reconhecendo o design como potenciador para a interpretação da estratégia organizacional, um modelo de inovação que se amplia para as esferas económica e cultural. Evolui para a construção do conceito de economia criativa, particularmente associada com modelos de desenvolvimento territorial ligados à cultura. Interpretando as possibilidades que se aqui se projetam na relação entre o local e o global, apontam-se os média digitais como um elemento indissociável desta discussão cultural, argumentando que a relação entre o design e os média digitais faz parte da contemporaneidade social, cultural e económica. Nesta contemporaneidade, o design é reconhecido como metodologia e estratégia e este enquadramento estimula um novo modelo. O presente texto apresenta o projeto “Stories of Chairs”, uma investigação que relaciona o design, a comunicação e os média digitais participativos no contexto da cultura local da indústria de mobiliário da região de Paredes, no norte de Portugal. Esta é uma região industrial tradicional no Norte de Portugal, com um défice simbólico na sua principal atividade industrial, a indústria de mobiliário. Adotando uma metodologia de investigação-ação, o trabalho de campo desenvolveu “Stories of Chairs”, um estudo de caso de interface entre design, média digitais, património local, criatividade coletiva e cultura participativa, com base no seu território. O projeto permitiu argumentar e validar a argumentação de que os média digitais participativos são um dos vetores estratégicos para o envolvimento sócio-cultural dos cidadãos com a criatividade e a cultura local

Contributo para a discussão sobre um novo conceito de museu através da análise de diversos casos de estudo

Neste mundo interconectado em que vivemos, em que os media digitais são cada vez mais universais, sociais, omnipresentes e baratos; em que cada indivíduo já não depende das organi- zações para estruturar a sua participação nem para comunicar com os demais; em que os consu- midores se tornaram produtores e a notoriedade dos amadores se sobrepõe, em muitos casos, à reputação dos profissionais, qual será o papel a desempenhar pelas instituições? Como é que estas poderão tirar partido do fluxo de comunicação que ocorre directamente entre os membros da rede? Partindo da análise de diversos casos de referência, no presente artigo, pretendemos lan- çar e contribuir para a discussão sobre um novo conceito de museu, construído colectivamente, que emerge da proliferação das novas ferramentas de produção e partilha de conteúdos e do enraizamento dos meios de comunicação em rede que muitos utilizam para documentar frag- mentos dos seus quotidianos