To contribute to more sustainable, just and solidary-based futures, designers must be equipped with those relational capacities that are needed to collaborate and facilitate collaboration across a multiplicity of actors, from citizens to professionals, from third sector organisations to policymakers. As design education increasingly focuses on ecological and social sustainability, there is thus an urgent need to develop pedagogical tools and practices that foster these capacities. Starting from the assumption that the development of relational capacities requires continuous reflection in and on collaboration, in this article we introduce the Collaboration Chit-Chatter, a card deck which invites design students to critically question design collaborations focusing on key themes and phases of eco-social design processes. Building on the theoretical underpinnings discussed in a previous publication (Matos & Palmieri, forthcoming), in this paper we share and discuss empirical data from the development and testing of the tool with eco-social design students. In doing so, the article aims to provide concrete insights into detected possibilities and challenges to support future eco-social designers to cultivate those relational capacities that can support reflective design collaborations.
- Educating Reflective Eco-Social Designers: Tools for supporting reflection in and on collaboration
- Teresa Palmieri
- Reassessing the Social – Understanding Transformation. Proceedings of the Social Design Network Conference 2025, Vol.2, pp.268-279
- Unteidig A, Hero B, Pierri P
- 9783952542422
- Social Design Network Conference 2025 (Luzern, 19/09/2026–20/09/2026)
- 2
- Hochschule Luzern – Design Film Kunst (HSLU DFK)
- 12
- 978-3-95254-242-2
(UNIBZ)99574788
991007399949201241 - n.a.
- Faculty of Design and Art
- English
- Conference proceeding
- Palmieri T
- Editors/Supervisors: Unteidig A, Hero B, Pierri P