In this paper we want to reflect on the use of toolkits as a codification strategy to fuel an expanding
practice of ‘systemic design’. This critical reflection is rooted in the real‐life experience of bringing
together two different sets of skills in the development of a Systemic Design Toolkit. Designers and
concept‐driven system thinkers belong to different epistemic communities. While these fields of
practice are arguably in the process of converging, in actual practice it proves to be a challenge to
transcend their governing epistemological differences. What pragmatically unites these
practitioners is their ambition to successfully codify a vast and layered knowledge base. A Systemic
Design Toolkit is argued to offer promise as a ‘boundary object’ between the epistemic
communities involved in creating the toolkit (the designers on the one hand and the conceptual
system thinkers on the other) and between the toolkit developers and toolkit users. The paper
closes with a tentative list of design criteria for systemic design toolkits
