Empowering change for future-making: developing agency by framing wicked problems through design

As the world and its challenges are becoming more complex, students and practitioners alike need to develop a more nuanced understanding of how to navigate problems today for envisioning desirable futures. Design’s inherent focus on future-making and dealing with ill-defined problems has been identified as a potential way forward. Yet, there is a paucity of studies looking at what elements support (or hinder) students developing agency when it comes to framing and identifying problems. By taking the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as an example of ill-defined problems, we studied a multidisciplinary student body in a higher education institution attending a three-week intensive course focusing on how design can serve as a catalyst for social and environmental change. Our findings suggest future-oriented problem framing is dependent on the following aspects: combining theory and practice, engaging with the world and its complexities, reciprocal trust in design teams, self-reflection, changing perspectives, and emotional investment. Based on the findings, a model is crafted to illustrate how agency for future-making can emerge and be developed by engaging with real-life problems through design. Implications for research and practice point towards a more balanced relationship between skill development and ways of engaging with the surrounding world