UT STRATEGIC DESIGN & URBAN SYSTEMS
URBAN TECHNOLOGY
UT 430 - FALL 2024PROFESSOR
Bryan BoyerWhereas traditional design is often described as problem solving, strategic design is concerned with problem finding. We seek to build a fuller understanding of the issues through mixed-methods research and develop a framing that speaks to a diversity of stakeholders, intellectully and emotionally. Whereas designers traditionally work for a client, we give ourselves the liberty to imagine new roles, responsibilities, and incentives in a mode of invitation rather than authority.
Whereas traditional design is about making a better thing, strategic design is about enabling better decision making: what should we do? What needs to be tested out so that the next thing we build will be smarter? What we produce as strategic designers are provocations and prototypes that allow those who engage with it to have a better debate about what is achievable with available resources; how to work together; and how to define “good” results in ways that are systemic and concrete, attractive to collectives and acceptable to individuals.
Students in this course have one project for the semester: develop a vision for life in the Little Village cultural district of Detroit, flourishing with specific outcomes, enabled by new or newly augmented urban systems, imagined on a timeline of 0-10 years.