CTS B | Week 11 Compulsory Question 1
Our groupâs manifestoââDesign as inquiry, imagination as intention,â âReflection transforms experience into understanding,â and âExamining artistic traditions and lineages reveals how design communicates across time and cultureââis deeply thoughtful, but I believe it can be strengthened. I would reframe it as: design is inquiry; imagination is intention; reflection is the transformation of experience into insight and action; and traditions and material lineages are actively engaged and reinterpreted so that design communicates across time, culture, and context. This change from passive âexaminingâ to active âengaging and reframingâ underlines that as designers we donât just look at historyâwe intervene in it, question it, and reshape it through material, process, and cultural sensitivity.
In my Studio project for Archifest (theme: Interplay: Light and Reflection), I developed posters, a mobile website, brochures, and mockups. I approached design as inquiryâexperimenting with layout variations, testing navigation flows on the mobile site, and prototyping brochure folds. Reflection was never an afterthought; each round of feedback prompted deliberate revisions in both visual structure and interaction design.
In my Materiality module, I am creating a zine rooted in my personal lineage and cross-cultural journey. I donât just borrow traditionâI reinterpret it: the sequence, paper texture, form, and typography all bear meaning. In my Design Skills module, where Iâm crafting a video, imagination-as-intention becomes concrete: each cut, shot, and beat is a considered argumentânot just style.
Beyond practice, my Critical Thinking SkillsâŻB class has been crucial. It taught meta-reflectionâexamining how I think, why I pick certain materials or formsâand forced me to give voice to my design reasoning, rather than relying purely on instinct. It also exposed me to questioning whose perspectives are embedded in tradition: whose lineage am I engaging with? What cultural assumptions lie beneath my design? The cross-disciplinary lens of CTSâŻBâdrawing from ethics, history, philosophy, and cultural studiesâdirectly undergirds my studio, material, and skills work.
Similarly, Li, Ho, and Yangâs designâthinking research on Chinese handicrafts introduces a sustainable design approach grounded in five modes of thinkingâwith the body, mind, heart, hands, and soulâand proposes the evaluation of prototypes with indicators that reflect cultural, experiential, and interactive value. Their work shows how design thinking can revitalize material traditions rather than preserve them statically.
Finally, the book Analysing Design Thinking (Christensen, Ball & Halskov) offers a theoretical grounding: it explores how designers think and co-create across cultures, emphasizing metacognition, negotiation, and crossâcultural understanding.
When I combine all these toolsâstudio practice, material exploration, video production, and critical thinkingâI see a clear chain: inquiry â imagination â reflection â materialization â communication. This sequence has become the backbone of my design philosophy, and itâs precisely why Iâd revise our manifesto to underline engagement, transformation, and dialogueânot passive observation.
Huang, KoâHsun, and YiâShin Deng. âSocial Interaction Design in Cultural Context: A Case Study of a Traditional Social Activity.â International Journal of Design, vol.âŻ2, no.âŻ2, 2008.
Li,âŻWenâTao, MingâChyuanâŻHo, andâŻChunâŻYang. âA Design ThinkingâBased Study of the Prospect of the Sustainable Development of Traditional Handicrafts.â Sustainability, vol.âŻ11, no.âŻ18, 2019, articleâŻ4823. doi:10.3390/su11184823.
Dam, RikkeâŻFriis, and TeoâŻYu Siang. âWhat Is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?ââŻInteraction Design Foundation, 2018, interactionâdesign.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular.
Christensen, Bo, Linden J. Ball, and Kim Halskov, editors. Analysing Design Thinking: Studies of CrossâCultural CoâCreation. Routledge, 2017.