Radical Design emerged in the 1960s in Prato’s neighbouring city of Florence. Advocating for a break from tradition and encouraging designers to imagine and propose new ways of living informed by critical reflection. This movement coincided with a period of great optimism in science, technology, and manufacturing, and Radical Designers drew on these exciting interdisciplinary intersections and emerging knowledge. However, while Radical Design embraced technological solutions, such approaches are often viewed more critically today. Yet, at the same time, designers are more closely integrated into research and interdisciplinary contexts.
Radical Designers, such as Italian architects Superstudio often operated between critique and irony, calling this “demonstration per absurdum.” This duality between the serious and playful perfectly captures the potential of design as a creative yet serious, tool for research and impact. Manifestos, in many ways, stand in opposition to the traditional forms of academic writing, avoiding citation, and opting for passion over objectivity, they invite the author – and reader – to consider first and foremost what they want to change about the world.
“Part of the attraction of the manifesto is that it remains a surprisingly complex and often paradoxical genre: flippant and sincere, prickly and smooth, logical and absurd, material and immaterial, shallow and profound” (Hanna, “Manifestos”).
We invite you to consider this draft manifesto in this spirit of the duality of the serious and the playful. The draft manifesto is inspired by ongoing research conversations with global practice-based design researchers, through this we explore the tensions experienced by design practitioner researchers working in research contexts.
This manifesto is a call to arms for all designers and researchers to embrace the bold future of design research. We declare that the path forward is one of unbridled experimentation, fierce collaboration, and relentless creation. We, the makers, thinkers, and doers, rise from the dust of outdated epistemologies to forge new worlds with our hands, minds, and visions! Let the old ways fall, and let the future of design rise with unstoppable force!
Design is the vanguard of inquiry!
We believe in the primacy of action, in the fury of creation as the truest form of inquiry. Theories are forged in the fire of doing, and knowledge is the product of our relentless push into the unknown. We embrace methods we don’t understand yet because in the chaos of experimentation, new worlds of thought are born! We will carve meaning from the raw chaos of disciplines, translating their cold data and rigid formulas into living, breathing systems that pulsate with purpose. To the gatekeepers of disciplinary silos, we say: your borders are illusions—our tools will pierce them!
We reject the weak division between theory and practice!
The greatness of design is its oscillation between thought and action! We leap between them, feeding our intellectual hunger with the energy of practice. Our theory is alive, pulsing and dynamic, fueled by the momentum of our hands. The hand that moulds clay, weaves textiles, or sketches a speculative artefact is an insurgent against abstraction! We declare making as not a means to an end but an act of knowing, caring, and reimagining the world. We will no longer separate brain from hand or heart from material—our objects shall speak truths, and our prototypes shall defy logic and whisper of futures yet to come.
Uncertainty is our battle cry! Failure is our revolution!
We revel in the discomfort of the unknown! We dive into uncertainty with ferocious curiosity, knowing that failure sharpens our claws and propels us forward. It is not the result that matters, but the collisions we provoke, the tensions we expose!
Design is the conqueror of complexity!
We smash through the walls of disciplinary silos, bringing design into the chaotic heart of complex systems. We are architects of multi-stakeholder futures, where design leads the charge, reshaping technology, and society itself. True interdisciplinarity is not a polite meeting — it is a storm of competing ideas and epistemologies! We welcome the noise of clashing paradigms, the creative friction between designer and scientist, anthropologist and artist! Through this tension, our projects will spark like wildfire — setting alight stale assumptions and forging radical new alliances!
We embrace the reflexive power of design, turning our eyes inward to harness the knowledge that emerges from our own practice. Reflection is our forge, where we transform action into irrefutable truth.
We reject the dead conventions of academic dissemination!
We bring knowledge to the masses through the spectacle of design! Exhibitions, performances, and public engagements are our stages. We reject dusty journals and opaque conferences. The paper and the peer-reviewed journal cannot contain the electric, wild spirit of making! Our research will not sit behind gated institutions—it will inhabit exhibitions, streets, and virtual realms where all can see, feel, and challenge it. Design explodes into the world, demanding to be seen, felt, and understood! The world will know our work not by its citations but by its echoes!
Creative freedom IS academic rigour!
There is no separation between creative abandon and scholarly depth. We blaze new trails, inventing methods that push boundaries.The academic world must rise to meet our insatiable creativity, or be left behind in the ashes of their outdated structures!
Design shatters complexity, it does not fear it!
We laugh in the face of intricate systems and grand challenges! Our work slices through the tangled webs of bureaucracy and power, using design to tame complexity and turn chaos into form.
Design is Local and Global
The colonial lie of the universal "method" is dead. We insist on the primacy of local epistemologies! Power flows through every tool, material, and line drawn on a screen. The bamboo, the textile, the language of community ritual—these are the seeds of a new design future! We will embrace difference, weaving global connections without erasing context.
Design research IS legitimate!
We declare that our knowledge, born from making and experimentation, is the future of academia. We will no longer wait for validation! Our speculative designs, our prototypes, our exhibitions are real and potent knowledge.
We are the architects of tomorrow!
Our work is driven by vision and provocation. We are the warriors of the future, tearing down the boundaries of the present with speculative inquiry and bold experimentation. We will not be content to map what "is"—we will unleash speculative visions of what could be! In 10, 20, 100 years, let them say we were the dreamers who built prototypes of a wilder, better world! We will design new futures that unsettle, provoke, and inspire action. Let the critics drown in their doubt—we will electrify the future with possibility! The future belongs to those who design it!
We, the insurgent practitioners of design research, refuse to crawl at the feet of outdated methodologies. Long live radical practice! Long live design research!
We bring knowledge to the masses through the spectacle of design! Exhibitions, performances, and public engagements are our stages. We reject dusty journals and opaque conferences. The paper and the peer-reviewed journal cannot contain the electric, wild spirit of making! Our research will not sit behind gated institutions—it will inhabit exhibitions, streets, and virtual realms where all can see, feel, and challenge it. Design explodes into the world, demanding to be seen, felt, and understood! The world will know our work not by its citations but by its echoes!
Creative freedom IS academic rigour!
There is no separation between creative abandon and scholarly depth. We blaze new trails, inventing methods that push boundaries.
Design shatters complexity, it does not fear it!
We laugh in the face of intricate systems and grand challenges! Our work slices through the tangled webs of bureaucracy and power, using design to tame complexity and turn chaos into form.
Design is Local and Global
The colonial lie of the universal "method" is dead. We insist on the primacy of local epistemologies! Power flows through every tool, material, and line drawn on a screen. The bamboo, the textile, the language of community ritual—these are the seeds of a new design future! We will embrace difference, weaving global connections without erasing context.
Design research IS legitimate!
We declare that our knowledge, born from making and experimentation, is the future of academia. We will no longer wait for validation! Our speculative designs, our prototypes, our exhibitions are real and potent knowledge.
We are the architects of tomorrow!
Our work is driven by vision and provocation. We are the warriors of the future, tearing down the boundaries of the present with speculative inquiry and bold experimentation. We will not be content to map what "is"—we will unleash speculative visions of what could be! In 10, 20, 100 years, let them say we were the dreamers who built prototypes of a wilder, better world! We will design new futures that unsettle, provoke, and inspire action. Let the critics drown in their doubt—we will electrify the future with possibility! The future belongs to those who design it!
We, the insurgent practitioners of design research, refuse to crawl at the feet of outdated methodologies. Long live radical practice! Long live design research!
Manifesto of Radical Design Research: Toward a Research Future Unbound by Convention
A work-in-progress draft manifesto inviting comment on this emerging conversation.
Symposium Schedule
Conversation and Design Practice.
About Prato
Accomidation, Getting There, and other Important Information.
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We acknowledge the people of the Kulin Nations, on whose unseeded land the majority of this research takes place. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.
This research is funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council. Dr. Rowan Page is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) Fellowship (DE240100161).