We design by abstracting real people into manageable constructs to make the design processes easier. But with just this one lens, we lose sight of the collective context - the relationships, interconnections and impacts that shape how people live.

Design for Collectives is a new podcast exploring what happens when we design in isolation, disconnected from the collective context where people actually exist and interact. Not to provide answers, but to open up conversations about what we might be missing and what might shift if we reframe design with collective contexts in mind.

Hosted by Professor Sonia Oliveira (Associate Dean and Professor in Architecture and Sustainability Design Innovation, University of Strathclyde) and Anna Chatzimichali (Associate Professor in Engineering Design, University of Bath), each episode features designers, researchers and practitioners wrestling with these questions in their own work, bringing their provocations, uncertainties and emerging thinking into the open.

You'll hear honest conversations with designers navigating collective complexity in real projects: How do you design when the “user” is actually multiple interconnected groups with competing needs? What happens when you try to account for relationships and collective dynamics, not just individual interactions. Where do our methods fall short and what are people experimenting with instead?

Episodes bring together perspectives from architecture, engineering, urban planning, service design and beyond, not to create a unified approach, but to understand how different fields are grappling with similar tensions.

Expect practical examples alongside unresolved questions, emerging thinking and reflections on what collective design might actually entail.

This is for anyone whose work touches collective life: Designers across any discipline (architecture, engineering, product, UX, service, systems), practitioners in healthcare, transport, energy, retail and public services, researchers, educators, policy makers, and anyone curious about how design shapes the way groups of people live, work and thrive together.

The conversations are international, accessible and assume familiarity with design practice without oversimplifying the challenges. This podcast is for people who want to think more carefully, not more simply, about collective design.

Sonia Oliveira, University of Strathclyde - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sonja-dragojlovic-oliveira/

Anna Chatzimichali, University of Bath - https://www.linkedin.com/in/annachatzimichali/

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