| 1. |
- Eronen, Minna, et al.
(författare)
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Reflecting on Ethics in Collaborative Design Practices
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Collaborative design is a complex practice in which designers and non-designers cometogether and do something. Navigating collaboration is tricky, and this paper tacklesquestions, reflections and opportunities in doing ethics in collaborative design. We arguethat the ethical designer behaviour is one led by virtue, reflectivity and conscious ‘checkins'.These traits set the stage for mutual learning and co-produced knowledge between allinvolved in a collaborative act. Through literature readings and reflections from a casestudy, we offer a prototypical tool to guide designers in doing ethics in collaborativesettings. The tool does not suggest a list of how-tos, but rather, opens ways of thinkingdeeply about ethics-in-action and how designers may approach situated ethicalentanglements.
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| 2. |
- Ramos Caceres, Cristina, et al.
(författare)
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Data-Center Farming: Exploring the Potential of Industrial Symbiosis in a Subarctic Region
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 14:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As our world becomes increasingly digitalized, data centers as operational bases for these technologies lead to a consequent increased release of excess heat into the surrounding environment. This paper studies the challenges and opportunities of industrial symbiosis between data centers’ excess heat and greenhouse farming, specifically utilizing the north of Sweden as a case study region. The region was selected in a bid to tackle the urgent urban issue of self-sufficiency in local food production. A synergetic approach towards engaging stakeholders from different sectors is presented through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to facilitate resilient data-center-enabled food production. The paper delivers on possible future solutions on implementing resource efficiency in subarctic regions.
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| 3. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
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Design thinking for the everyday aestheticisation of urban renewable energy
- 2022
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Ingår i: Design Studies. - : Elsevier. - 0142-694X .- 1872-6909. ; 79
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Renewable energy infrastructures are becoming increasingly present in our environments, inevitably shaping the urban experiences of the everyday person as they move through the city. The profound impact these infrastructures have on social worlds has yet to be explored, with contemporary renewable energy discourse primarily focussing on the techno-economic. We argue for the everyday aestheticisation of renewable energy infrastructures, and how design thinking might offer a way forward in co-creating future meaningful experiences with renewable energy. We offer a collaborative design thinking workshop on the speculative experimentation of energy futures as a case study. The findings provide multi-scalar insights on exploring urban energy futures with citizen-designers – with aesthetics and lived experiences as central.
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| 4. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-
(författare)
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Designing the Sun, Solar and Society: A Posthumanist Exploration of Solar Things
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Solar technology is predicted to increasingly permeate cities and landscapes alike, following the promotion and strategies of global anthropogenic political-economic forces championing clean energy. However, research remains scarce on solar’s meaningful entanglements with human and non-human worlds within situated environments. Positioned from the field of design research knowledge, in combination with new materialist sensibilities, I offer two introspective and embodied autoethnographical explorations on solar things – the Super Trees and the South Beach multi-use complex in Singapore. These two explorations shed light on solar’s relationality, in which, poetics of a phenomenon elucidate the interweaving of material and immaterial narratives of human and non-human lives, within a situated place.
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| 5. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-
(författare)
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Energetic : A mid-way thesis on democratic conversations and aesthetic makings for emerging energy futures.
- 2021
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- My interests have swayed and varied since arriving to this point in my academic career, here and now, at this mid-way seminar text. I have grown up in Singapore having mainly worked in the service industry, and then moved to studying sociology in Lund, working in fashion in Copenhagen, and then in urban design in Dubai and in Gothenburg. Rapidly and quickly dipping my feet into various industries and work experience before realising that they all had sparked one common response in me: a (and then I did not know it) designerly approach towards problem-solving. I always felt that I had to do things, to make my solutions. It began with visualising and mapping knowledge in different ways, to designing websites and modes of communication, to traditional and tangible craftings, and to growing my own food. To do, for me, was to speak. On a personal level, these different makings at different points in my life have slowly evolved to become my primary source of learning: to make for me, is to explore, learn, and be inspired by the unknown future, the intangible, the tacit. Not that I was always very good at it, and I refer to making here, but I am aware of the role that playful experimentation and integrative thinking in knowledge production has (haphazardly) played in my development.I am not alone in this journey and along with many wonderful creators, innovators and the design research community, Buchanan aptly explains that “[w]ithout integrative disciplines of understanding, communication, and action, there is little hope of sensibly extending knowledge beyond the library or laboratory in order to serve the purpose of enriching human life,” (Buchanan, 1992, p. 6). A little earlier than that, Donald Schön expresses this as a ‘reflective practicum’, where spontaneous experimentation comprises reflection-in-action and a way of learning-by-doing - often resulting in materials ‘talking back’ in surprising and interesting ways (Schön, 1983; Schön, 1987). Later, and as he bids us a final farewell, he recognises the capacity for such a design process to play a significant role in addressing major social and political challenges through operationalising creative ‘framing’; addressing conflicting values and preconceptions that commonly lead to conversational stalemates, in order to promote paradigm shifts (Schön & Rein, 1994).This is a thesis on making – the making of both conversations and things – towards clean energy futures. It is also a thesis on makings with people. Energetic, as the thesis is titled, infers an energetic change towards clean energy futures from the perspective of the individual, the community, and the society: inclusive of those who are energetic for change towards a cleaner energy future, and also those who do not yet know that they are too, energetic for change.The thesis is not an attempt towards a glorified solution to all complex world problems in the current renewable energy transition. Rather, it is a humble homage to what can be accomplished when we, together, explore unprecedented energy futures. Like Victor Papanek once said in Design for the Real World, “[i]f design is ecologically responsive, then it is also revolutionary,” (p. 252).
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| 6. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
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Energy Democracy in Practice: A Participatory Approach to the Community Governance of Renewables
- 2020
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Ingår i: PLEA 2020 - Planning Post Carbon Cities. - : University of A Coruña. ; , s. 718-723
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Energy democracy as an energy planning paradigm proposes that citizens play a major role within the governing of their local energy resources. Previous research indicates that local governments are in a key position to drive these collaborative and bottom-up approaches in community energy governance. The key challenge lies in mobilising abstract democratic ideals in a practical manner. Creating socio-material platforms for democratic participation within contemporary energy planning is a prominent research gap to be filled in light of the global energy transition towards post-carbon societies. This paper draws on the field of design-driven research and the framework of “democratic design experiments” to propose a possible line of departure on how energy democracy can be practiced at a local governmental scale. Using this framework, a pilot study was conducted in a neighbourhood in the north of Sweden to explore future potential solar photovoltaic panel landscapes in the area. The workshop revealed opportunities for creative and playful methods in producing situated imaginings of solar panel futures that is built upon meaningful local collaboration. On a systemic level, the paper discusses potential challenges in motivation and participation in the framework’s wider scope of implementation.
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| 7. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-, et al.
(författare)
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Participatory Utopian Sketching: A Methodological Framework for Collaborative Citizen (Re)Imagination of Urban Spatial Futures
- 2022
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Ingår i: Futures. - : Elsevier. - 0016-3287 .- 1873-6378. ; 139
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Explorations of emerging urban spatial futures increasingly depend on the empathetic interweaving of broad political ideals with grounded democratic involvement. The collaborative planning paradigm (CP) and participatory action research (PAR) have thus gained traction globally, since they centralise meaningful involvement of those with lived experiences of the local environment. Building upon this, we argue that ‘utopia’ can offer an alternative paradigm that enhances citizen engagement, by refocusing urban design and planning explorations away from a problem-based orientation to a values-based one. Through a four-stage collaborative framework: 1. Experiencing the Space, 2. Sketching of Utopias, 3. Sharing of Utopias, and 4. Collaborative Analysis, participatory utopian sketching offers the possibility for richer and wider citizen engagement in urban development processes. The novelty of the framework is its tenets of collaboration, citizen inclusivity, playful experimentation, and iterative reflective activity. Its flexibility also allows for multiple real-world applications in the making of urban spatial futures. We demonstrate the methodological framework of participatory utopian sketching using an empirical pilot study examining the spatial imagination of solar panel futures within a neighbourhood located in Luleå, the provincial capital of Northern Sweden. Thereafter, we provide elucidations on the framework’s opportunities and challenges in wider urban design and planning discourse.
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| 8. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-
(författare)
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Solar Manifestos and Manifestations: The Emergence of the Solar Designer
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Developments in solar energy technologies have been astounding – and with it, the emerging identification as a solar designer. What does it mean to be a solar designer? More importantly, how do solar designers centralise sustainable human experiences, with a renewables transition that often prioritises cost convenience and scale? Through a series of empirical explorations: a Miroboard workshop with local youths, a micro-phenomenological perspective on 10 in-depth interviews with solar experts, and an introspective prototyping moment during the world’s first Solar Biennale, I elucidate what it means to design for solar – and it is far from simple. Tensions and conflicts present in value juxtapositions, amassed by the plurality of roles, motivations, responsibilities, knowledges and powers included within the renewables transition, challenges the creation of a rudimentary and cohesive role of the solar designer – reflecting a likewise splintered global renewables transition. Ironically, designing for solar and renewables might often be more about peripheral relations and topics than it is about the technology itself – as succinctly expressed by an interviewee about solar gatherings: “Sometimes, we talk about solar, but mostly not.” Through this paper, I thus offer a segue into broader discussions on what it means to design sustainably by deliberating the current and potential role of a solar designer.
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| 9. |
- Törnroth, Suzanna, 1992-
(författare)
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Solarscape: The power of humanity in designing solar imaginaries, entangled worlds, and critical sustainable futures
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Solarscape is a thesis on the phenomenology of the Solar – an experiential, relational, and critical approach to how humans and humanity world-with solar energy in its different forms and manifestations. Using solar panels as a central artefact of concern, I explore surrounding human and non-human relationships through situated individual and collaborative design practices: workshops, interviews, (auto)ethnography, to name a few. I offer six publications consisting of several qualitative design studies, compounding knowledge that deliberates on the thesis's main research question: How might the human experience play a role in the designing of situated solar futures? The thesis, composed through the poetics of knowledge production, culminates in a critical discussion of sustainable futures, the role of a solar designer, and ultimately, what it means to be human in the era of the Solar.
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